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(回答先: 戦後計画持たずにイラク開戦したのは致命的な誤り ― フーン英元国防相（英ガーディアン紙 英文） 投稿者 gataro 日時 2007 年 5 月 05 日 10:08:55)
英ガーディアン紙（5月2日付・電子版）は社説で、フーン氏が戦後計画を持たずにイラク開戦に踏み切ったことを認めながら、英政府の誤った開戦判断については不問にしていることを、「誤った告白」として次のように批判した。
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2070250,00.html
The wrong confession
Leader
Wednesday May 2, 2007
The Guardian
"It really is desirable that when a nation makes war upon another nation it should be quite clear why it does so. It should not keep changing the reasons as time goes on. There is, in fact, no correspondence whatsoever between the reasons given today and the reasons set out by the prime minister at the beginning. The reasons have changed all the time." These words could have been spoken about, or to, Tony Blair at any time in the last four years, such is their relevance to the decision to invade Iraq. But they were, in fact, uttered by Nye Bevan, the greatest parliamentary swordsman of his day, lashing into the government of Anthony Eden over the Suez crisis, in a speech reprinted by the Guardian tomorrow.
If Iraq was the biggest mistake of Mr Blair's premiership, it is also an enduring one. The oily patina covering the steel of his intent - to stick with Washington, come what may - continues to this day. Time has not dulled the urge of any present member of his government to slither around with words which disguise the truth about the unfolding catastrophe. Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary during the invasion, makes a series of candid admissions to the Guardian today. He admits that the decision to disband Iraq's army and to de-Ba'athify its civil service two months after the invasion unleashed a host of highly trained and angry people into the hands of the insurgency. It allowed Saddam Hussein's people to link up with al-Qaida and ultimately with Sunni insurgents. He says that attempts by members of the government to lobby their counterparts in Washington somehow missed the fact that it was the neoconservative vice-president, Dick Cheney, who pulled the strings (as if we did not know that at the time). And he concludes: "Maybe we were too optimistic about the idea of the streets being lined with cheering people."
Is this honesty, or yet another political counter-measure? Mr Hoon admits that the tactics were wrong, but continues to defend the strategy. He still feels that the decision to go to war was right, even though it was based on the wrong evidence, and challenged anyone "to go through what they went through" and come to a different conclusion. This is all of a piece with the non-apology Mr Blair gave in an exchange in October 2004, apologising for faulty pre-war intelligence - which he was careful not to take responsibility for - but sticking by every decision he had taken. Hillary Clinton uses a different formula, perhaps because she is seeking the presidency from opposition. Her decision to back the war, she says, is explained by the evidence she saw at the time.
Too many Iraqis are dying in Iraq to indulge in ritualistic demands for apologies. It is not apologies that Iraq needs, but a recognition of reality. The decision to oust Saddam was not one good judgment followed by a series of inadvertent errors but a series of bad judgments that has established a sectarian government, triggered a civil war, and threatened the break-up of the country and the stability of an entire region.
Unlike Mrs Clinton, Gordon Brown was in government when he voted for the war. To re-establish the bond of trust that has been broken over Iraq, any future government - be it led by Mr Brown or the pro-war David Cameron - has to come clean. Not so that Mr Blair can be prosecuted for war crimes but so that the mistakes are not repeated. Foreign policy has to be made rigorously, with all options and consequences properly considered. Cabinet has to discuss policy, not merely presentation, as it did on the eve of invasion, when the debate was largely about how to blame the French. And policy must pursue consistent objectives, not ones which change all the time. As a great parliamentarian said about Suez: "It will take us very many years to live down what we have done. It will take us many years to pay the price." No prizes for guessing who that was.
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