Four words that will haunt Blair

[struggle4progress]

“A crime of aggression”, such was the devastating assessment of the Iraq war by the former deputy legal adviser to the foreign office, Elizabeth Wilmshurst. It came from her resignation letter, censored sections of which were finally published last week. That’s how she believed an invasion, without a second UN resolution, would appear to the international community. And, she might have added, to posterity.
Those four words are likely to resonate long after people like Andrew Gilligan and Alastair Campbell are forgotten. There was much talk last week of a “smoking gun” after it emerged that the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, had changed his mind twice about the legality of the Iraq invasion. But the real smoking gun was always Wilmshurst, whose resignation on the eve of conflict blew a gaping hole in the government’s credibility.

Wilmshurst sounds like a character straight out of a John Le Carré story– a fastidious, conservative career civil servant, 30 years in post, who finds she can no longer support her country, right or wrong, and sacrifices a job she loves on the alter of integrity. However, she doesn’t sell her career lightly.

Wilmshurst carefully protected her dignity and relative anonymity after she fell on her sword. She didn’t prostitute herself to the media, write instant books or start appearing on anti-war platforms. Her silence made her all the more deadly. Now she works for the internationally renowned think tank Chatham House – whose famous rules of confidentiality govern what is said off the record among civil servants and ministers in Whitehall. <snip>

http://www.sundayherald.com/48642

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Blair can thank his lucky stars for two things

1. The Tories are no longer a viable opposition party.
2. The Liberal Democrats are not yet a viable opposition party.

[DemoTex]

2. Poll at bottom ..

Did Tony Blair lead Britain into an illegal war?

Yes 84%
No 16%

http://www.sundayherald.com/48642