This week, Tony Blair has been widely accused of giving “Blood Money” to the Royal British Legion to clear his conscience over the Iraq war.
Blair, who has never apologised for the Iraq war, has donated his £4.6m advance plus future royalties for his memoirs to the Royal British Legion to help injured service personnel.
I can’t help but wonder if his memory of events will be different from those of the late Robin Cook MP, the then Foreign Secretary, who was the only minister with enough of a conscience to resign over the invasion.
Let me help you with this, Mr Cook said:
“This June (2003) the local elections delivered what John Prescott characterised as a kicking. A succession of ministers were refreshingly open that Iraq had been a major factor in the electoral drubbing. A number of departed councillors were equally blunt in blaming the loss of their activists and their voters on a war for which they had no responsibility and which many of them had opposed. This is a far cry from the fabled Baghdad Bounce which was predicted last year, when Downing Street still expected military victory in Iraq to bring in a harvest of votes from an admiring nation”¹
Having read this, can there be any question that the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war was anything other than a stunt to enhance Blair’s popularity with the British public and the American political elite?
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¹ “The point of departure”, Robin Cook, published by Simon & Schuster.
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