Posted 3:30 AM by Paul
Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word


A fascinating rationalization for the decision to go to war in Iraq has emerged over the weekend. Politicians we are assured were misled by the intelligence services and the shrill cries of the newspapers to invade and occupy a chunk of the Middle East. This is rubbish.

In general, politicians decide on a course of action and organize the collection and dissemination of evidence to support their views and assist their pre-determined plans. Stalin refused to believe the thousands of intelligence reports that Germany was about to invade because he had based his entire thought system on the belief that Britain and Churchill were his greatest enemies. The clue to this phenomenon is in the job title. Blair is a politician not a scientist. When the evidence does not concur with his view he ignores it - or better still ridicules it. He is a master of the latter approach. He derided the view that Saddam did not have WOMDs as "palpably absurd". I believed him for a few minutes. He said it with such assertive vigour that it must be true. What none of us realized at the time is that not only did Saddam not have the capacity to drop anthrax on Tel Aviv but he didn't even have an army, an airforce or a navy. One small missile hit a shopping mall in Kuwait doing some minor damage to a display of Cartier watches. That was it. Palpably absurd indeed.

Perhaps Blair and his tight knit coterie thought that they were "doing the right thing" for Britain and that the deception was in everyone's best interest. FDR played a similar high stakes game in 1940 and 1941. Insisting that the USA would not be dragged into a European war whilst planning for and encouraging that eventuality. But that is not the line that is being spun this week. Some columnists are now seriously expecting us to believe that Blair and Bush were desperate for peace and only decided on war after flicking through the tabloids and scanning the intelligence reports over the bacon and eggs.

" George! I've just read the New York Post. Apparently Saddam has a fleet of micro-lights ready to cross the Atlantic at any moment to spray Poughkeepsie with Sarin. Quick we have to do something about it!"

"Sure thing Tony I just read your Sun and Eye-rak could drop an H-bomb on Cyprus within 45 minutes."

Frankly the whole thing is getting silly if not a little patronizing. Do they really think we are so very very stupid?

Of course it is easy to make mistakes and no one should forget that, despite their occasional claims to the contrary, politicians are human. The problem they have is that they seem to be genetically disposed to never admitting it. This is an unnatural response to real life as everyone makes huge mistakes in their life affecting themselves and others. If I had been a backbench Labour MP on that fateful day when the UK decided to play East Germany to Bush's Soviet Union, I would have definitely walked through the Government lobby. Why? Because in the end I would have thought that Tony knew something that lesser mortals like me could not be told and besides.. How could I face my constituents in the aftermath of a biological attack on South London if I had voted NO to war? And how would I be feeling now, 15 months, $100 billion, 20,00 deaths and a torture scandal later? Sick in my heart and soul. I would feel duped but I doubt if I would have responded publicly like the noble Democratic Senator from South Carolina Fritz Hollings, a man who voted for war, who recently said; "I was misled. I am embarrassed." I predict Sen. Hollings will be rewarded at the polls as erstwhile opponents flock to his standard for showing signs not just of penitence but of common humanity.

On an infinitesimally smaller scale I recanted a strongly held view about 8 years ago when I was a minor council politician in West London. We were redeveloping a small piece of land on the high street to create two more car-parking spaces and install a bust of the famous artist Hogarth who lived locally 200 years earlier. To do this we had to cut down a small tree and tear up some railings. The only problem is that this tiny patch of greenery was much loved by the locals who mounted a vociferous campaign to save the railings and the tree. I spent a month dismissing them in the local newspaper as "politically motivated" by the opposition Liberal Democrats who had their eye on my ward or " a bunch of middle class vegetarian eco warriors trying to stop progress" I then sat down and talked to the protestors and realized that they were right. At a function soon after I was approached by the famous artist Peter Blake (he did the cover of Sgt. Peppers) whose life had led the campaign. He was in a state of mild shock.

" Thank you Councillor Bower. I have never known a politician do that."

"What?"

"Admit that they were wrong"

Clearly waging war and deciding on if a country is going to unleash a biological Armageddon are not exactly analogous with tearing down some railings - but you get the picture. People like a bit of humility.

But in 2004 my ex-comrades in the Labour Party have more pressing matters. Two bye-elections are coming up in what will be the first test for Blair post Iraq and an old friend of mine who is now a Labour MP has been chosen to lead the campaign. This is a sign of how much he is trusted. In similar circumstances the Labour Leadership would have locked me in a broom cupboard for the duration. He will be responsible for unexpectedly keeping the seat for Labour in the face of falling poll ratings or putting brave face on defeat under the glare of the media spotlight. The candidate on these occasions is little more than a message delivery machine. He and his wife, who works as his office manager, are the kind of people who have built and maintained the Party over the last 100 years. Totally loyal and with the ability to understand ordinary people who do not share their tribal loyalties. They have worked tirelessly for years. Working for the defeat of the Conservatives when the rest of us were down the pub. I went out with them for dinner at a Turkish restaurant last week. They both reminded me that the often repeated maxim "Politicians are all the same" is not true. Some of them aren't like that. You couldn't help but admire them and wish them both well.

As we downed the last glasses of house wine, it occurred to me that the simple and most effective tactic was barred to him. He couldn't say

" Sorry we got it wrong. We'll try our best to make it better."

No doubt he will say " ordinary people are more interested in our record on jobs, schools and health care than whether or not WOMDs existed" and up to a point he would be right. However, when you have a leadership which is so closely identified with a failed policy, and caught out telling lies, the bond between the Leaders and the Led is broken. He could stand on the doorstep and say "Coal is black, milk is white" and some voters would look back and say.

" Yeh. Maybe. But you said that about Iraq."


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