Bush asked Blair to support invasion on 20/11

[diamond geezer]

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

link (http://www.myantiwar.org/view/16015.html)

[toontra]

This story has the ring of truth. Everyone has been wondering why Blair was so willing to blindly support the US; a rash promise made in the emotional aftermath of 9/11 during a one-to-one meeting between Bush & Blair sounds about right, a promise which Blair shouldn't have made in the first place and didn't have the courage to retract later when faced with conflicting evidence and public & political opposition.

If this bears out, it will show Blair to have made a catastrophically inept political judgment for which he should pay with his job, and which will go down in the history books as how not to conduct foreign policy.