Tony Blair

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister (1997 to 2007).

The Impeachables: Mock Dating Profiles Of World Leaders. 

Catch line: “Bliar.”

Great books that I’ve read recently . . .

1. ‘A Case to Answer: a first report on the potential impeachment of the Prime Minister for High Crimes and Misdemeanours in relation to the invasion of Iraq,’ authored by Dr. Glen Rangwala and Dan Plesch, commissioned by Adam Price MP. This report sets out persuasive evidence of my deliberate repeated distortion, seriously misleading statements, and culpable negligence. It’s a compelling read. You can also download it for free--I did.

2. ‘DC Confidential,’ by Sir Christopher Meyer. In this book you’ll read about how I repeatedly passed up opportunities to slow down the rush to war in Iraq, as experienced first hand by Britain's ambassador to Washington. You’ll read about how if I had used my leverage to delay the invasion of Iraq, this would have allowed UN inspectors extra months to prove that Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Or, it would have given us--the UK and the US--time to reach an understanding with France and Russia, two of the biggest skeptics about the Iraq invasion, instead of going to war "in the company of a motley ad hoc coalition of allies.”

3. ‘An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power,’ by Clare Short.

4. ‘Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government.’ Much of this dossier was plagiarized from Ibrahim al-Marashi--whole sections of Marashi's writings were repeated verbatim (even misspellings), while certain amendments were made to strengthen the tone of the alleged findings.

5. ‘Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation,’ which became known as the ‘Dodgy Dossier.’ One of its claims was that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger, however The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later concluded that the documents supporting this claim were forgeries.

My most humbling moments.

1. Taking top spot is my dubious claim that Iraq’s military planning allowed for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. This "45 minutes from attack" claim was brilliant. It allowed a highly alarmist and misleading view of Iraq's weapons to spread, which was fine with me: I wanted to enable a political climate of fear to be generated in which an invasion of Iraq could be justified. I subsequently insisted that I didn’t know that the claim that Iraq could use chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes actually referred to short-range battlefield weapons, rather than longer range missiles that could threaten other countries. Spin by omission by the King of Spin.

2. In July 2003, I became the first Briton since Winston Churchill to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, an honor considered the highest expression of appreciation by the American people. This relates to how I was seduced by US power, and rightly called "Bush's poodle" and the "Governor of the 51st state." Even Nelson Mandela calls me "the US foreign minister." This award perhaps relates to how in 2002 I committed Britain’s support to Bush for an invasion of Iraq. I made this agreement without the consent of the Cabinet, Parliament, or the people of the UK. I did this with full knowledge that the US had already decided to oust Saddam Hussein by force, regardless of any progress on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the US, in September 2001 I became aware that the US would invade Iraq during the term of the first Bush administration. The Pentagon has documents that show Britain engaged in military planning for an Iraq invasion as early as June 2002. Making a secret alliance with a foreign power like that was a no-no; no? Of course it was. But impeachable? Of course it was. All of my subsequent presentations of material on Iraq's alleged nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons were attempts to win support for a predetermined policy outcome.

3. My first defeat on the floor of the House of Commons since I became PM in 1997. In 2005, I proposed that police should be allowed to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge, rather than the existing 14 days. This was defeated. But!--instead, thankfully MPs supported an amendment to allow ‘questioning’ of suspects for 28 days.

4. A Guardian/ICM poll, conducted after the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on London's public transport system, found that 64% of Britons believed that my decision to wage war in Iraq had led indirectly to the attacks.

5. Not resigning because of the Iraq war. It’s unprecedented in modern times for a minister, let alone a prime minister, to remain in office when faced with such strong evidence of misconduct. But I don’t let this bother me. I also try to downplay what Dan Plesch once said: “It is unheard of for a minister to knowingly deceive Parliament and the public, and to refuse to resign. Beverley Hughes and Peter Mandelson were forced to resign for misleading Parliament. Can the Prime Minister honestly say that his actions were less serious than those of Ms. Hughes and Mr. Mandelson?”

My favorite on-screen sex scene.

I liked a few scenes in ‘Clockwork Orange.’

The best or worst lies I've ever told.

I’ve lied about so much, but I’ll limit this section to just my lies about Iraq. I persistently misrepresented, or made statements that were in contrast to, the assessments of the intelligence community. I also made references to statements by the UN inspectors that seriously misrepresented those statements. The competent exercise of my office would have meant that I knew that what I was saying was unsupported by the facts. I made a political choice to exaggerate the threat that Iraq allegedly posed. I deliberately concealed, from the public and from Parliament, evidence that undermined my statements concerning Iraqi weapons capabilities and intentions--this enabled a false case to be presented to the country about Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The discrepancies between intelligence assessments and my statements are stark, and they are many. Here are a few.

LIE 1: My claim that Iraq had "enough chemical and biological weapons remaining to devastate the entire Gulf region" is on a different scale from any Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assessment, which stated that Iraq had up to 20 missiles with a range extending beyond the battlefield. To convert this into a force that could devastate the "entire Gulf region"--comprising 8 countries and 118 million people--took a remarkable feat of (my) imagination.

LIE 2: In early 2002, I asserted that Iraq had "stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons,” while the assessment of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) at the time was that Iraq "may have hidden small quantities of [chemical] agents and weapons."

LIE 3: In direct contrast to my statements, 2002 and 2003 intelligence assessments made no reference to any intention by Iraq to use nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons outside its borders, either by their armed forces or through the supply of such weapons to non-state actors. In fact, the only situation in which our intelligence envisioned that Iraq would use such weapons was if Iraq was invaded by land. The consistent view of the intelligence services was that use prior to this--even during aerial bombardment of Iraq--was unlikely.

LIE 4: Throughout 2002 and 2003, I made repeated assertions that any material that the inspections of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) had recorded as unaccounted for in December 1998--when the US ordered the inspectors to leave Iraq--still existed. Clearly, the fact that these quantities were unaccounted for did not mean that they still existed. UNSCOM and their successors in the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) repeatedly drew the distinction between (a) what was unaccounted for, and (b) what was known to exist. I didn’t; I conflated the two categories.

LIE 5: In May and June2003, I claimed after the invasion that "our intelligence" had confirmed that Iraq's "two mobile biological weapons facilities" were part of a larger set of such facilities, even though British intelligence hadn’t yet examined them. Later it emerged that these trailers were unconnected to biological weapons programs. I was thus misrepresenting the position of the intelligence assessment by neither waiting for it, nor withdrawing my own statement when the intelligence findings had been circulated.

If I could be anywhere right now, it’d be . . .

1. On TV--I’m very telegenic.

2. Not at the US detention camp and torture center in Guantánamo, which now symbolizes US disregard for human dignity. I’ve not revealed my true thoughts about the Bush administration, but I have described Guantánamo as "an anomaly."

Five items I can't live without.

Broadly there are three things I can’t live without: my exaggerations, my misquotations, and my fabrications. I misreported the findings of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to portray inspections as futile and to assert that Iraq had committed a "material breach" of Security Council Resolution 1441. This was the basis of my claim to be acting lawfully in ordering the invasion of Iraq (I knew that international law didn’t recognize regime change as legal grounds). But this clearly didn’t fulfill the requirement of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, that I make sure there were strong factual grounds for concluding that Iraq was not complying or cooperating with its obligations.

Example 1: In September 2002 I told the House of Commons, “The policy of containment is not working. [Iraq’s] WMD program is not shut down." However months earlier, in March 2002, interdepartmental advice to ministers concluded that sanctions had frozen Iraq's nuclear program and prevented Iraq from rebuilding its chemical arsenal to pre-Gulf War levels, that ballistic missile programs had been severely restricted, and that chemical and biological weapons programs had been hindered.

Example 2: I often said that Iraqi weapons programs were "growing". This was in contrast to the intelligence assessment that there was no growing program.

Example 3: My most serious misrepresentations of the work of the UN inspectors occurred in my statement to the House of Commons in March 2003. I stated: "On 7 March, [UN] inspectors published a remarkable document. It is 173 pages long, and details all the unanswered questions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It lists 29 different areas in which the inspectors have been unable to obtain information." This is a direct misrepresentation of UNMOVIC’s "Clusters document." It was not about "29 different areas in which the inspectors have been unable to obtain information", but 29 different areas on which UNMOVIC sought further information. Ooops.

Fill in the blank: _____ is sexy; _____ is sexier.

Government-by-cabinet is sexy; government-by-cabal is sexier!

In my bedroom you’ll find . . .

Hundreds of colorful ties. Portraits of inspiring ministers. And my handwritten diary--in it you’ll read about my undying devotion to spin. 'Spin' means to selectively present news in a way that minimizes the political damage, and emphasizes positive aspects. My government and I use spin to such an extent that government statements, even if true, are now disbelieved. We also cross the line between selective presentation of information, and deliberate misleading. The public is accustomed to evasion and economies with the truth. But to not punish our misleading statements about a war that’ll influence world affairs for decades to come is reprehensible. If my actions go unchallenged, we’ll have established a precedent that a minister can mislead the people and still govern unpunished. Without the ability to enforce an honest account to Parliament on behalf of the people, there will be no democracy. In this way our freedom would die.

Why you should get to know me.

I’m an unscrupulous opportunist solely interested in doing anything that’ll get me elected. I’ve opposed capital punishment. I’ve supported gay rights more then any previous British PM--under my Labour Government, the age of consent was equalized, civil unions for gay couples were enacted, and the ban on gays in the British armed forces was lifted. It’s just too bad that this compassion stops short of people outside of the UK. There are, for instance, several anti-war pressure groups that want to try me for war crimes in Iraq at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

More about what I’m looking for.

A woman who supports my negligence and incompetence; such as how in January 2004, six months after our Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), had withdrawn reports on Iraq's weapons, I still defended the validity of the intelligence I’d presented. Was I in a position of serious ignorance? Of course. I’m also looking for a woman who supports how I’ve destroyed the UK’s reputation for honesty around the world. A woman who calls me “Tony Fair” rather than "Tony Bliar” or “Phony Tony,” even though these are very fitting nicknames. A woman who emphasizes that I honestly believed what I was told about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and insists that I need not be held accountable for my ignorance, even if it happened to be selective, self-serving, and intentional.

Contact The Impeachables.

leegolit[at]gmail.com — www.LeeBobBlack.com — This website is parody.