The MailOnline’s report came as an opinion poll published by UK polling company YouGov revealed 63 percent of Britons are opposed to Blair being knighted. However, this order was defied and the memo was locked in a safe at the UK’s Ministry of Defence instead.īlair and Powell have previously dismissed these allegations – which first emerged in 2015 – as false. Hoon said his secretary was told “in no uncertain terms” by Jonathan Powell, Blair’s then-chief of staff, that the note was to be destroyed after it had been read, the Daily Mail reported, citing passages from Hoon’s recently published memoir, See How They Run. The site said a former aide of his had in 2003 ordered then-Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to “burn” a memo written by then-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith that said the invasion of Iraq could be illegal.Īt the time, the US and UK had failed to secure a specific UN resolution giving them international backing for the incursion. Late on Tuesday, as the campaign to remove Blair’s knighthood was gathering pace, the UK’s MailOnline news website published resurfaced allegations against Blair. Los Angeles voters approved a 1.2B bond initiative to address the housing crisis and give apartments to the homeless. ‘Burn after reading’ Iraq war memo allegation To justify the invasion, Blair and then-US President George Bush had cast Hussein as a global threat who possessed weapons of mass destruction as Washington, in particular, focused on neutralising supposed threats in the wake of the Septemattacks.īut no such weapons were ever found. The invasion, which resulted in former President Saddam Hussein’s removal from power and subsequent execution, ushered in years of conflict that saw hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed as the country descended into chaos. Garcia, who, when asked if he would still attempt an arrest on the former prime minister, replied: “One-hundred, percent I would do it again.The ex-Labour Party leader, who served as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, has faced constant criticism in recent decades over his involvement in the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“I think the good things Tony Blair did for this country shouldn’t detract from the crimes that he committed and how we view them,” added Mr. lair also sent thousands of troops to fight in the U.S.-led coalition war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, a conflict in which over 200,000. Garcia, a D.J., who is unimpressed by arguments that Iraq should not detract from Mr. “I think it is a bit of a disgrace that the queen is looking to knight him,” said Mr. Blair was dining, attempted a citizens’ arrest on the former prime minister, alleging war crimes. Among the signatories of the petition is Twiggy Garcia, who, while working part-time in a restaurant in 2014 where Mr. Blair, and for some of his critics, it probably never will. That time has does not yet seem to have arrived for Mr. Professor Fielding said that, historically, it is not uncommon for successful prime ministers to suffer big drops in popularity after relinquishing power, and it has often been decades before their records are reassessed more evenhandedly.
Bush in a war in Iraq that became steadily more unpopular in Britain. That sentiment reflects the extent to which the legacy of the opposition Labour Party’s most electorally successful recent leader has been defined by his staunch support for the United States and President George W. Petition to Rescind Tony Blairs Knighthood Gets Hundreds of Thousands of Signatures/Nearly 15 years after he left office, prime ministers support for Iraq. Blair, 68, was “personally responsible” for causing the deaths of countless civilians and service members in “various conflicts,” adding that “he should be held accountable for war crimes.” The petition, which has no legal force, says Mr. Instead, more than 600,000 people have signed an online petition asking that the honor be rescinded, illustrating how one of Britain’s most successful politicians remains a divisive figure, never forgiven by his critics for taking the country to war in Iraq. LONDON - By tradition, former British prime ministers are honored by Queen Elizabeth some years after leaving 10 Downing Street, so the elevation of Tony Blair to a knighthood on New Year’s Day could have been a routine event.
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