A costly cakewalk

We had to defeat al-Qaeda, which at the time was not present in Iraq, “over there before they came over here”.

Blair made promises of a “cakewalk war” that would last only a few weeks, costing $70 billion, to be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues, while George W Bush’s economic adviser was fired for saying that the war would cost $200bn.

The true cost of the war was calculated by economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes, who showed that it cost US and UK taxpayers $3 trillion. Blair promised that he and Bush would put Iraq on its feet as a democracy in which everyone would be safe and women would have rights.

What is the situation today? Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has just been overrun by  al-Qaeda forces. These are the  forces that Blair claimed a number of times to have completely  defeated.

These “defeated” forces now control Iraq’s second largest city and a number of provinces.

The person the US/UK left in charge of Iraq is on his knees begging Washington for military help and air support against the Jihadist forces that the incompetent Blair regime unleashed in the Muslim world.

What Britain has done in Iraq and Libya, and is trying to do in Syria, is to destroy governments that kept Jihadists under control.

The neoconservative conquest of the Middle East championed by Blair is becoming an al-Qaeda conquest.

This is Blair’s accomplishment in the Middle East.

Alan Hinnrichs

Gillespie Terrace

Dundee