Cook: 'Blair admitted to me that
Saddam had no usable WMD'

Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook in the London Telegraph via Eschaton:

Mr Cook continues: "There were two distinct elements to this exchange that sent me away deeply troubled. The first was that the timetable to war was plainly not driven by the progress of the UN weapons inspections. Tony made no attempt to pretend that what Hans Blix [the chief UN weapons inspector] might report would make any difference to the countdown to invasion.

"The second troubling element to our conversation was that Tony did not try to argue me out of the view that Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction that were designed for strategic use against city populations and capable of being delivered with reliability over long distances."

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Here's what I wrote in Eschaton comments:

I think I've read Noam Chomsky speculating that Thatcher, Major, and Blair have all taken on a strategy of being US junior partner--that is, if the UK is no longer the world power that it once was, it's better to be with the big guy than it is to be against him. Ideally, this junior/senior "partnership" allows the Brits to impose some kind of moderating influence over some of the more extreme US positions.

Unfortunately for Blair it doesn't really seem to have worked out that way. Neo-con radicalism has forced him to adhere to some really wacked out views. That is, I'm not very surprised about Cook's statements: I don't think that Blair ever really believed any of the bullshit that he and Bush were selling during the lead up to the war, but he was already locked into this junior partner approach and seemingly had no choice.

From that point of view it's kind of hard not to feel a bit sorry for him--he's smart enough to see that he's already screwed up big time. Bush, on the other hand, is so stupid that he probably hasn't figured it out yet.

And here's an appropriate song lyric from an appropriately British band:

Puppy dog leader sooner or later
We'll dig up your cellar and try you for murder

from Chumbawamba's "Jacob's Ladder"

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