Editorial: Blair's dance of desperation

OPINION: Tony Blair should have listened to his grandmother, because if she was anything like mine, she would have given him some sage advice: If you are going to lie, you had better have a very good memory.

It appears the former British Prime Minister has tried the former but is stumbling on the latter. And as a result, Mr Blair's legacy will not be the only victim of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war; the truth will inevitably be lost with him.

In his statements to the inquiry, Mr Blair is, at best, economical with the truth, with some of his logic deliberately slanted to use the benefit of hindsight in an attempt to reconstruct a more righteous view of his thinking and decision-making.

American and British pursuit of war in Iraq initially was about weapons of mass destruction. Then it became Saddam Hussein's connections with al-Qaeda, which were roundly dismissed by others at the time, before the rationale became regime change and the spread of democracy and liberty.

Mr Blair has previously articulated all of them in defence of his position, but now we are expected to believe still that Saddam indeed posed a threat, if not now but at some point in the future. Even though subsequent investigations have confirmed what most people believed at the time: the intelligence was poor, inspections were working and there was no WMD programme.

Mr Blair tells us that Saddam used chemical weapons to kill millions of people but forgets to mention that the technology and many of the ingredients used came from the West.

Mr Blair says September 11 changed the attitude towards "rogue states", but cannot explain why Iraq became the focus of military action and not North Korea, Iran or the Saudis?

The families of the close-to 200 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq were no doubt hoping Mr Blair's testimony would shed some light on the reasoning behind their loved one's sacrifice. What they got was a desperate dance to save a place in history.

Americans, on the other hand, don't even get an invitation to the dance.

British casualties are dwarfed by the numbers lost in the American military, but former US President George W. Bush is not hauled before an inquiry to explain his decision-making or grilled about what went on behind closed doors at the White House.

It is illuminating to consider that the last time a US President was forced to answer for his actions in public, it was not over the prosecution of a costly war or the roll-back of civil rights, but to explain his role in a sordid extra-marital affair.

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