Making this ruthless liar EU president is a crazy plan. But I'll be backing Blair

If the man who waged an unprovoked war in Iraq gets this job, it could be the chance to hold him to account for his crimes

George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 October 2009

(Click on cartoon by Carlos Latuff, drawn in 2007, to enlarge)

"..... Blair has the distinction, which is a source of national pride in some quarters, of being one of the two greatest living mass murderers on earth. That he commissioned a crime of aggression – waging an unprovoked war, described by the Nuremberg tribunal as "the supreme international crime" – looks incontestable. I will explain the case in a moment. This crime has caused the death – depending on whose estimate you believe – of between 100,000 and one million people. As there was no legal justification, these people were murdered. But no one has been brought to justice.

Within the UK, there is no means of prosecuting Blair. In 2006 the law lords decided that the international crime of aggression has not been incorporated into domestic law.....

So he goes about his business untroubled. He seldom faces protests, let alone investigating magistrates. His only punishment for the crime of aggression so far is a multimillion-pound book deal, massive speaking fees, posh directorships and an appointment as Middle East peace envoy, which must rank with Henry Kissinger's receipt of the Nobel peace prize as the supreme crime against satire......

Here is the case against him. The Downing Street memo, a record of a meeting in July 2002, reveals that Sir Richard Dearlove, director of the UK's foreign intelligence service MI6, told Blair that in Washington: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The foreign secretary (Jack Straw) then told Blair that "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran". He suggested that "we should work up a plan" to produce "legal justification for the use of force". The attorney general told the prime minister that there were only "three possible legal bases" for launching a war: "self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC [security council] authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case." Bush and Blair later failed to obtain security council authorisation. This short memo, which should be learned by heart by every citizen of the United Kingdom, reveals that Blair knew that the decision to attack Iraq had already been made; that it preceded the justification, which was being retrofitted to an act of aggression; that the only legal reasons for an attack didn't apply, and that the war couldn't be launched without UN authorisation......."