(18 Jun 2007)
1. Wide of Commons Liaison Committee meeting
2. Question from member of parliament and committee member UPSOUND (English): "Wasn't it your burden that you've carried us into a war knowing that there had been no effective preparation?"
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:
"It is so comforting to people to say: 'There was an error made in the planning; someone didn't spot what was going to go on.' And you can have this argument about de-Baathification, the disbandment of the army and I'm happy to go through that with you. But, in reality, even if you'd taken different decisions on those things, that is not what has created the problem. What has created the problem is that the people we're fighting have decided to give us a problem. What they have decided is, that if they can hang on long enough, in Iraq or in Afghanistan or anywhere else then we will lose the will and that's their argument, that's what they are doing."
4. Question from member of parliament and committee member, Edward Leigh UPSOUND (English):"In the dark watches of the night, is there never this regret, do these thousands of people who've now died as a result of your decision, do they never come back to haunt you? Or are you just completely filled with self belief?"
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:
"It's not as simple as that, is it? Of course I accept a deep and profound responsibility for what has happened and anybody who's ever sent people into action, particularly when our troops are killed and doesn't feel the weight of that responsibility is not a human being and I am a human being. But I also say to you that we had an example when we didn't intervene in Bosnia, 250-thousand people died, in the end we had to intervene. And when we intervene, and I've done it four times now, in Kosovo, in Sierra Leone, in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think the question that also has to be asked, is supposing in this modern world where we are linked together, we don't intervene? That's why I favour intervening in Darfur now. If we don't end up in a situation where we take action, then look at Rwanda, where how many, two, three million people died? And the fact is Edward, in the end, when we do intervene and we give people a proper democratic process, please don't believe this that the ordinary Arab doesn't want democracy or freedom when we do. It's just rubbish. Of course they want it. What country has ever chosen not to be a democracy? It's just nonsense. It's what oppressive people do to justify their oppression. They say: 'democracy and freedom are Western values.' That's rubbish, they're universal values of the human spirit and they always will be."
6. Wide of committee hearing
STORYLINE:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his policies in Iraq and Afghanistan on Monday as he entered his last full week in office.
He told members of a Commons Liaison Committee hearing that the root of the current crisis in Iraq wasn't decisions he had made in the past, "what has created the problem is that the people we're fighting have decided to give us a problem," he said.
"What they have decided is, that if they can hang on long enough, in Iraq or in Afghanistan or anywhere else then we will lose the will and that's their argument," he added.
Blair also said he accepted "a deep and profound sense of responsibility for what has happened," in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But, he asked the committee, "supposing in this modern world where we are linked together, we don't intervene?"
"That's why I favour intervening in Darfur now," he said.
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3 окт 2024
