Focus 580; Blairs War

In this part of focus 580 will be talking about British politics and very specifically about the decision of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair to support the United States and the Bush administration and its war in Iraq. I think it's fair to say that no foreign leader has been more supportive of American policy in the Middle East than has British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He went against the advice of key cabinet members senior military leaders and he went against the opinion of the majority of the British public to follow the United States into Iraq. And the question is why. Why did he make those decisions and turns out the answer does indeed have something to do with the close relationship between Britain and the United States but it also has to do with politics and. Issues within his own Labor Party. We will talk about that and also perhaps talk a bit about where Mr. Blair stands now because certainly his decision to support the United States has been very controversial. And from time to time and even recently there are people within his own

party who have called on him to step down as prime minister. As our guest in this part of focus 580 we have two two political scientists who follow British politics David Coats is professor of Anglo-American studies at Wake Forest University that's in North Carolina. Joel Krieger is professor of political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Together they are the authors of a book titled Blair's war. It's published by politics which is a British publisher. If you're interested in finding out more about the book you can go to their website which is WW polity and that's spelled p o l i t y polity dot c o dot uk. Find out about it of course here on the program as we talk questions are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Questions are certainly welcome the only we ask people that are calling is if you can please try to be brief. Just

keep the program moving. We'll get in as many people as we possibly can. But of course questions are welcome. Well up Professor coats. Hello hello. And Joel Krieger. Hello good morning. Thanks to both of you for spending some time with us today. We appreciate it. Well when you ask this very basic question Why is it that Tony Blair decided to involve himself in support of the United States in Iraq it turns out I think as is the case if you ask the same question about the United States it's not simple. There is not just one answer. You have to look at a number of things. So and you discuss them in your book and perhaps the first thing to talk about is as a as context for anything that Britain does when it comes the United States you have to consider the way the British see the relationship between Britain and the United States. So maybe that's a place to start. About the the talk about the what is often called the quote you put it in quotes of the special relationship between Britain and the United States what exactly does that

mean. While it is a relationship that built up a profit during the Second World War as an identification I think of the people in the struggle against the fascists and it was then consolidated very strongly by Winston Churchill in speeches in Missouri in the period of the early period of the Cold War and the British of South an identification out across the Atlantic to United States Baltimore POF and then they have across the Channel into continental Europe. Probably I think because the British political class still haven't heard I mention that thinking they do see themselves as independent global players but not playing that role increasingly in a relationship with Washington. So Tony Blair is very keen I think to stay close to the administration in Washington even when it changed from being a democratic one to it being a Republican one. I would just add that Prime Minister Blair is not faking it when he gives the rationale that goes beyond the tradition or any sentimental attachment he might have to United States. I think Blair

believes very very strongly that weapons of mass destruction and that Al-Qaeda terrorism and rogue states on the loose are very real. That's almost existential threat. And that without the US power and determination I think where believes in here I think he believes rightly that would be impossible to win a war on terror. So for BLAIR This is the next step it's vital to help sustain the leadership of the United States at its best that one can influence it. So it's absolutely necessary to keep the special relationship front and center very strong in order to prevail or to have some influence. Of course the questions can be asked about whether or not it has had influence. And those questions are being asked with ever more vitriolic rather nasty ways in the UK. Well there you go and you touch on another sort of issue and that is aside from the special relationship between Britain the United States it's the way that Tony Blair thinks about the world about Britain's place in the world and the idea again I think it is a sincerely held

belief that he has that somehow that Britain perhaps also along with the United States and with some other countries is in a position to make the world a better place and that he sees what the United States has done and what what Britain has done being involved in the Middle East in Iraq specifically in the Middle East more generally as part of an attempt he might acknowledge a imperfect attempt but a sincere attempt to make the world a better place. And that the globalization issue has been presented to his politics from the very moment that he took over the leadership of the party a decade ago I think part of what Tony Blair the second self to do inside the United Kingdom here to educate his party and his electorate in the interconnected nature of the world and this associated economic policies as well as military policy is a go with that and then when you add to that to that sense of

globalization that I mention that you just referred to this feeling that there's an America role TASC of doing good in the world which is which the New Labor is uniquely positioned to deliver. Then you do get quite an interesting chemistry that builds up in the mind of this person before 9/11 and then of course there is a 911 response which I'm sure we'll talk about later. I mean it's quite true that Blair brings them a moral certainty and that is probably the biggest bond between the two leaders between Blair and President Bush were not turned to Blair's willingness to step forward. Head of the Europeans a crude head of the so-called Old Europeans and to walk lockstep with President Bush is predictable and if there's something about it and I think that's what helped animate our 30 to something about a bit. Nevertheless it is income. It's not rather explicable After all there is a fundamental difference. Blair continues to refer to the war in Kosovo as a model that is a model of what you might call a

liberal internationalism. That is he's desperate to view Iraq like the liberation of the Muslims and cost of oil from Serbia is Milosevic and Mr. Bush whatever else it was the war in Iraq was always intended to be something rather different a massive demonstration of American power associated with a new defense doctrine of preemption or actually preventive war. And that approach was nothing in common with Blair's before certainly before 9/11 and even before his bond with the United States forced him to so to speak. Wander unwillingly into the war in Iraq. Well of course the Bush administration has made some of that same remaking the world argument or at least remaking the Middle East argument. It could be that has emerged a little bit late as when the the weapons of mass destruction argument sort of when that seemed to fade. Then there was much more. Then they started tiptoeing over to the side that says well the reason we really did this was first of all some were saying was a terrible

guy and he was doing terrible things to his own people and after all they're better off and this is just one sort of step in trying to make the Middle East particularly a more stable democratic peaceful kind of region so it seems that it was when you tick off the reasons for why did the Bush administration decide to do what it did that's got to be one of those things that's on the list and maybe always was on the last but the priorities in terms of what they said was most important over time seems to have shifted which makes it a little confusing to follow the thinking of the Bush administration. You know and all right from the fray from from the very beginning because from one time to another different people are going to tell you different stuff at least with Tony Blair it seems. He's he's been fairly consistent about what he said about why this was the thing to do. There's one point of enormous effect. This incident which is attacked in a creator his controversy in the U.K. and that was Blair's meat to endorsement of Bush's endorsement of the Sharon plan for annexing large sections of the West Bank. Yeah while the joint from Gaza that had been an absolute point of principle for 50 years of British foreign office policy.

In fact it's one of the areas in which Blair had pushed Bush very hard before the run up to war insisting that real progress be made on the Israeli-Palestinian front before there be any intervention in Iraq. That was a point of principle that was held very dear. And as you know there was a public rebuke a very unprecedented assumptive to two former ambassadors and Senior Foreign Office officials after the B-side Bush and supported the Sharon plan for the annexation of just 10 days or two weeks ago. That to me is an inexplicable level of Bush's accommodation of Blair's accommodation to Bush and one that I think Blair will have already regretted and perhaps will live to regret shortly. Could members could stand up to Sharon. Why and having to pick one winner could burn out and up to Bush on this.

He was a sonic too wasn't it. Blair Blair is so weak now that he seems to be making policy on the hoof in part of the reason why his colleagues are so cross about a particular seismic shift in UK policy because of the level of consultation with within his own cabinet on it was so modest. But I could just add that the other side what he said at the start of this part of the conversation is also very important he was. Blair was very consistent and very clear from the beginning that the reason he was that the United Kingdom and the United States had the right to go into Iraq was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He was also very clear that though he personally thought Saddam Hussein was extreme enough the fellow there was not a moral case for taking him out if weapons of mass destruction were not there. And now of course in the in the situation in which the Bush team decided to touch all of them are language again Blair is particularly exposed because he was absolutely adamant time and time again this is a weapons of mass destruction issue and he's on record as saying that if the if Saddam. Saying had actually given up those weapons then there was no right under international law to impose regime change from outside which of course was not the Bush position

throughout the Bush position throughout was that regime change was was a US policy. Do you in Britain is there some sense that at some point in the past whether. Well you know you talk about the fact that after September 11th 2001 all over the world there was a great deal of shock outrage and sympathy for what happened the United States and the backing of the United States in its stated intention to go after al Qaeda. That as far as we know there were the people who are responsible for that and at that point Blair was with Bush but a lot of people were with Bush that. But that Blair hung in there as we we moved to the point where we are now and I wonder if there are people in Britain that feel that somehow Mr. Blair early on shackled himself to Mr. Bush and that somehow you know and then lost the key and then somehow can't get stuck there and can't get out of being with Mr. Bush then all the way down the line whether you're talking about having troops in Iraq with. You're talking about their support

for Sharon or or anything else. That's the argument of the book indeed that's precisely the case that we put that heap in the fence he trapped himself in the logic from which he could not escape that I mean he spent 2002 telling the world that Saddam Hussein was too dangerous to be left in power and trying to destroy the rest of the major players internationally to come on board another kind of anti-Taliban coalition community through most of 2000. And to he bless all that he could actually deliver that coalition and indeed when UN resolution 441 was processed obviously the high point of that particular move but then as the coalition comes to pieces after Fourteen forty one after the rush to war is on. Tony Blair finds himself in an impossible position because he's told everybody that this man is too dangerous to be left alone and he cannot deliver a military coalition of any with to take him out and he has his own Rubicon moment he has to cross the line and when it's quite clear that he did

so with great reluctance but nonetheless he was by then trapped by his own public statements. It does all it does seem though that he was very much committed to this idea of multilateralism and was very uncomfortable as you argue in the book is very uncomfortable with the idea of the United States doing it alone and that if perhaps he felt that if no one else was going to be the United States and he was so committed to this idea that he figured well if no one else was going to be the United States the UK was going to be the United States. I think that's quite right. I think in the end the default value was that he felt that it would be terrific consequences for the international community if the U.S. were forced to stand alone. I think the U.S. was determined to go forward with or without the U.K. and with best they found with us a few moments ago whether there were voices cautioning against making the move from support to 9/11 after in the aftermath of 9/11 to support for the war in Iraq. And I should say there weren't just any old voices. There are millions of people in the street ordinary voices but in addition to that he lost two key members of his cabinet. And it doesn't do

that. He went against the advice of Michael Boyce the chief of defense staff going to set up public lectures and no doubt in private conversations with the prime minister urged against a slippery slope into Iraq arguing that that any alliance should have a tactical element to the conditionality that there should be clear red lines and one could imagine that the red lines were both geographic and scope. There were also. In terms of areas of British capacity to contribute for example nation building and they may well have been from what Michael Bush has said publicly they may well have included a strong caution against going forward without Security Council backing. So it remains a huge puzzle in the end why Blair was willing to go against his chief of defense staff go against senior members of his cabinet go against the vast majority of his electorate and a huge proportion of his Labor Party and essentially make himself a hostage to fortune. I mean it was Bush's war because only Tony Blair made it Blair's war. It wasn't the cabinet

in general or parliament or the man or woman on the street it was Tony Blair branding it as Blair as a war. We have as our guest in this part of focus. David coats and Joel Krieger David Coats is professor of Anglo-American studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Joel Krieger is professor of political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and together they are the author of the book Blair's war which tries to look at why it is that Tony Blair made this these series of decisions to back the United States and ultimately sand British troops into Iraq. This book is published by the policy press it's a British publisher and questions are welcome we do have one person standing by ready and others certainly are welcome to call here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 years of color in urban online one of them you know.

I wonder how do you deal with it. Do you know where how Tony Blair deal with the you know neo con rationale for empire building in the Middle East and I cite the Friedman affair your article in The Atlantic last summer and several subsequent letters. And this discussion. Well Professor grid one of you can you can both go or whoever wants to go first. Well Mike first of all that he doesn't deal with it very well it's all actuality is very uneasy with the labeling of this war as a Neo-Con war and he continues to insist in public has a very narrow more universalistic. Concerns are human rights being at the heart of it and what he's not a party to is a creation of any kind of new American empire but has its critics come to the point out to him that mere composition on Iraq is very clear even before Bush came in and it's strange to say the least that it was obvious to a lot of people that he was being drawn into a particular

way. He designed Ventura when he couldn't see it himself. I just like to add that one of the more prominent writers in the new American empire tradition Niall Ferguson cautioned that the British knew how to do Empire and the Americans didn't. That the British were willing to put their best and their brightest from Oxford and Cambridge for whole generations whole careers in the empire to manage it on the ground that he saw and this is before the war he thought the Americans might not have the taste or the willing the stick at it. I've now been reading the last few days in British press a number of commentaries which indicate that maybe the Harz of Abu Ghraib the reversals in Saluja in which the occupying forces don't seem to know quite how to quell the military insurrection and the Marines have withdrawn in favor of Baathists who show a high degree of uncertainty and perhaps a loss of confidence that that Abu Ghraib and may mark the end of

the early. That of a kind of imperial imagination about Iraq in any case if there's a chance of it now Ferguson was right that the US doesn't quite have a taste and it may be it's just a question at this point but it may be that as we look back on this period what's happened in the last couple of weeks of these horrific photos and video clips of Abu Ghraib combined with the fiasco and tragedy of a might just turn a majority of Americans and even policy elite against an American empire. Well certainly Mr. Blair is in the same position that Mr. Bush is in having to respond to the allegations that Iraqi prisoners were mistreated in Britain I think that maybe it's not quite THAT is the charges against Britain quite a serious but also there are some charges have been raised about people who actually were killed under perhaps questionable circumstances. Amnesty International has voiced some

concerns and also apparently the same. I'm not sure if it's the same report or a different report but anyway. The British government apparently had access to the report to report by the International Committee of the Red Cross some time ago talking about concerns about mistreatment of prisoners. And now Mr. Mr Blair is having to face the same kind of questions about will when did you know about this. And from parliament saying particular problems or when did you know about this and why did you not tell us why are we now finding out about it by reading about it in the newspaper. And no doubt that just makes things that much worse for him. Well in fact they've had their own picture crisis having to pitch in a pen these papers of British troops torturing detainees are probably torture in detail into detainees which of which now we begin to suspect were probably fabrications are part of the pressure on Tony Blair as he put it will but the two reports which you refer not becoming major items of news in the United Kingdom and it's clear

that the Red Cross report was in the hands of key British officials in late February but did not make its way through the machinery of government to the senior ministers until last week and people began to ask questions about why that in time lapse occurred. I would just have it. Possible that political space is opened up by this with the set of accusations which are really are one removed it's mainly about the behavior of U.S. contractors and forces and only secondarily about that of British forces. It's just possible that Blair now will look for an opportunity to distance himself from the most odious part of this war in Iraq and I think it's time for him to throw the dice and say he was political look changes. I think there are some diplomatic steps he could take that he's been reluctant to take for example through his full support behind Xerox appeal for an international conference on Iraq to throw its full support behind behind the Security Council resolution at the U.N. that would be more than window dressing but would really give

real authority to the United Nations for that transition in June 30th and then ultimately for holding the election by the end of January 2005. And that could be an opportunity for there could be a win win situation if Bush snubs him. It gives a player the chance to be an honest broker again between the U.S. and Europe. And if Bush concedes and there may be a sufficient crisis of confidence in Washington for him to actually be influenced by Blair in this case something good may come of it. And this also comes at the same time or at least recently when apparently there was some discussion between the United States and Britain about Britain actually sending more troops to take the place of the Spanish troops that. Are being pulled out as the promise of the of the new Spanish leader who was elected after the bombings in Spain who said before that look if you elect me I'm going to take the troops out and then he was elected and he said well I said that's what I'm going to do so that's what he's going to do so now they have a problem and I guess the United States was looking to Britain possibly to plug that hole by

putting in by putting in even more troops a decision which I would expect there in Britain would not would not be hot at all. It would have started I jealous fans know it would not be popular in the U.K. to be sure but I must say there's one story about it that's been emerging the last couple of weeks which has been all but overlooked which which would create an opportunity for much more than 3000 replacement troops for the Spanish troops leaving. And that is a number of public statements emerging from this mama conference. On April 26 in which Pakistan Malaysia and Indonesia said that they would be willing to consider an appeal from Washington to provide troops in Iraq provided that these troops genuinely operator in the offices of the U.N. We're talking about three predominantly Muslim countries that would have a huge effect on the TIMOCI of the operation. It would it would add actual muscle or actual you know manpower

personnel on the ground and it which it would increase legitimacy and shift the political terrain enormously. While I talk to the U.K. about a few thousand troops in a fire they know I mean there could be diplomatic quiet diplomatic maneuvers going on which I wouldn't know about but as far as the press reports go there. There's been no response from the U.S. government to this quite remarkable offer of assistance from Pakistan Malaysia and Indonesia. Sad that the on the on the Madrid side of this it does seem to me that the Bush administration is rather deaf to lots of these foreign appeals and to the force of the arguments being put by foreign leaders in the message to carry on from the new Spanish prime minister was that the Spanish people were very serious in their opposition to the war on terrorism they just didn't believe that the war in Iraq was making the war on terrorism any easier to fight and is not relationship in the right a war on terrorism the specific intervention in Iraq which the Bush people continue to cop together which Tony best found no way of actually separating but it but one

other thing consequence Blair finds himself in the same time limit British people very strong against the war on terrorism they just could see the invading Iraq and its mamma. I thought she made up will worsen in some sense British and American troops are dying to do bin Laden's work for him. I can't see myself Blair now so deep in finding an easy route out in that particular morass we have a couple callers. Let's talk with him in Urbana one number one. Hello. Yes good morning gentleman. There's going to be a turn to the right in the BBC since the Lord Hutton whitewash of the David Kelly case. And I'm wondering what you think about that. I also would like to ask you what you think the change between parliamentary and constituency Labor's specific gravity is in British politics and what a Robin Cook and Clare Short up to these days.

Thank you very much I'll let you go or leave Keshi would you go but can I just if I was part of the BBC's side for the report yes that PASOK or that also read from the internal inquiry that the BBC has initiated that report is. Make it very clear they disagree with profoundly in that their responsibility for the particular story lay right at the bottom with the journalist himself wondering from script. I said to Greg Dyke and Gavin Davis the director general of the chairman of the board of governors were Bryce's down down in a remarkable piece of double standards really because they were asked to resign from her as of a minor breach of trust but the British politicians in the Cabinet never felt they could let responsibility themselves. But nonetheless they did stand on it look for time as the BBC was losing its nerve an independent powerful force but their appointment of Michael Grey as the new chairman of the board of governors I think that the thing has turned back so I strongly suspect

that the BBC will emerge from this or let the side be so more independent a more rigorous in its journalism than it was before and we've had a little blip but I'm sure that blip is now over. I just say with regard to Robin Cook and Clare sure that they both have stood firm on matters of principle in opposing the government in the conduct of the war in Iraq and Clare Short in particular has been very outspoken a very forward looking. She has been trying to generate interest in the UK parliament and elsewhere in a report on the response. But it's to protect that was issued in December of 2001 lost in the aftermath of the horrors of 9/11 Commission by the Canadian government. But at the behest of Kofi Annan which sets forward a new and very sophisticated framework for looking at the criteria for humanitarian intervention the claim is that sovereignty as a kind of ultimate authority of a government over its people has to give way to a broader

responsibility to protect citizens from horrific human rights abuses ethnic cleansing and that sort of thing. And if the state does not assume those responsibilities of protect its citizens that that responsibility then devolve to the Security Council and the Security Council should act in a with a kind of maturity and in the permanent five with a kind of selflessness which they're not famous for that is that. The permanent members should support those interventions on humanitarian grounds not to Egypt. But again not for any financial reasons not for any power of great power politics but for pure humanitarian reasons so that the use of force should be contained within a revised and updated role for the Security Council and the UN system and its responsibility to protect not only sovereign states but more importantly citizens on the ground throughout the world. The Clash or it has been working very very hard to advance a positive alternative a new

framework to revitalize the debate in the UK for the alternative to march in lockstep with George Bush into war. Maybe you could respond to the other thing the caller asked and I guess I took it to mean that he was interested in having you talk a little bit about the difference between New Labor and Old Labor and how it is that perhaps some of that the traditional constituencies for Labor in Britain regard what has happened with the party during this time that Tony Blair. Has has been leading the party. Well that about to is an area where a set of paradoxes that work I think because in terms of internal politics there's no doubt it was implied in the question that the constituency base of the Labor Party was my first enthusiastic about the policy changes which Tony Blair introduced as New Labor to the point indeed at the last election though the number of employees that were to be turned was impressive there was a significant

drop off in the labor vote particularly in traditional areas and particularly among two additional labor supporters so that there is a kind of road rage agenda still left under the surface in the existing party personified I think in the leadership circle by the chance of the Exchequer Gordon Brown such that when Brown comes back in there's a real chance I think of a slightly more older style of politics internally and more radical for that. Reason But in terms of foreign policy where the whole drive of New Labor was to turn itself into a moral force globally in the lation of foreign policy Tony Blair turned out to be much more old Labor than he realizes he's much more a Lantis much more prone to the blow to the Imperial touch much more. And for playing the Churchillian role like I can't see unease in the ranks of the Labor party on both fronts they are needy about his radicalism in relation to the mastic policy of a uneasy about his conservatism in relation to foreign policy and the cumulative effect of that is to create the present situation where there is a king quite desperate need to recognise widely through the party for Tony Blair

not to go. I just had a case in point that the same week that Blair was facing the report of the Hutton Inquiry which one of the callers referred to he was also facing on the domestic front a monumentally significant education reform bill which would have introduced to it in fees not quite but but heading toward an American style of university fees that would leave a graduate owing something like $60000. And. And bearing in mind that the prime minister has a notional majority of 161 seats. It's nothing short of astonishing that he was able to squeak through a victory by only five votes in the House of Commons. So there is a crossover effect between his diminished regard in the foreign affairs arena and his diminished ability to introduce important pieces of his domestic legislation. I mean think of what happened yesterday yesterday Blatter and the New Labor

governing party launched their electoral campaign for the terribly important June European Parliament elections. But I was also holding a press conference with the Chinese prime minister. But he wasn't able to change the channel. Nevertheless the question never the less the questions at the news conference with the Chinese prime minister were about Abu Ghraib and they were about the British role in the treatment of detainees and about Iraq. So in many ways it is a hostage to events and its domestic agenda and the reputation of New Labor and his personal legacy are controlled by events in Iraq. Let's talk with some of the callers. We have someone in Charleston line Ford. Hello yes I hope what I'm about to ask is germane to Mr. Blair and all the problems of today. It occurs to me that the. History and the genealogy

of Empire is still very much with us in this new day. The British were great at it the Romans were all right. The Greeks and back to the Spartans and rest of those folk there in Western Europe that this thing is just continuous now although it appears since the British have a lesser empire there now attach themselves as a parasite on to the US to participate in the spoils of empire. And then George Bush's command from God that he go and cleanse cultures you know of the some of the Arabic cultures of the oldest of the oldest in the world and somehow this guy thinks that God has ordered him to go and claims those cultures. And of course the spoils of empire will come right along with that. And then the whole of humanity is supposed to stand aside and

somehow think that this is better. I suppose you folks could ask any American Indian about empire and what response you would get to that when they. We're forbidden to practice their old cultural norms and to do the things that they had done long before while whites were still living in hollow trees and such in Europe. But nevertheless it appears to me that nothing is changed that only the intensity and the almost psychotic venue now with atomic weapons to back up the now western empire building which they're developing those weapons now. And I am just interested to know what you might think of the historical continuity of empire and all the things that go with that. Thank you very much.

Well. Either both of you would like to see it fall off nailing on the huge agenda just being released by a contributor. I just three preliminary thoughts very briefly and the first one is there is a irony in the five of the last imperial power of the bottle rises in Baghdad with the British themselves I mean 1020 the sort of scenarios are being played out not played out against British troops alone and there is a sense in which if the British politicians do their own imperial history better they parts would have hesitated slightly more before they plunged into Iraq again. The second thought is this I think the left in Britain has often been a liberal imperialist it's seen itself as playing a global role but for the right reasons in its own terms. Kind of Woodrow Wilson sort of refutes the world and one could moralizing and I do think that's been a dimension of the Blair role here. Just cherry picking an issue on which quote to do good and then being sucked into a bigger project that he could not control. And thirdly and finally I do I do share with the person you're running in this

unease with the religious dimension which George Bush brings to this whole affair and I would have thought for most Europeans the vocabulary and the confidence and the frames of thought of the religious right in the United States are terrifying. And I'm sure blather as a religious mind self will not be easy with the particular formulations that emerge from President Bush. Well let's go and go to. Bannock all of this be Lie number one. Yeah I'd like to ask two questions one is. Are there companies like Halliburton in the UK that could have benefited from the Iraqi war and in conjunction with that is there any evidence that UK was set up to share on the spoils of war as the last caller said then. Another question is that recently I heard Greg Palast in an interview and he was ticking

off a lot of stories that he could print in Britain but couldn't in the United States. One for example was a lot of the things that General Garner had to say about elections in Iraq and and also giving up the oil wells in Iraq. And so my second question would be what new stories are hot in Britain that Blair has to contend with that are unknown in the US. So first Halliburton and UK kind of thing and and then stories that might be known in Britain not here I don't know. I'd have been happy to briefly take up the first imagine while we were writing this book that lots of friends and colleagues offered advice and one of them was to follow the trail that the caller invites us to consider whether there are companies like Halliburton. The closest entry in the field in the UK would be British Petroleum which obviously has interests in the Middle East

and Iraq has very close ties with the Labor Party at the level of the leadership of the party in the leadership of the corporation. We know it in the book that their questions have been raised about the role of risk petroleum but we found no evidence to suggest there was anything like the Halliburton kind of connection or benefit flowing to British Petroleum. We did not. It does not appear that this was a campaign on the British side that was driven by any direct financial or corporate interest so far as we can see how that will be all that. Question I would say that the two medias in that I decide that logic a totally different when you watch the BBC and then you watch the main news channels in the United States you might believe you are actually living in entirely different worlds. So on a very regular basis in the United Kingdom the whole issue of Palestine was happening to the Palestinians and the intifada has a very very big news in the United Kingdom so the train

track issue is there a shift in what's going on in Iraq what's going to be in Israel and Palestine that all the time. And also I think secondly that those people arguing against the war have a much larger constituency in a much greater presence on a daily basis in the United Kingdom so it just is not so self-evident. But the the cliches and the footwork that cover what was happening and going badly wrong here can be delivered so easily by the politicians in the United Kingdom. I think the the the information base of people have their disposal on the political culture of criticism and so did. Front to actually bear lives in a very different political world to the other George Bush will go out again to another caller this is also someone in Urbana line too. Hello. Yeah hi. I agree with the previous previous caller that they commented that Britain is to a large degree you know seize seize power you know kind of rising in the U.S.

grabbing power and is just following us just so they don't they don't get left behind. I think the you know as some some people say the Atlantic really is widening and you know the old us versus them with with us being NATO and let it alliance that's. You know that's that's fading into history. And you know things are going to look different in the future. And so you know I think Britain just like a lot of other people are asking or should ask or are asking questions like you know you know suppose a supposed George Bush were to get reelected this year what what will he do if he has four more years. What what will George Bush do in the next four years what. You know what what what kind of shape will the will the world take and in particular what you know what kind of shape will we will the U.S. try to you know put put on to the world. And I think that

you know there's a there's a very big possibility that certainly especially you know an administration with with the definitely put a lot a lot of emphasis on you know religious ideas can very much possibly tend to mold the world or at least try to mold the world in whatever image it considers appropriate and that will probably very much not be a European image. And and Britain pretty much probably realizes that and just wants to make sure that it's in a good position. So anyway I just I just thought that was you know the big part of it. I can just listen to. You might have to say Well again you have comments and I know that guy joke aside and I say it's a very important question on a lot of people's minds both in the UK and in the US. I don't feel particularly optimistic but just for something different. Let me offer a

slightly more up an optimistic reading. Let's remember that one of the most important agenda items when Tony Blair came to office in 1997 was to rescue Europe for Britain that is to redress the problems caused by Thatcher's term and rather in techniques that can tell Europeans that Blair has been an enthusiastic for a common foreign and security policy for Europe helped galvanize the European role in Kosova and even throughout the war in Iraq in the aftermath He's worked with France and Germany to develop a more robust European military capability. I think so I think there's a possibility that a strong possibility even on an optimistic reading that Blair will look for an opportunity to mend fences with the European Union. Certainly it's a rational view for Britain to look at itself as a major player in Europe rather than as a second fiddle second tier associate special Anglo-American

relationship. That said a lot will hand on how much political capital Blair will put on the table and how much he has to do to advance support for the European constitution and to advance support for the euro within the U.K. if he can somehow get past those hurdles. I think Blair will be in a strong position to become one of the leaders of the European Union and to pursue a course that through the UK is very sensible and one that Blair hold dear to act as an honest broker an interlocutor between Britain and the side between United States and Europe that is they are. Britain is like it or not European. And it does have a starkly culturally a special relationship with United States. It could serve a pivotal role in narrowing the divide between Europe and the United States and I think Blair is just desperate to create two political space for him to pursue.

Haven't you figured if your time let me add that I just think one of the things that sometimes bedevils a conversation is the truth in these countries assaulting blocks talking about Britain the talk about America the British it all the time the trees all of 280 million a million Americans of that little George Bush's. My sense is that blood doesn't speak for the center left in United Kingdom anymore and there's a huge center left there's an enormous center left in the United States as well which is hidden and submerged most of the time when the Republicans are in the ascendancy and I think one of the tasks which New Labor in the on the new leadership will have to do is to try and reconnect with the Democratic left in the United States and that's a relationship that we need to consolidate very much if we can because a Democratic left Kennie's all the help they can get but I do go with the speaker if in fact the two continents are slipping apart and the New Labour's Tony with a foot in each It's going to be a very painful position and I think New Labor in the end will have to resettle itself as a major European player while keeping the strong links I hope the Democratic left in the United States. Bang the beginning it talk about the fact that certainly that Mr Blair early on

in making his arguments about why it is that we need to go into Iraq was very strong in the weapons of mass destruction and the threat that they pose to the United States and Britain as well in two other countries. And that he now is in the same difficult position of the Bush administration now that at least so far no weapons have been found of having to respond to the case that was made before the war. And you talked about the RAO over the report that was aired on the BBC in which the allegation was made that number 10 put pressure on the defense and intelligence community there in Britain to spin the report and just make it look just as threatening as they possibly could. So then the government could make the case for going into Iraq. Now there is an inquiry going on there that's being headed by a man named A butler Lord Butler who was a former cabinet secretary and has been heading an inquiry looking into the intelligence behind the decision to go to war. Sort of similar to what's been going on here in the United States is is that something that's

likely to become. A problem for Mr. Blair. I think the expectation is that it will be a very a Paik report when it comes as he's on satisfactory and it's why has the Hutton Inquiry report in the end was on the death of David Kelly leader inside as it had been put on this committee and they will no doubt come up with some suggestions for strengthening the intelligence community's relationship to various committees of the House of Commons and so on but it's not I think going to make be a major element in the craze and the minute trust is gone from Tony Blair and I and the figures on the lack of trust that have people have about a month so striking that I wouldn't think there's anything that he can do now. Firstly to re-establish the relationship he had with the electorate in 1997. Well there may be unfortunately we're at the point we have to finish when we have a minute or two left that gets us to the question of Mr Blair's future all along there have been people even people in his own party have been calling on him to step down. He says he intends to serve a

third term as prime minister but of course that's not up to him. What do you think's going to happen here now within the next year or so. And will he will he stand again. Is it possible that he might be persuaded by the party to step aside. I think that's got to be settled in the next few months to be honest I mean that on the predictions of the currently around the Labor majority would fall to about 24 on his leadership then the Tories might even slip into power if he remains leader of the Labor Party if those figures don't improve dramatically in the next few months I'm sure the pressure will be on him to step aside before the next election because again all the data suggest that if in fact Gordon Brown was to take the party leadership at this point Labor's majority that it would reduce would not reduce significantly and that would be a solid third term. I'm behind the scenes I'm sure there's lots and lots of pressure on him to find out how they can wait to withdrawal. I'm flat broke you know the bookies in the U.K. but take bets on with anything going to be an interesting to bet on whether Blatter will run for it would resign first.

If neither of them were time. Well I want to thank you both very much for giving us some of your time David coats. I don't have from Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Joel Krieger from Wellesley. I would thank you and again suggest people if you're interested in reading on this subject you can look for this book and I'm assuming it can be purchased here in the United States even though it's a British publisher. Yes you can find on the on the website. For example Blair's war is the title and the publisher is polity p o l i t y polity press and you can go to that publisher's website if you like and find out more about it. Which is w w w dot polity dot SEO dot uk.