The Hindu : History will forgive us, says Blair

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 19, 2003

International

International

History will forgive us, says Blair

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington JULY 18. Faced with intense questions over the war with Iraq and deep political troubles at home, the United States President, George W. Bush, and the visiting British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, staunchly defended their roles, especially on the intelligence components that were used to justify the conflict.

Mr. Blair even went to the extent of giving himself and Mr. Bush a way out of the mess on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, arguing that even if they were wrong, history "will forgive''.

"If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that at its least is responsible for human carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive'', Mr. Blair said in a historic address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday afternoon. "If our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have, that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive''. In his 40-minute address, Mr. Blair touched upon a number of themes.

He said the immediate threat to world order comes not from any conflict between the world's powerful nations. "And why? Because we all have much to lose'', Mr. Blair said. "Because technology, communication, trade and travel are bringing us ever closer together. Because, in the last 50 years countries like yours (the United States) and mine have trebled their growth and standard of living.

Because even those powers like Russia, China and India can see the horizon of future wealth clearly and know they are on a steady road toward it. And because all nations that are free, value that freedom, will defend it absolutely, but have no wish to trample on the freedom of others.

"The purpose of terrorism is not the single act of wanton destruction. It is the reaction it seeks to provoke: economic collapse, the backlash, the hatred, the division, the elimination of tolerance, until societies cease to reconcile their differences and become defined by them. Kashmir, the Middle East, Chechnya, Indonesia, Africa — barely a continent or nation is unscathed'', the Prime Minister said.

And one of the more troubling questions is that four months into the situation, the United States' search teams have come up with near-nothing on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. On Thursday, in a meeting with the presspersons, both leaders defended what had taken place, with Mr. Bush being emphatic that he will not be proved wrong. The President also made it clear that he was right in getting rid of Saddam Hussein. "As long as I hold this office, I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the goodwill of dangerous enemies'', Mr. Bush remarked.

The President has been at the centre of a major controversy raging for the last few days on how a particular sentence on Iraq and its efforts to buy uranium from Africa was retained in his State of the Union Address this January even after several intelligence agencies had come to the conclusion that it was wrong and based on forgeries.

Asked if he would take responsibility for this, Mr. Bush said, "I take responsibility for making the decision, the tough decision, to put together a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein. He possessed chemical weapons and biological weapons. I strongly believe he was trying to reconstruct his nuclear weapons programme... He was a threat. I take responsibility for dealing with that threat''.

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