Mr Blair arrived in Washington today and went immediately to Congress to give a State-of-the-Union like address. Blair came into Congress to a standing ovation from lawmakers, top seniors of the Bush administration, and American military brass, according to the AP.
Mr Blair’s address was a much needed boost of "we-told-you-so" for the Bush team, who is teetering on self-destruction because of Yellowcake-Gate, as Ariana Huffington penned it. Likewise, the very warm reception in the American Congress could not but help his own image in Britain.
With the GOP voting against the Dems proposal today "to create an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the administration's use of secret intelligence to justify war with Iraq," as reported by Knight-Ridder News Service, Mr Blair’s visit seemed orchestrated to be that right-hook, knock-out punch that would put the opposition to rest for good. Time will tell.
Mr Blair told Congress that he believes "with every fiber of instinct and conviction" that the war with Iraq was justified. "We promised Iraq democratic government. We will deliver it," he said.
Isn’t it interesting that the spin just doesn’t seem to stop? There was no way the American nor British public would support a war to simply get rid of Saddam in order to establish a democratic government. They knew an immediate threat needed to be devised; this is where the cooking of intelligence to fit their needs came into play.
One sequence of comments by Mr Blair are noteworthy. He called upon America to discontinue our grudges against our European allies. "They are our allies. And yours. So don't give up on Europe," he said.
Mr Blair also urged us to work in coalitions.
Blair is right. He and Bush might not be in such a quagmire if Bush and his administrators would have been less exclusionary, acted less condescendingly, and been more willing to work with the Security Council. But we know that this goes against the fundamental ideology behind this White House.
In all, Mr Blair may have come to Washington to help distract the negative media elsewhere, away from Bush and Yellowcake-Gate, but time will tell if this mission was a fruitful one. Blair and Bush have made their bed; they will have to sleep in it until they can sneak out of it without getting caught.
Earlier today, the GOP voted down the proposal for an independent commission on grounds that the Dems were "playing politics." They also argued the fact that the House of Representatives and the Senate intelligence committees are currently conducting their own inquiries."
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was penned as saying: "I'm tired of making a mountain out of a mole hill; [t]his is not Watergate. It's not even truthgate. . . . This is an attempt to smear the president of the United States."
First, I wonder if he would be saying this if he had lost a son or daughter; grandson or granddaughter in this war and occupation. If Bush knowingly deceived us into war, then he is responsible for smearing the blood of our soldiers over the landscapes of Iraq. Stevens should be ashamed to make such a heartless statement. This issue is worth much more than just how rosy the image of the President is. Besides the deaths of our soldiers, (who do not have a voice in the matter of going to war), and of Iraqi civilians, consider the national debt; consider that the war in Iraq is costing the American public $4 billion US dollars each month.
I received feedback from my friend, Shawn Hammond, a freelance writer, who had the following thoughts as soon as he read Ted Steven's quote from the Salt Lake City Tribune:
Watergate was bad--but no one died as a result! Untold thousands of people have died as a result of a war that was partially justified by a president whose closest 'smoking-gun' argument was this Niger uranium hoax.
Similarly, even though I'm not exactly a Clinton lover... I was thinking, "You know, it was really stupid of Clinton to commit perjury and be so promiscuously wreckless--but at least Lewinsky, the cigars, and the other objects of Clinton's horniness didn't lead to thousands of innocent people dying and our country's international reputation being taken to its lowest point in memory."
Second, I wonder if Stevens would be voting for the proposal if Gore was the president and he was pulling the same shenanigans and tommyrot. You betcha he would.
