News update:

Three years after he left office, the image makers are still working overtime on Tony Blair.

The former prime minister’s memoirs have been surrounded by the sort of spin, hype and control-freakery associated with an instalment of the Harry Potter series. Every detail of their launch has been planned in fine detail to maximise the book’s impact – and help burnish Mr Blair’s image.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/image-makers-have-planned-every-last-detail-of-tony-blair-book-launch-2054530.html

“I cannot help wondering just how revelatory ’A Journey’ is going to prove, especially on the crucial question of the invasion of Iraq” – I think you might just have to wait until Dick Cheney gets round to scribbling his memoirs, although this might be a clue?

“The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the Iraqi government is about to push through a law giving Western oil companies the right to exploit the country’s massive oil reserves. And Iraq’s oil reserves, the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/blood-and-oil-how-the-west-will-profit-from-iraqs-most-precious-commodity-431119.html

Back then Britain and the US denied that the war was fought for oil. On 18 March 2003, with the invasion imminent, Tony Blair proposed the House of Commons motion to back the war. “The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN”.

Perhaps Tony has elaborated further in his book about the non-existent trust fund, or the reasons why Iraq became the only major oil producer to hand over it’s most precious natural resource to American or British companies?

Just keep digging, Tony – the response from the families of servicemen (some who had relatives killed or maimed in Iraq) tell us a great deal about how your ‘legacy’ is perceived amongst certain sections of the general public.

A Journey to nowhere.

Beau Bo D’Or has made a quite brilliant mock-up of A Journey’s front cover here.

The thing is with Iraq oil reserves US firms have not been big winners. The firms who have gained the most are British, Russian, Chinese, Norwegian and Malaysian. The contracts are a fixed fee for every barrel of oil they produce beyond current level. Britain and China have the most lucrative contracts and the US are noticeably absent.

“Often such deals are not guided purely by commercial considerations.”

Don’t be so mealy-mouthed! Advances for books written by famous people in politics are a form of money-laundering, as are large sums paid to politicians for piss-poor newspaper columns.

I can save you all the time and expense of reading this clap trap.

Quick summary…..

‘ Hi I’m Tony, and I am brilliant.

and if you don’t like anything I did, I answer to a higher being than you.’

$7.5 million in advance to TB. Assume that syndication rights to international newspapers are included in that figure and that newspapers pay $2 million.

So TB is expected to sell books worth $55 million, assuming author commission of 10%. Or £35 million.

Assume that the hardback book sells for £20 retail and £12 at Tesco. Average that at £13. Assume that the publisher earns 40% net (ie after print and distribution). £5.20 per copy.

If you accept those numbers, TB has to sell about 6.7 million hardback copies in the English speaking world to earn his advance.

Charlieman

I doubt whether Random House are bothered about Blair earning out his advance. Publishers frequently make big profits on books that do not do so.

Big advances that have little hope of being earned out are simply a way of paying certain (usually celeb) authors more than the 10% going rate of royalties.

Besides, Blair’s book is priced at £25 in the UK. Also 50% of foreign rights are usually apportioned to the author and subsidiary rights to Blair’s book have, I believe, sold in a dozen overseas markets already.

Random House won the right to publish in an auction. The next highest bid was reportedly only £100,000 below the price RH paid, so the advance wasn’t massively out of line.

The fact that Random House’s UK chief exec happens to be married to Phillip Gould may or may not be hugely significant.
I’d guess NOT as the purchase also had to be signed off by Sonny Mehta of RH’s US subsidiary Knopf – who’s no fool.

Thatcher’s memoirs sold 500,000. John Major’s 200 000. It will be interesting to see how Blair’s do.

“Blair, a man who notoriously feels the hand of history on his shoulder” – and what a dead weight it must increasingly feel like?

This in today’s Gruniard;
We urge Waterstone’s to reconsider its decision to host a book-signing for Tony Blair to launch the publication of his memoirs. We believe this event will be deeply offensive to most people in Britain. A large majority of the British public say Mr Blair told lies and fabricated evidence to take Britain into a war with Iraq that he knew to be illegal under international law. According to a recent poll, 25% believe Mr Blair should be indicted for war crimes.
In April 2002, Mr Blair gave a secret commitment to George Bush that Britain would join the US in an attack on Iraq, as has been revealed by leaked documents and witness statements to the Iraq inquiry. He then deceived parliament and the country to achieve this. The consequences for the Iraqi people has been hundreds of thousands of killed, 4 million more driven from their homes and the destruction of their country. In Britain, this illegal war was a prime motivation for the perpetrators of the London bombing atrocities on 7 July 2005″.
signed: Iain Banks, AL Kennedy, Moazzem Begg, Andrew Burgin, Ben Griffin, Lindsey German, Dr Felicity Arbuthnot, Tanya Tier, John Pilger, Michael Nyman, Andrew Murray.

Is this man so insulated that he simply experiences no shame? – OR, will his scribblings prove such a tour de force that the proles will finally understand why we have been taken down such deadly and costly road?

@10 a&e

No, of course he has no shame. He still believes he was right, irrespective of the fact no WMD’s were found. Nor does he believe the war was illegal, and many perfectly reasonable people agree with him. It is perfectly possible to think, as I do, that the argument about whether the war was legal or not is a distraction. It was a huge mistake, yes. It was badly planned, badly executed and done for all the wrong reasons….but it wasn’t illegal.

The “proles” as you call them are unlikely to read the book in any numbers. It will be read mostly by those who have already made up their minds. Tony Blair may be many things. I hate so much of what he did, and his baleful legacy – but trying to label him a war criminal not only debases the term, it does little to enlighten the debate about why we went down such a deadly and costly road.

Demonising the man, and constructing grandiose conspiracy theories about him manipulating the whole political system, the media etc simply lets the broad swathe of people who agreed with the initial decision (including most of the public at the time) off the hook. Even Hans Blix it now transpired believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The decision to take us into the war was wrong headed yes, but it wasn’t illegal and continued repetition won’t make it so.

[11] thanks, G10 – I must admit I do not have enough knowledge to say if Iraq’s body count is better or worse as a result of the invasion, but since Blair was one of the war’s architects surely his name must factor in any final reckoning, irrespective of the legality (or otherwise) of the war effort?

Nobody disputes that Saddam was a nutter who did away with many thousands of his own countrymen (except gorgeous George, perhaps?), yet hundreds of thousands perished in the effort to rid Iraq of Saddam.

Of course the new regime soon surrendered it’s most valuable asset (oil) while to this day the mayhem continues – why only yesterday “a suicide bomber sat for hours Tuesday among hundreds of army recruits before detonating nail-packed explosives strapped to his body, killing 61 people and casting new doubt on the ability of Iraqi forces as U.S. troops head home”.
http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/baghdad-43839-kills-army.html

The war, if it was a victory, may well prove a Pyrrhic victory?
Now Tony has a unique insight into all of this, so a little bit of belated honesty about how we got there or where we are going might help the little people to understand his personal “journey”?

Will his account be characterised by honesty or yet more self-aggrandisement?

It always makes me smile when people dismiss the claim that the Iraq war was illegal.. I have heard people say there is no such thing.

These are the same people who argued in favour of the war because Saddam had (according to them) broken international law. You can’t make it up. Although Blair did.

As usual the victors write the history , and decide what is legal.

@13: “As usual the victors write the history , and decide what is legal.”

IMO we sould pay our respects to Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned from her position as Deputy Legal Adviser in the Foreign Office in protest at the decision to engage in the invasion of Iraq without the sanction of the UN Security Council:

“Elizabeth Wilmshurst CMG, fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House and Professor of International Law at University College London, is best known for her role as Deputy Legal Adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“She resigned on 20 March 2003, three days after Lord Goldsmith’s final advice to the British government reversed her legal opinion (in Lord Goldsmith’s first secret memo 10 days earlier) that the invasion was illegal without a second United Nations Security Council Resolution to SCR 678.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Wilmshurst

And our respects also go to Dr Brian Jones, who quietly blew up the credibility of Blair’s signed claims in the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD, published at a special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002.

In the Ministry of Defence, a branch of the Defence Intelligence Service was tasked to monitor and assess incoming intelligence on WMD. At the time of the Iraq invasion, Dr Brian Jones was head of this branch. A report in The London Times on 4 February 2004 relates to the doubts he had about the claims made in the government’s dossier published at a special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1011171.ece

This letter of 8 July 2003 from Dr Jones to the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence was submitted to the Hutton inquiry:
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/mod/mod_4_0011.pdf

The letter includes this passage:

“Your records will show that as [blanked out] and probably the most senior and experienced intelligence community official working on ‘WMD,’ I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessment for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002, that I was moved to write formally to your predecessor, Tony Crag, recording and explaining my reservations.”

In the discrete language of the civil service, Dr Jones disowned responsibility for the claims made in the government’s dossier.

George Orwell: Who controls the past controls the future, who control the present controls the past.

Phew, I agree with Bob B.

@13 sally

“It always makes me smile when people dismiss the claim that the Iraq war was illegal.. I have heard people say there is no such thing.”

I’m quite happy to accept that there is such a thing as an illegal war, just not that the decision to go to war in this case is an example. Stupid, wrong headed, based on unsound intelligence, mercilessly spun… yes indeed. But illegal…?

What makes ME smile Sally is the oh so right-on, uncritical assumption by many (perhaps most) people opposed to the war that it has been proven to be illegal, and is therefore morally equivalent to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait say…? I was opposed to the war from the start, could see it would be a nightmare due to the neo-con mentalists in control in the White House, and thought it was a distraction from something we could (and should) have got right… Afghanistan.

“These are the same people who argued in favour of the war because Saddam had (according to them) broken international law. You can’t make it up. Although Blair did.”

Saddam had broken international law, and repeatedly. Of course you can make the argument that we shouldn’t give a toss about such people, and leave them to their murderous ways: after all we have been all to happy to do so in many other places and times. It’s not much of a moral position tho is it? There wouldn’t seem to be too much point arguing about the niceties of international law, and the illegalities of invading Iraq, if you make it functionally impossible for the international community to take action.

“As usual the victors write the history , and decide what is legal.”

The fact that there is still a lively debate being had about whether the war was in fact legal kind of gives the lie to this doesn’t it? History may or may not decide that the war in Iraq was a victory.. I suspect there is still a lot of water to pass under bridges before a judgement can be made. Much the same could be said about the supposed “illegality” of the war: it’s a point of view, yes… but it’s not a fact.

@14 Bob & 15 S. Pill

All of the above represent interpretations by individuals of intelligence reports and legal advice. However well informed or senior the sources in both areas, they represent only one aspect of the information which was being received.

As I said above, I have no love for Blair and his works, and believe he probably did manipulate information to fit his belief that Saddam’s regime had WMD’s. Insisting that he “knew” Saddam had no WMD’s but actively engineered the war is another thing entirely however.

I thought he was wrong then, and believed (even if he was right about the WMD’s) that the decision to go to war at that particular time was wrong. 20/20 hindsight is easy of course, but even many closely involved people who opposed the decision to invade beleived that on balance Saddam DID have such weapons.

The real crime in my view is not that the decision to go to war was illegal, it is that it was wrong headed, ill-planned, had no exit strategy, harmed rather than strengthened our collective security, and fatally weakened the attempt to stabilise Afghanistan.

People are so hung up about trying to paint Blair as a war criminal or Moriarty like manipulator that they are missing the point that his culpability is more mundane.

@Galen10

To be fair, I’m not saying that the war definitely was illegal. There are a ridiculous amount of interpretations of UN resolution 1441 and we still don’t know what Blair and Bush’s ultimate reason for war was (weapons? regime change? oil? contracts? a place in heaven?) So I agree with you to some extent that it’s all opinion at the moment. but I don’t think it should just be ignored – there are huge questions still to be answered.

@18 S. Pill

Fair enough. The problem with UN resolutons is that they are often deliberately vague, as they are intended to cover a multitude of sins. I often wonder what would have happened if the invasion hadn’t taken place, and Saddam had proven either to have had WMD’s, or had subsequently developed them. I have little doubt that many of those so opposed to the war would STILL have opposed any action against the Iraqi regime, and many countries would have done their utmost to prevent any “new” resolution allowing military intervention.

The international system, headed by the UN, has proven singularly incapable of dealing either with rogue states, genocidal conflicts, or states which fail to abide by international agreements or the requirements of the UN charter.

Few people would shed many tears about the toppling of a regime as odious as Saddam’s, but “regime change” as a rationale doesn’t go down well in a “realist” international system.

I agree with you that the debate shouldn’t be ignored, and that there are questions: I just think they need to be kept in perspective, and that people shouldn’t take their eye off the main issue becuase they are hung up about the original decision.

[17] “People are so hung up about trying to paint Blair as a war criminal or Moriarty like manipulator that they are missing the point that his culpability is more mundane”.

Well the first time round, in the heat of the political moment so to speak, Blair might be forgiven for any error judgement concerning either the legality of war, or the pros/cons of our involvement in it.

But now, this excuse is no longer tenable – Tony has been on his ‘journey’ with a fair amount of time to reflect on what really happened, and perhaps crucially WHY it played out in the way that it did?

For example, was there covert pressure to pursue war, emanating from business interests in the States, perhaps?
PersonaIly, I do not think Blair will find it easy to atone for his role in this debacle (as the reaction from the families of our servicemen suggest) but the ‘journey’ does at least give him the opportunity to speak intelligently about a conflict which despite a public enquiry still raises so many questions in the public’s mind?

@17: “All of the above represent interpretations by individuals of intelligence reports and legal advice. However well informed or senior the sources in both areas, they represent only one aspect of the information which was being received.”

In this letter to the Guardian on 7 March 2003, almost a fortnight prior to the invasion of Iraq on 20 March and the beginning of hostilities, these eminent academic teachers of international law had no doubts about whether the war would be illegal or not:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,909275,00.html

In a keynote speech on foreign policy made to the Economic Club in Chicago in April 1999, Blair said: “If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html

Try also this article in The Times by Sir Kenneth Macdonald QC, previously Director of Public Prosecutions 2003-08 and subsequently visiting prof at the LSE:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article6955241.ece

“The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions and playing footsie on Sunday morning television does nothing to repair the damage. It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want, and on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible.”

In his law practice, Sir Kenneth Macdonald QC works out of Matrix Chambers, as does Cherie (Booth) Blair QC and Professor Philippe Sands QC, author of: Lawless World – Making and Breaking Global Rules (Penguin, 2006) – who was one of the eminent signatories of the Guardian letter on 7 March 2003.

“CRAWFORD, Texas — Paul O’Neill, President Bush’s Treasury secretary in the first two years of his presidency, says the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq long before the Sept. 11 attacks and used questionable intelligence to justify the war.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-11-oneill-iraq_x.htm

@21 Bob B

Interesting as all of the above might be, I’m not going to get drawn into a cut and paste duel: no doubt someone with more time on their hands could trawl the internet for posts supporting the opposite of yours.

None of the above represent a knock out blow or smoking gun, anymore than could be said of a similar list supporting the opposite view would.

@22: “Interesting as all of the above might be, I’m not going to get drawn into a cut and paste duel: no doubt someone with more time on their hands could trawl the internet for posts supporting the opposite of yours.”

Naturally, I’m duly impressed with anyone who posts that they will resolutely maintain their stated position regardless of the array of conflicting evidence and any rebutting argument.

Btw I was very active as a student debater half a century back – student union debates and the Observer Mace finalist etc – so I’m fairly familiar with the ploy which has it that there’s an argument which completely demolishes what you say if only I could recall what it is.

There are few lawyers of any public repute who maintain that the invasion of Iraq was lawful. The more usual plea is that Saddam Hussein was an evil despot – which he was – so the claimed justification of the invasion is that his removal was legitimate regardless of whether the UN Security Council approved or not. All those (bogus) claims about Iraq being able to use WMD within 45 minutes of a command from Saddam were deployed to demonstrate that Britain’s security was threatened so the invasion amounted to self-defence.

American administrations helped Saddam to become the despot of Iraq because he was able demonstrate his capacity to contain the endemic religious and ethnic tensions in the country by ruthless means, an important foreign policy consideration for America given the size of Iraq’s oil reserves. For those who knew the history of the Middle East, it was completely predictable that Saddam’s removal would unleash the inherent tensions in Iraq. The tragedy is that an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed as the result of the ensuing conflict and the slaughter continues.

Here’s a great photo of Rumsfeld, as a special envoy of President Reagan, meeting with President Saddam Hussein on 20 December 1983:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

By Gordon Brown’s estimate, the invasion of Iraq cost Britain £8 billions – which some of us think could have been better spent promoting manufacturing or financing vocational training opportunities.

@9 Flowerpower
Thanks for that.

And for this bit:
“Thatcher’s memoirs sold 500,000. John Major’s 200 000.”

That is an “ouch” for TB. His sales will be closer to Major than Thatcher. Were the sales figures international, with Thatcher selling loads in the USA?

How many did this one ship?
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/non-fiction/featured-review/speaking-for-myself-by-cherie-blair-$1223239.htm

I wonder if the kids on working on theirs?

I wonder if Blair’s memoires will cover how and why he lost 4 million votes between the elections in 1997 and 2005 as well as at least half the membership of the Labour Party.

@25. the a&e charge nurse: “I wonder if the kids on working on theirs?”

Naughty. The children of politicians or actors, whatever, deserve to be treated appropriately. Give them space to make their own choices.

Will Straw, son of Jack? He is an adult and has made adult choices. Thus it is fair for me to call him an idiot *now*.

Many people tend to blame all the loss of life in Iraq since March 2003 on Blair’s allegedly illegal invasion. It’s perhaps worth remembering that there were only about 6 actual combat fatalities among British troops taking part in the invasion of Iraq. After early May 2003, the occupation most certainly was legal – carried out under UN auspices under security council mandate. The bulk of the Iraq casualties, therefore, on both sides happened under conditions of unquestionable legality.

@23 Bob. B

If you’d come down from your high horse of half century old debating prowess, you might see that your cheap shot about ” the ploy which has it that there’s an argument which completely demolishes what you say if only I could recall what it is.” isn’t really warranted.

It’s a perfectly reasonable position to maintain that the war itself was legal. It may not be the majority or popular view, but it’s certainly defensible. Similarly, the fact that I have no interest in re-hashing arguments the pro and anti arguments on this thread isn’t proof positive that your chosen outlook is correct by default. Perhaps your debating skills actually amount to no more than a belief that what the majority of experts or pundits believe must be “the truth”?

As I said earlier in the thread, I disagreed with the decision to invade at the time, and am in violent agreement with you on some of the other points in your post. I don’t need any lessons from you about middle eastern history, or the role of the West in propping up nasty totalitarian regimes.

My more general point, which seems to have gotten rather lost in your righteous indignation at my failure to cut and paste reams of counter arguments, is that the debate about the legality of the war per se (however interesting and important) is a distraction from the culpability of Blair, his closest supporters and aides, other interest groups, and the majority of the great British public who supported the decision to go to war at the time, for the way the subsequent occupation was mishandled and the effects it has had on national and international security.