In an interview timed to try and defuse the mounting attacks on Blair’s WMD lies coming from the Chilcot Inquiry the confused looking former PM rambled at length about his faith and why he decided it was fine to invade and occupy a sovereign state that posed no threat to Britain.

Bliar said his work in the Middle East made him think “I can’t really think we’d be better with him [Saddam] and his two sons still in charge”.

Of course the families of the hundred odd thousand civilians who have died since Blair’s illegal war started would possibly disagree.

Lt Gen Viggers said the operation had suffered from a lack of direction and a clear idea of what would be faced from the beginning.

“It was rather like going to the theatre and seeing one sort of play and realising you were watching a tragedy as the curtains came back,” he said.

Without naming individuals, he said he blamed those at the highest levels of government.

“I am not talking about the soldiers and commanders and civilians… who did a great job. But it’s the intellectual horsepower (sic) that drives these things [which] needs better co-ordination,” he said.

Blair, at the highest level of Government, perhaps could be excused amateur status since by the time of the Iraq crusade, sorry invasion, he had a taste for war. I guess Iraq was one war too far. Oops – no, that was Afghanistan, Iraq was two wars too far.

Interesting to note the Police response when summoned by a Bank of America rent-a-plod.

As the Guardian reports, Sir John Scarlett used his moment under the spotlight to insist that the controversial foreword to the ‘dodgy dossier’, written and signed by Blair, was “overtly political” and had nothing to do with the intelligence contained in the dossier itself.

At the same time it was leaked that the information on the controversial and untrue 45 minute allegation that formed so much of Blair’s argument for war was actually information based on the ramblings of a taxi driver.

Al Jazeera are reporting that Blair’s time may be up and he looks like he is showing the strain. After another day of carnage in Baghdad reflects the abject failure of Blair’s illegal war let’s hope he feels it a little more.

In a story that seems to have gone unreported largely in the Western media Hans Blix has made a damning statement on Bush and Blair’s Iraq war.

Blix, the former head of the UN weapons inspectors tasked with finding the non-existent WMDs, said that in his view the war on Iraq was illegal and that Blair and Bush had “misled themselves and then they misled the public” about the reason for the war.

He also revealed the bizzare fact that he has NOT been requested to attend as a witness in the ongoing Chilcot Whitewash, sorry Inquiry. If true this is completely unacceptable. Blix was the man on the ground in Iraq and while it’s nice to hear about the cosy meetings in Texas behind closed doors and the political machinations that led to the invasion, it remains a fact that the stated reason for invasion was that Saddam had WMDs. Blix’s team found nothing in the run-up to the invasion, nor were such weapons found afterwards which means if Chilcot is to be taken seriously he MUST call Blix.

Blix also stated that “They [Bush and Blair] eventually had so much military in the Gulf that they felt they had to invade”.

Not sure that is a legal basis to invade a sovereign state.

Cherie’s definition of comfortable is slightly removed from the real world. The Blairs’ property portfolio includes a £3.65 million terraced house in Connaught Square (with a £1.27 million ‘guest house’ behind), a £5.75 million mansion in Bucks and the famous ‘dodgy flats’ in Bristol worth a mere £500k.

She must be struggling as her husband only pockets a paltry £2 million a year from the bank JP Morgan and a trifling £500k annually from Zurich Financial Services. This in addition from his dull, self-obsessed speeches in which he has reportedly earned £5.3 million since being ousted. In addition his bargain-bin destined memoirs have also so far earned him £4.6 million.

Tony must be a real dynamo managing to hold down all these part time jobs as I would have thought trying to bring peace to the Middle East would be pretty much a full time job.

Still it’s nice to see he can take time out from his various crusades to pop over to Azerbaijan at the behest of an obscure Oligarch with business links to Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. He earned £100k for that little number, hardly worth getting out of bed for.

Of course these figures pale into insignificance when compared to the ‘really rich list’ which the Blairs long to be on. They are not in the same league as his paymaster Oligarch or the Rothschilds and it’s unlikely they ever will be which is possibly why Cherie worries so much about cash. Perhaps the poor lambs don’t end up seeing much of it after it has been channeled through Blair’s web of companies that is so deviously set up that the Guardian is running a competition to see if anyone can unravel them.

It’s a good job then that the taxpayer pays him a pension of £63,468 a year, as well as £84,000 to fund a private office.

Nice work if you can get it.

Shortly before his death Dr Kelly told a friend that “he wouldn’t be surprised if his body was found in the woods”. Not long later it was.

Dr Kelly was the source of the story that Tony Blair’s government had ‘sexed-up’ its dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction to justify illegaly invading Iraq.

As the Chilcot Inquiry has been told this week Bush and Blair fully intended to invade Iraq regardless of whether weapons were found or not.

We can only hope that this new line of inquiry sheds more light on Dr Kelly’s death and that perhaps one day those responsible for his death face justice.

The Mail gleefully reports on how Tony is being attacked on three fronts:
http://bit.ly/7MPVly

However the best news is that the Telegraph has obtained leaked docs showing the chaos and deceit in the UK Cabinet in the run up to Iraq. Tony apparently sent UK troops to battle in the desert equipped with 5 bullets each and skis!
http://bit.ly/4UmyYk

We can only hope the offensive continues this week when the Chilcot inquiry opens on Tuesday.

umm, yes.

Of course the smug one will no doubt say he was never interested in the job but Angela Merkel seemed to think he was and quietly torpedoed his bid.  It seems Tony’s Teflon shield doesn’t work against women….