BLAIR'S SECRET WAR MEETINGS WITH CLINTON

The Drudge Report ^ | 4/24/03

[rockinonritalin]

Nothing more yet.

[Miss Marple]

Well, that advice worked real well didn't it?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Shows how great der Schlickmeister's foreign affairs skills are... NOT!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Darn, you beat me to it. :)

[rockinonritalin]

Probably explains the return to the Security Council for one last resolution.

[visualops]

Someone needs to send the Sta-Puf marshmallow man after Clinton.


btw, great screen name.

[Mo1]

When will these people ever stop taking advice from Clinton?

[potlatch]

Wonder who ran to who, or need I ask! Clinton needs to start a Dear Abby column, he just HAS to give advice!

[MJY1288]

It's no wonder why Diplomacy failed! :-)

[kayak]

I could easily believe that x42 offered the advice ..... but I don't believe Blair followed it.

[OldFriend]

I suspect Klinton worked against Blair behind the scenes.

In the end, this worked to our advantage. Sometimes, the good guy wins!!!

[TLBSHOW]

Look here we were correct again about socialist Blair! Never ever support a socialist rat!

[cars for sale]

I wanna know front and center IF Blair told Dubya that Clinton was queering the deal ????
said it before but Dubya was fighting Bill and Hillary via the 3td way in this war and collective socialism LOST

[XEHRpa]

Tony Blair... looks like you's was set up for the squeeze. No doubt Clinton and the anti-Coalition were in cahoots. It's called the "Chiraqi sandwich."

[dogbyte12]

Todd... Todd... Todd.

Blair risked his job, his future, his career on going at it basically alone with the President. Quit the ratty rat Socialist crap for a second, and try something a bit more mature.

[Semper911]

Nothing personal, but I think this is bullsh*t. Drudge is wrong sometimes. I suspect his sources will back off on this as he tries to confirm it.

[Howlin]

No sources?


Perhaps we should wait until we see the actual article before we go off halfcocked.

This sounds like CLINTON SPIN to me.

Of course, that won't stop the Bush haters and disruptors from using it to smear Bush.

[Shermy]

It's possible that Clinton believes "Europe" is France, Germany and Russia. That's what all the papers say anyway...

[Prince Charles]

Blair's secret war meetings with Clinton

Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Friday April 25, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.

In the crucial weekend before to the final breakdown of diplomacy in March, Mr Clinton was a guest of Mr Blair's at Chequers where the pair discussed the crisis.

Mr Blair was battling to persuade the Chilean president Ricardo Lagos - a key figure on the security council - to back a second UN resolution setting a new deadline for Saddam to co-operate fully with the UN or face military action.

Three days after his Chequers meeting, Mr Clinton made a rare public appeal to his successor, George Bush, to give the UN weapons inspectors more time.

Mr Blair and Mr Clinton met at least three times to discuss the war, underlining the extent to which Mr Blair rates Mr Clinton's analytical powers, despite the bond of trust he has also formed with the Republican White House.

The two men met on the weekend of March 8, the weekend during which Clare Short, the international development secretary, exploded a grenade by accusing the prime minister of running a reckless policy towards Iraq.

In a speech in Washington three days later Mr Clinton said the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, should set the timetable for compliance, adding: "I hope the United States would agree to that amount of time, whatever it is."

Mr Clinton was careful to say that Mr Bush was sincere in his pursuit of UN support, but added: "The question is, do they want the support bad enough to let Mr Blix finish his work and give enough time to do that?"

At that point, Mr Blair had been pressing the US in private to extend a deadline by which Saddam would have to shown to be co-operating with the UN.

Mr Blair and Mr Clinton had a warm, mutually supportive relationship during the latter's presidency. After the election of Mr Bush, Downing Street aides were anxious to maintain the "special relationship" between the US and the UK. Private polling for No 10 during the build-up to war showed hostility towards Mr Bush among British voters and Labour MPs, who disliked his language and manner.

At the time of Mr Clinton's private visit to Chequers, Mr Blair was very close to winning the agreement of the Chileans to British proposals.

The prime minister was so desperate to secure Chilean support that he told Mr Lagos that he was prepared to make the 7,230-mile journey to Santiago to clinch the support of the first centre-left leader of Chile since Salvador Allende.

In practice, Mr Blair would not have made the 35-hour round trip unless he could be sure that he would not be returning empty-handed and humiliated.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, had also expressed a willingness to travel to Chile, hoping that his earlier decision to arrest General Augusto Pinochet had given him some personal influence in the former dictator's country.

British efforts to secure a deal were scuppered when the French president, Jacques Chirac, gave a television interview saying he would veto a resolution authorising war whatever the circumstances.

Mr Blair followed up the interview with a private call to Mr Chirac, in which the French president said he would not tolerate any resolution that contained an ultimatum to Saddam.

Commenting on Mr Chirac's television performance, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the Guardian: "He blew it. If he had said 'let's look at it again in two months time', we would have been in much greater difficulty."

[McGavin999]

HA! I knew Clinton was mixed up with this whole thing. I think he was advising Chiraq and Schroeder as well. Blair obviously didn't take his advice.