LONDON, July 6, (APP/AFP) – Tony Blair was one of Britain’s most successful prime ministers but his support for the 2003 war in Iraq has overshadowed his achievements in office and his subsequent career as
globe-trotting elder statesman.
The former Labour leader is expected to be severely criticised by the
official inquiry into Britain’s role in the conflict and subsequent occupation, which will finally be published on Wednesday after seven years.
Blair persuaded his cabinet and parliament, many of whom were strongly opposed, to back the US-led invasion on the basis of intelligence about Iraq’s biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.
The weapons were never found.
In his decade in office, during which he was elected thrice, Blair oversaw a period of prosperity, secured peace in Northern Ireland and hugely expanded gay rights.
But nine years after leaving Downing Street, he remains reviled by many of his countrymen for a conflict that most now consider misguided — and some see as a war crime.
His critics in parliament were already lining up against him ahead of the inquiry report, examining the possibility of legal action and even a
retrospective impeachment.
Last year, he apologised for the wrong intelligence and for some of the mistakes in planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam Hussein.
– Reinventing Labour –
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The current Labour leadership has broken with Blair’s pro-market policies, but there is no denying the transformation he had on a party that in 1983, when he was first elected to parliament, was in disarray.
Working closely with Gordon Brown, his future finance minister, Blair
ditched the party’s commitment to nationalisation of industry and rebranded it as the centrist “New Labour”.
In 1997 he was elected with a landslide, at 43 becoming Britain’s youngest premier since 1812, and ushered in a new era of hope and confidence for the nation after 18 years of Conservative governments.
The following year brought a peace deal in Northern Ireland, the British province devastated by three decades of violence between Protestant and Catholic communities.
With the economy booming, increases in spending on health and education helped secure another election win in 2001.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Blair was quick to ally Britain with US president George W. Bush.
London sent troops to Afghanistan, and in 2003, agreed to join the US-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
But a million people protested on the streets of London against the Iraq invasion, and when the evidence for the war proved flawed, wider
dissatisfaction set in.
Blair won the election in 2005, a record third term for a Labour premier, but any jubilation was short-lived.
On July 7, 2005, the day after London won the right to host the 2012
Olympic Games, four British suicide bombers attacked the capital’s public
transport system, killing 52 people.
Two years later Blair stood down, finally conceding defeat in a long and increasingly bitter power play with Brown, who insisted it was his turn to wear the crown.
– Diplomacy, philanthropy, consultancy –
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Blair has spent most of the last decade abroad, including eight years
working part-time as the unpaid envoy for the diplomatic Middle East Quartet, comprising the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia.
His remit was to support the Palestinian economy and institutions in
preparation for eventual statehood, but he stepped down last year after failing to produce a meaningful breakthrough.
The controversy over Iraq has not stopped him advocating military action elsewhere, urging Britain and its Western allies to commit ground forces in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Blair made a rare foray back into British politics to warn of the dangers of leaving the European Union in the June 23 referendum — an intervention that fell on deaf ears.
A committed Christian who converted to Roman Catholicism after leaving office, Blair set up a foundation to support inter-faith dialogue and counter extremism, and has also worked with governments in developing nations in Africa.
Balancing out his philanthropic endeavours have been a number of lucrative advisory roles, including with the government of Kazakhstan.
His personal income reached tens millions of pounds, a fact that is also routinely held against him in the British press.