Posted on 04/17/2004 5:47:16 AM PDT by ejdrapes
Revelations about run-up to war blight bid to present united front Tony Blair rejected George Bush's offer of keeping British troops out of Iraq, it emerged yesterday, as the two leaders mounted a united front on the year-long campaign. The US president welcomed his closest ally to the White House on a day when an impressively sourced book by the Watergate journalist Bob Woodward laid bare damaging revelations of their conduct in the run-up to the war. In the book, Plan of Attack, Mr Woodward writes that Mr Bush offered Mr Blair the option of keeping British troops out of the war because he was so concerned that the government might fall. Mr Blair rejected the offer. The book, to be serialised in the Washington Post today, also says that Mr Bush asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for the invasion of Iraq as early as November 2001, keeping it a secret from the CIA and his national security staff. The disclosures are provocative. Mr Blair will be asked to justify a decision to go to war when he had a chance to keep British troops out of harm's way with no political sanction. For Mr Bush, who has suffered a steady erosion in his approval ratings, it becomes even more urgent to turn the page on Iraq before it begins to hurt him in the elections in November. An opinion poll released yesterday by the National Annenberg Election Survey found that 56% of Americans now believe the president has no clear plan for resolving the situation in Iraq. The poll results came as the Arabic television station Al Jazeera last night broadcast a tape that appeared to show a US soldier being held by gunmen after being captured in an attack on a convoy last week. The man identified himself as Keith Matthew Maupin and is the first US soldier held hostage in recent kidnappings Both leaders yesterday gave no sign of wavering, emphasising their commitment to the June 30 deadline for a transfer of power to Iraqis. Mr Bush also said the US would not bolt from the conflict. The united front extended to the Middle East conflict, where Mr Blair defied domestic critics to reaffirm his support for Washington's seismic policy shift on Jewish settlements, revealed by Mr Bush during a visit by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Wednesday. There also appeared to be a new convergence between the Bush administration and the UN on the new dispensation for Iraq. Mr Bush signalled that Washington was eager for a greater UN role, saying he welcomed the proposals on a transitional authority presented by Lakhdar Brahimi, special adviser on Iraq to the secretary general, Kofi Annan. But the main preoccupation of both men yesterday appeared to be to convince their own people, as well as to the Arab world, to look towards the potential of a better future, rather than dwell on the recent violence. "You just imagine an Iraq, stable and prosperous and democratic," Mr Blair said. "Iraq run by the Iraqis, the wealth of that country owned by the Iraqis, and a symbol of hope and democracy in the Middle East." But to Mr Bush's evident annoyance, the past was inescapable yesterday. The Woodward book describes how on November 21 2001, halfway through the Afghan war, the president pulled his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, aside near the White House situation room to ask about his war strategy for Iraq. When Mr Rumsfeld indicated it was outdated, Mr Bush urged him to draft a new plan, but to keep it secret, keeping the CIA director, George Tenet, out of the loop. The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was also not fully informed. "I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq," the book quotes Mr Bush as saying in an interview two years later. "It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war." Asked about the episode at the summit yesterday, Mr Bush said he could not remember exact dates, but that on September 15 2001, "I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response, and the subject of Iraq came up. And I said as plainly as I possibly could: 'We'll focus on Afghanistan; that's where we will focus'." Mr Blair can expect to face his questioners on his return today. A report on the book in yesterday's Washington Post said that by early January 2003 Mr Bush had made up his mind to take military action against Iraq, and only delayed it until March to give Mr Blair time to seek a second UN resolution because he [Bush] was "so concerned that the government of his closest ally ... might fall. "Bush later gave Blair the option of withholding British troops from combat, which Blair rejected," the report said. The claim is likely to be seized on by critics of the war as evidence that Mr Blair spurned a "get-out clause" which would have avoided British casualties without offending the Americans. In addition, Mr Blair will be asked to reconcile Britain's official posture in early 2003 - that it would allow the UN weapons inspectors to perform their mission in Iraq - with the picture that emerges from Mr Woodward's book of a US leader set on war. For Mr Blair, the criticism marks a departure from the past few days, when he has scrambled to defend his support for Washington's policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yesterday he insisted the Gaza agreement did not rule out future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, Mr Blair claimed that Mr Sharon's plan, which would consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank, presented an opportunity for the Palestinians.Blair refused offer of get-out clause on Iraq
I agree.
Funny how the today's press labels such an action "damaging".
In Winston Churchill's day, such an action would have been described as "honorable".
Don't you find it the least bit strange that his most vocal critics are conservatives rather from his own labor party?
Not exactly a reasoned opinion. This statement is verifiable false. There has been no erosion in over 3 months...much less a steady one. Pretty much a few points up and down, depending on the polster and survey.
Just a guess, but I've long had the feelings that this is really more a Cheney White House than a Bush White House. I know I'm in for it with that comment, but it seems Cheney's agenda seems to be advanced much more stongly that the Presidents, especially on international issues.
Impressively sourced?
I'm under the impression that only W went on the record, out of 75 people that Woodward spoke to. Not having read the book (and with no intentions of doing so) I may be wrong.
Yeah Deepthroat, Mr. Long, Mrs. Jones and whatever imaginary person he can come up with.
In Winston Churchill's day, such an action would have been described as "honorable".
worth repeating....
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