(CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair provoked a storm Saturday after apparently admitting that the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain was "a disaster."
Blair gave the surprise assessment of his decision to go to war in an interview with David Frost on Al-Jazeera's new English-language channel.
British opposition MPs seized on the comment as evidence that Blair has finally accepted that his strategy in the Middle Eastern state had failed.
British newspapers carried the story on their front pages Saturday
I've been posting to this community for a couple years now and I think I've got enough standing here to ask you a favor - or at least to consider this...
I want to encourage you to participate in Impeach Day on September 1. Democrats.com, Progressive Democrats of America and After Downing Street (among other groups) are issuing a Call To Action for major websites and blogs, starting on September 1 and for 24 hours, to rewrite their front page with a single word: Impeach. We want to put this important constitutional protection back into the public lexicon and get our leaders talking about it again. For more details on this initiative, please visit http://impeachnet.net. This linked site will give you an idea as to which sites are already signed on to this effort. I think our community - your site will be in good company that day.
John Bonifaz is running for Secretary of State in Mass. He needs Seed money for his campaign.
Founder of the National Voting Rights Institute.
Co-founded the website "After Downing Street"
Served as lead counsel in a suit against the president for violating the war powers act.
Author of "warrior-king" which argues for impeachment of George Bush.
He is trying to raise $25,000 by August 23rd. I think we can help him meet his goal. Most of us can afford a 10 or 20 [a decent meal out - skipped once]which doesn't sound like much - but it can add up with our #s!
This man has been fighting our fight since before most of us knew there was something we should be fighting against/for/about etc. A true grass roots hero. Now is the time for us to support him with the resources at our disposal.
There was an excellent rally down at the White House today. It was a combination of the Spiritual Progressives Conference and the DontAttackIran coalition (from AfterDowningStreet). Cindy Sheehan and Ray McGovern were there, as well as leaders from a wide variety of faiths. There was singing, dancing, shouting, speeches, prayers, rain, sunshine, and a whole lot of peace. After the gathering, a petition with over 40,000 signatures asking Bush not to attack Iran was delivered to the White House, and then we marched from the White House to Donald Rumsfeld's house, chanting and singing. Cindy was radiant as usual, and the whole scene was really nice.
Tony Blair, following disappointing local elections, decided to move some people around in his Cabinet, CNN reports.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who was recently forced to apologize for a scandal over the deportation of foreign prisoners was to be replaced by Defense Minister John Reid, a government statement said.
Blair removed Jack Straw as foreign secretary, replacing him with Environment Minister Margaret Beckett -- the first woman in the role.
It was a year ago that the Sunday Times of London published the Downing Street Memos and to this day their significance has not been featured in our Press. In fact they have gone out of their way to pretend there is no significance to them.
They've offered "we already knew that" though they didn't tell the public, or that "fixing the facts around the policy" meant something else in the British idiom, etc. etc.
With the recent revelations about the January 31, 2003 meeting between Bush and Blair, one can't help but puzzle over the national media's yawning response to the charge that Bush plotted to provoke Iraq into a war he insists he never wanted. I suspect that, like the earlier Downing Street Memos , the press views this memo as old news and therefore not worth their time. After all, didn't Mickey Herskowitz, the veteran reporter from Houston, say that Bush privately admitted to him in 1999 that he wanted to take out Saddam Hussein? Didn't former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill allege that Bush openly talked about the necessity of forcing regime change in Iraq just ten days after his 2001 inauguration? And didn't former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke insist that Bush and Rumsfeld were intent on finding a link between Iraq and 9/11 the day after the attacks? Besides, it's not like Americans actually believe anything this administration says, so why should the press chase a dead story about some wacky thought Bush had to disguise a plane and set a trap for Saddam? Because it's a huge story nobody's pieced together.
A highly efficient former Downing Street worker has died of kidney failure eight years after being forced into retirement without a pension in what is believed to be a vendetta by a member the Blair family. Reports are that Cherie Booth, a highly paid human rights lawyer and part-time judge, AKA Mrs Blair, demanded that he be sacked and banished from Downing Steet. In an otherwise exemplary career, he had briefly gone missing a few years earlier but returned to active duty after being found unidentified in a nearby hospital. His death last week was officially announced by a Downing Street spokesman in an obvious attempt to imply that there is regret among the Prime Minister's family at his passing.
With the recent scandals over a minister and her husband's huge mortgages allegedly paid by a "gift" from Berlusconi and concealed multi-million pound loans to the Labour Party from people later nominated for peerages, one has to wonder whether this reminder of an early disgraceful episode in Blair's tenure of Downing Street will be the final nail in the coffin of his premiership.
Having decided on going to war regardless of law, but lacking a saleable justification, George Bush suggested to UK PM Tony Blair in a January 31, 2003 meeting that the U.S. paint its spy planes with U.N. colors and logos, and fly over Iraq, with the hope of provoking Saddam Hussein to retaliate and thereby provide the missing justification for going to war against Iraq.
In minutes taken at the January 31, 2003 meeting between Bush and Blair, the two agreed that their earlier attempts to justify war by proving Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were for naught.
Says Philippe Sands, an international lawyer and professor of law at University College London (PHOTO: official University image), the minutes -- which Sands obtained from a participant who cannot be named -- "confirms absence of evidence of WMDs in Iraq" and confirms that the start date for war had been set regardless of the United Nations or any other international processes.
Bush, notes Sands, also says in the meeting that he has "penciled in" a start date of March 10.
Think Progress is now pointing to the obvious. Yet another British memo is out in both the Independent and the Guardian. Both papers are noting that BushCo was determined to invade Iraq no matter what and two months before he did so. The reputable British press is reporting this information. Not one U.S. paper or television outlet has covered this story.
While most of Congress has kept their heads in the sand.....John Conyers DID SOMETHING! In fact he did a helluva lot. His three most important contributions to our democracy are outlined in this article.
If you agree with this choice... let him know! There's a contact link on the Congressman's home page: http://johnconyers.com
TvNewsLIES 2005 Person of the Year
Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists: Bill Maher
He is not a boisterous man at all. On the contrary, he's soft spoken, rather thoughtful, and quietly direct. Chances are, if you didn't know who he was, you'd never in a million years have him pegged for a politician. Chances are even greater that you'd never guess that John Conyers was as fierce a fighter for his nation as they come.
I went down to DC from NYC for the day on June 16 to stand with John Conyers as he delivered a half-million signatures to the White House demanding answers about the Downing Street memos. I wanted to go to the hearings he was holding earlier that day, but with the medium-sized broom closet the Republicans were generous enough to provide for Rep. Conyers few from the public could attend. So I went to DNC HQ near the Capitol to watch the proceedings there on C-SPAN3. It was not encouraging.
I mentioned on another comment about how haunting I thought this AP photo of Bush was that was embedded in the CNN story about how the White House is going to fight back.
He certainly does not look like a man who is getting ready to fight back, he looks like a man who realizes that the beatings have just begun.
The White House has got to be in a panic right now. Scooter and Karl's excellent adventure is nothing compared to what they are facing in the very near future.
The Downing Street Minutes - official British Documents - offer key insights into what really went on behind the scenes before the war. Support our efforts to find out more! All profits - about $2 or less per item - funds ongoing activism to uncover the truth about Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle and the rest - how they got us into this war. Help us demand the truth using these shirts, buttons, stickers, and more!
