Blair's Big Mistake

He was talking to the wrong guy:

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair was "tearing his hair out" over his inability to influence the Pentagon over postwar planning in Iraq, his former political secretary has claimed.

Lady (Sally) Morgan, in an interview with The Guardian said: "We could talk to the US State Department and to the President, but we had no leverage over the Defence Department, and he (Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary) had been given the power to make decisions," she said. "It was up to Bush to do the right thing and be in charge, but he was not. Sometimes he (Blair) was tearing his hair out."

Lady Morgan said George Bush was "straight to deal with", and many of the best meetings with him were when he and Mr Blair were one to one. She added: "That is why Tony went to Washington so much. The video conference was no substitute."

If only he had walked down the corridor to the VP's office, everything could have been different!