Iraq inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said he was “dismayed” to see Tony Blair disappear in a nebulosity of hypotheticals. The former Prime Minister, defending his war as “immoral, yes, you know, but not illegal”, was giving evidence in front of bereaved families.
Bliar said “it would have been better if headlines about the 45-minute claim had been corrected”, using the passive in a conditional sentence to suggest it was not his own job to inform the public of the truth. “After all, you know, if I had been a newspaper editor and not the Prime Minister, you know,” he told incredulous inquiry members.
With hindsight, he said, he would have made it clearer the claim referred to battlefield munitions, not missiles, and would have preferred to publish the intelligence assessments by themselves. Though the grammar he used is often accompanied by expressions of regret, none were forthcoming from the blood-splattered Catholic convert.
Asked to clarify whether he would have supported the invasion of Iraq if he had thought Saddam did not possess WMD, he explained to the inquiry, “you know, you would not describe the nature of the threat in the same way if you knew then what you knew now, you know. You know, knowing now what we know, you know, means you would, you know, know something you didn´t know when you thought you knew what you knew, you know.”
Donald Rumsfeld was unavailable for comment.
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