Tony Blair

Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. He appears in this knowledge base for a narrow reason: he was the principal foreign figure in the American argument over the Iraq war. British intelligence claims published under his government were quoted by the Bush administration to American audiences; Blair addressed a joint meeting of Congress in support of the war and was voted a Congressional Gold Medal the same day; and the most detailed official reconstruction of how the war was decided — the UK’s Iraq Inquiry — is a British document about a joint Anglo-American decision. This page covers that. It is not a biography of his domestic record in Britain.

Basic Record

Blair was born on 6 May 1953 in Edinburgh, was elected Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983, became Labour leader in 1994 after the death of John Smith, and held office as prime minister from 1997 to 2007. He is styled Sir Tony Blair KG.

The Iraq Decision

The UK’s Iraq Inquiry, whose report was ordered printed by the House of Commons on 6 July 2016, is the authoritative record of how the British side of the decision was made, and it is unusually specific about the American side.

The Inquiry found that President Bush decided at the end of 2001 to pursue a policy of regime change in Iraq. On consistent legal advice, the UK could not share that objective, and set its own objective as the disarmament of Iraq under Security Council resolutions. At Crawford, Texas, on 5 and 6 April 2002, Blair offered Bush “a partnership in dealing urgently with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein”, proposing a strategy built on an ultimatum requiring Iraq to readmit weapons inspectors.

On 28 July 2002 Blair sent Bush a personal note that began: “I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties.” The Inquiry criticised the handling of that note — it was seen before it was sent only by officials in Downing Street, though it amounted to an extensive statement of the UK Government’s position to the President of the United States.

The US Congress passed its own authorization, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, on 16 October 2002. The Inquiry found that the timing of military action was “entirely driven by the US Administration”, that by early March 2003 Washington was not prepared to allow inspections to continue, and that diplomatic options had not at that point been exhausted: “Military action was therefore not a last resort.” Cabinet decided on 17 March 2003 to join the US-led invasion, and Parliament ratified the decision the following day.

The Dossier and the Sixteen Words

The Blair government published its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction on 24 September 2002. Among its claims was that Iraq had “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active nuclear programme that would require it.”

Four months later, in his State of the Union address of 28 January 2003, Bush told Congress: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The attribution to Britain rather than to American agencies is what later made the sentence a subject of American controversy, and it is the clearest single instance of Blair’s government supplying material used to make the case to an American audience.

The Iraq Inquiry’s assessment of the underlying intelligence was that there was no evidence Iraq had tried to acquire fissile material or the components needed to build a weapon, that there was no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaida, and that intelligence and assessments were used to prepare material supporting government statements “in a way which conveyed certainty without acknowledging the limitations of the intelligence.” The Inquiry recorded that Iraq’s programmes to develop and produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons were subsequently found to have been dismantled.

Address to Congress, 17 July 2003

On the afternoon of 17 July 2003, four months after the invasion, Blair addressed a joint meeting of the House and Senate. He was announced at 4:01 p.m. and withdrew at 4:42 p.m. That same day, Bush signed an Act of Congress awarding him a Congressional Gold Medal; the Act’s single finding was that Blair “has clearly demonstrated, during a very trying and historic time for our 2 countries, that he is a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States of America.”

The speech is the fullest statement of the case Blair made directly to Americans. He addressed the possibility that the weapons claims were wrong:

“If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive. But if our critics are wrong, if we are right … and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.”

He argued against the idea that democratic government was culturally specific — “ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit” — and against multipolar balancing, calling the theory that American power needed to be balanced by competitor powers “an anachronism to be discarded.” He closed by telling Congress, “We will be with you in this fight for liberty.”

At a joint press conference at the White House hours later, Bush described Blair as “a leader of conviction, of passion, of moral clarity, and eloquence” and “a true friend of the American people.” Those are Bush’s characterizations, recorded here as part of the record of how the alliance was presented.

After the Weapons Were Not Found

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings, the Inquiry concluded, “did not support past statements by the UK and US Governments, which had focused on Iraq’s current capabilities and an urgent and growing threat.” When Blair set out a revised justification in October 2004 — that although “the exact basis for action was not as we thought”, the invasion had still been justified — the Inquiry’s judgement was blunt: “The explanation for military action put forward by Mr Blair in October 2004 was not the one given before the conflict.”

What Is Not Established Here

The previous version of this page consisted of two sentences describing Blair’s premiership, three election victories, “significant domestic reforms” and involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no sources at all. The claim of three consecutive general election victories is very likely correct but was not confirmed against a record during this audit, and has been removed rather than restated on trust; the GOV.UK entry used here gives only “1997 to 2007”. “Significant domestic reforms” was removed as an unsourced evaluative characterization.

Also removed or never added, for want of a source fetched and read: any exact date for taking or leaving office; his majorities or vote shares; the “special relationship” framing as an asserted fact rather than a phrase used by participants; his relationship with Bill Clinton; the “45 minutes” claim, which does not appear in the Iraq Inquiry executive summary retrieved here; whether the Congressional Gold Medal authorized by Pub. L. 108-60 was ever struck or presented, which the statute does not establish; his post-2007 roles including the Quartet representative appointment and the Tony Blair Institute, because institute.global returned HTTP 429 and no primary record for those roles was obtained; and any account of British domestic politics, which is outside this site’s scope.

The Iraq Inquiry’s findings quoted above are the Inquiry’s, and its full report runs to twelve volumes; only the executive summary was retrieved and read for this page. Nothing here is an assertion by this project about Blair’s motives or good faith.