Letters: Tony Blair's Chilcot display a useful reminder

Published on 23/01/2011 18:18

Tony Blair's faltering performance at the Chilcot inquiry, reinforced by Lord Goldsmith's revelation that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal without a fresh UN mandate, demonstrates that Labour's tapestry of deceit is falling apart (your report, 22 January).

The complete lack of any credible legal basis for the disastrous Iraq war was well understood at the time, yet Labour parliamentarians, aided and abetted by the Tories, blindly followed Tony Blair into backing an illegal and immoral war which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Labour leader Ed Miliband came out against the war more than seven years after it started, yet said nothing at the time or in those long years after. And Iain Gray, along with his Labour colleagues, voted in support of war in Iraq in the Scottish Parliament debate on 13 March, 2003, a vote which will long shame the Labour Party in Scotland.

Those who supported the Iraq war can be in no doubt about their own culpability in what was the UK's biggest foreign policy blunder of modern times.

No-one who backed it is fit to hold public office, and as Scotland's voters head to the ballot box in May's election it is well worth them remembering the duplicity that saw blood spilt in an illegal conflict which has had such disastrous repercussions.

Alex Orr

SNP list candidate

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh

When those who criticise and castigate Tony Blair for his part in the Iraq war can tell us, with a scintilla of credibility, what they would have done about the mass-murdering despot Saddam Hussein, then I will listen to what they say.

As he did with the Butler and Hutton inquiries, Tony Blair sailed through his latest grilling with Chilcot. When will it be accepted - as history will surely accept - that Blair acted for the best reasons; as Hitler had to be confronted, so did Saddam Hussein.

Those brave men who died achieving the removal of Saddam and his butchering regime did a noble service for humanity.

Even with a force of 40,000 in the region, Britain was always a bit player in Iraq and to blame Blair for the post-war sectarian bloodbath in a country controlled in almost every respect by the Americans is a travesty.

Three inquiries, no smoking gun, no conspiracies: the usual suspects must be wondering what they can do next to assuage their prejudices.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

I watched Tony Blair giving the Iraq inquiry a simply stunning performance second only to the masterful acting skills of Robert De Niro in body and hand language, and found myself almost believing what he was saying.

Almost.

Dennis Grattan

Mugiemoss Road

Bucksburn, Aberdeen