Humanity Stunned As Blair Accidentally Tells Truth

Shockingly enough, Tony Blair may have told the truth yesterday:

Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is there were no stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the [Iraq Survey Group] report also shows that sanctions weren't working.

Now, of course I'm not saying Blair told the truth on purpose. As far as I know, that hasn't happened since 1958. However, he did tell the truth by accident. Here's how:

Blair said the sanctions "weren't working." Now, given the official justifications for sanctions, that's obviously untrue. The sanctions were first imposed in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Officially speaking, they were retained after the Gulf War as part of UN Security Council Resolution 687 to give Iraq an incentive to comply with its disarmament obligations, or failing that to prevent Iraq from rearming itself.

From both perspectives, they were a complete success. Iraq did comply -- we now know they haven't had WMD since 1991 -- and was prevented from rearming. (In retrospect it's incredible the sanctions held up as long and as well as they did, given that they should have been lifted years ago.)

However, unofficially the US and UK never would have allowed the sanctions to be lifted as long as Saddam remained in power, whether or not he disarmed. (Actually, it wasn't even that unofficial -- both the Bush I and Clinton administrations said it straight out many times.) The hope was the sanctions would lead to Saddam's overthrow, or short of that, would demonstrate you couldn't defy the US and get away with it.

So from Blair's perspective, the sanctions "weren't working" because they hadn't led to Saddam's overthrow. Hence he told the truth without meaning to.