The pundits have declared British Prime Minister Tony Blair's political fortunes to be in decline ever since Parliament refused to go along with his latest attempt to deprive British subjects of what few civil liberties they have.

So what does a weakened PM do if he hopes to have any chance to continue to govern, especially in light of a Parliamentary move to investigate the decision to take Britain into the Iraq war? A smart Prime Minister gets as far away from George Bush as oceans will allow, and that appears to be just what Tony Blair is doing.

But mere distancing would be passive. Blair is trying to paint himself as an antiwar activist without whom there is simply no telling what death and destruction Bush might have wreaked upon the planet. He's hoping the British public can be brought to look upon him as a savior from what could have been a much worse fate.

The al-Jazeera transcript

First, there was the leak of the transcript in which Bush is said to have wanted to bomb the bejesus out of al-Jazeera's TV station in Qatar, an American ally. The Bush-Blair conversation took place on April 16 of last year, and the memo of it was lying around the office of MP Tony Clarke by the following month. So how come it's just surfaced? You're welcome to believe the timing was fortuitous, but I don't. The headline to the story as carried by Agence France-Presse was "Blair talked Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera: report." For Blair it really can't get any better than that.

Of course, Blair must disavow the leak lest Bush do more than cut down the Queen's roses. The evocation of the Official Secrets Act to stifle publication of the transcript is strictly for White House consumption as is the indictment of the men responsible for the leak. One of the men, Leo O'Connor, is being staunchly defended by his boss Tony Clarke, and there is no way on earth the government is going to get a conviction. Personally, I expect the transcript itself to emerge sooner rather than later.

The "double-cross"

Now comes the story in today's Independent headlined "Blair 'double-crossed' by Bush aides." We are treated to a tale of pure Blairian innocence by no less a raconteur than Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson—

Tony Blair was "doubled-crossed" by United States President George W. Bush's aides in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to the former diplomat at the centre of the political crisis engulfing the White House.

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame was allegedly "outed" as an undercover CIA agent, says Blair was duped by the White House into supporting action against Iraq to force disarmament on Saddam Hussein when regime change was their key objective.

Wilson said: "I watched the way that the British built their case, and it was a disarmament case as best I could see it.

"Blair came to the US when Bush was talking about regime change, and when he left Bush started talking about disarmament as the objective."

He praised Blair for persuading Bush to go to the UN Security Council for support for action against Iraq. "I think that Blair really thought that he was getting involved in a disarmament campaign, which was all to the good - I fully supported that. I think at the end of the day he was double-crossed by the regime change crowd in Washington."

Wilson is the most senior Bush administration figure to claim Blair was tricked by the White House....

What piffle! To suggest that Blair had no clue that "regime change" was the American goal makes me wonder if Joe Wilson would have recognized yellowcake uranium lying beside a Geiger counter. Blair hoped to legitimize the invasion, and to that end he huffed and puffed about disarmament. But when all was said and done Blair still had to compel his attorney general to write an equivocal prewar justification for his government's attack on Iraq.

And let us recall what we know from the Downing Street memos. James Button was reporting inThe Age this past May—

British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported US President George Bush's plan for "regime change" in Iraq as early as April 2002, despite saying publicly until the eve of war in March 2003 that "no decisions" had been taken over invading Iraq.

This is suggested in a secret Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times yesterday.
....

The memo shows Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the July meeting that the case for war was "thin". Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran, Mr Straw said.
....

The memo also shows that Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned Mr Blair eight months before the invasion that finding a legal justification for war would be difficult and "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action".

I very much doubt that the motion for a Parliamentary select committee to investigate Britain's pre-invasion activities will pass. Still it has come further than some had expected, and is a point of pressure that Tony Blair cannot afford to ignore. According to the BBC account—

There have been four separate inquiries into different aspects of the Iraq war, including the Butler report into intelligence failings and the Hutton inquiry.

But there has yet to be an an inquiry focusing on the way the government's decision to join a US-led invasion was made.

The MPs' motion calls for the setting-up of a special select committee to carry out this task.

The seven strong committee would be members of the Privy Council and therefore able to look at sensitive intelligence material.
....

The motion is headed: "Conduct of Government policy in relation to the war against Iraq."

It reads: "This House believes there should be a select committee of seven Members, being Members of Her Majesty's Privy Council, to review the way in which the responsibilities of government were discharged in relation to Iraq and all matters relevant thereto in the period leading up to military action in that country in March, 2003 and in its aftermath."

I've thought for some time that the greatest risk to the Bush administration is Tony Blair. Like the Germans, the British have been creating documents where memory would have served, and they seem strangely incapable of keeping them from the press.

Related post
A slight shudder and a pulling-away (5/16/05)
David Manning's memo to Blair of 14 March 2002 (6/17/05)