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10 Sep, 2011

Our legacy of 9/11 was a dictatorial and dysfunctional government – Andreas Whittam Smith, The Independent

Ten years after 9/11, it is time to establish how it was that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was able to take us to war on his own say-so. The answer, which couldn’t be foretold beforehand, was that Mr Blair would govern more like a president than a prime minister. Under British constitutional arrangements, there is nothing to stop a headstrong prime minister from doing that.

Talking to the Iraq Inquiry, Admiral Lord Boyce gave an insight into what was going on when he remarked that “half the Cabinet” did not think the country was even at war. “I suspect if I had asked half the Cabinet whether we were at war, they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. So there was a lack of political cohesion at the very top.” This is a revealing remark, because the reason why half the Cabinet didn’t know it was at war was that the Iraq engagement was being run exclusively by Downing Street.

via Andreas Whittam Smith: Our legacy of 9/11 was a dictatorial and dysfunctional government – Andreas Whittam Smith, Commentators – The Independent.