It's ten years this Wednesday since it was launched. Time flies past very quickly.

The Spies Who Fooled The World.
Invasion based on fabrication and damn right lies, but we already knew that anyway, didn't we?
No doubt there'll be tens of thouands of Iraqi's who are remembering loved family members.
They probably think about them eveyday, you would, wouldn't you?
Similarly families of armed service personnel who were sent to fight in an unjustifiable war.

What's it all about Alfie?

And in the meantime, Blair continues to cosy up to another dictator in order to enhance his already sizeable personal fortune;m says he has no regrets on Iraq and urges the West to intervene (more) in Syria.

I'll stick my neck out a little here and says that a bit more cosying-up to dictators (albeit an unpleasant thing to do) could save millions of lives.
I am of the view that Saddam was already back-tracking (e.g. Blix couldn't find any WMDs or any trace of them) in response to Western pressure and threat.
Who knows how much further he could have been persuaded to go?

At least us liberators can take solace in the fact that we've stabilsed the previous untenable situation .
All is peaceful in the new Iraq this morning.

[urlhttp://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/19/iraqi-officials-more-attacks-tear-through-baghdad-area-death-toll-jumps-to-56/[/url

He still has his supporters though, I've just heard someone on a radio phone-in today say that WMD were never found, which isn't the same as saying that there never were any in the first place, which technically is true.

Or to put it another way, if I only had one or two missile warheads and a case full of bubonic plague in liquid form (there must be such a thing) and you gave me a year to hide it in a country twice the size of the whole UK, then I'd probably be able to put it somewhere where your army would never be able to find it.

Theoretically of course.

And who was really responsible for the attacks on the Kurds of Halabja?

[urlhttp://rense.com/general30/blair.htm[/url

I'm a lot more convinced of who used used napalm against innocents in Vietnam and massacred the Iraqi's of Fallujah with white phosphprous.

[urlhttp://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fallujah-the-hidden-massacre/[/url

Wasn't Napalm banned for use under the Geneva Convention even at the time of the Vietnam war ?

Apparently not banned against military targets.
So it was ok to use to use it against the likes of these.

[urlhttp://classicalpursuits.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Vietnam_girl_napalm.jpg[/url

Pftttt!
Casualties of war.

In that sense, I'd agree.

But that's not what Blair is doing in Kazakhstan.

I saw a statistic the other day that claimed if the money spent on Iraq had been channelled to aid, we could have solved the world hunger problem for the next 130 years

Or have been well on our way to colonizing Mars according to Charles Stross.
The Cod-fathers statistic would be a better way spent mind.

Ten years on and it would be interesting to see if the people are any better now than they were back then, under Blair.

I would say that life has got worse since he was removed.

John Simpson gave a telling report from Baghdad on Tuesdays BBC News.
He said in his opinion that things had got slightly better but that the vast amount of Iraqi's he talked to said things had got worse.
Mind you, he is a pompous who will flit in and out of there with maximum security and possibly the best of accomodation, so he's bound to have a better grasp on the reality of the situation than the population who actually live there, day to day, isn't he?

Unfortunately after we bombed the [is[/ihit out of Iraqi infrastructure, we did next to buggerall to rebuild it again. If we'd prioritised the restoration of reliable electricity, oil, potable water and sewerage systems, I doubt we'd have half the problems we see now and could probably have returned the troops home a damn sight quicker

So that's not the John Simpson who nearly got blown up by a carelessly dropped US bomb that killed a load of US soldiers and some of his own crew, including the young Iraqi whose feet were blown off leaving him to bleed to death?

You might dislike Simpson, but the idea that he has no idea about the realities of war is nonsense.

You know how you dislike people quoting things you never said Minty?
I'm merely suggesting that the permanent feet on the ground are possibly in a superior position to make judgement on whether there has been any improvement in their lot.

Would you not agree?

Yes. But that doesn't mean that your description of Simpson is entirely fair/accurate.

The problem would be if his report hadn't acknowledged the responses of those "feet on the ground" that he had talked to.

To be entirely fair to him, I prefer anybody to Kate Adie.