Advisers urged Tony Blair to rein in George W Bush over Iraq war ‘mission from God’
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A senior US official said the president needed a ‘dose of reality’ to deal with Iraqi insurgents, documents reveal. Tony Blair’s advisers privately questioned if the US had “proper political control” of military operations in Iraq after a senior US official confided that George W Bush believed he was on a “mission from God” against Iraqi insurgents, newly released documents reveal.
Blair needed to “deliver some difficult messages” to the then US president for a “more measured approach” in April 2004, following a US military operation to suppress a major uprising in the city of Falluja, according to papers released to the National Archives in Kew, west London.
In a surprisingly candid conversation, recorded in a document marked “please protect very carefully”, Richard “Rich” Armitage, then US deputy secretary of state, told Sir David Manning, then UK ambassador, that Bush had needed a “dose of reality” after demanding US forces “kick ass” in Falluja, where US troops were engaged in a bloody battle with Iraqi militants after four private military contractors were ambushed and killed.
Armitage appealed to Blair to use his influence in a forthcoming visit to Washington on 16 April to urge Bush to deal with Falluja “as part of a carefully judged political process”. The US had launched Operation Vigilant Resolve in Falluja after the mutilated bodies of the US contractors were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River less than one year after the May 2003 overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
