Blair's war

I've been recommending a bunch of Frontlines recently, so here's another one:

Almost exactly a year ago, in early April of 2002, British Prime Minister Tony Blair traveled to Crawford, Texas, to meet with President Bush. Blair, who knew that Iraq had been at or near the top of the administration's agenda since Sept. 11, 2001, wanted to know Bush's true intentions toward Saddam Hussein.

"I was told by a Cabinet minister who is very close to Blair," Matthew D'Ancona, deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph, tells FRONTLINE, "that Blair looked Bush in the eyes and realized that America was going to war with Iraq, come what may...Blair came away from Crawford thinking at a very deep level about what he could do to ensure that this conflict did not do irreparable damage to the international community."

In "Blair's War," this Thursday, Apr. 03 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE tells the story of how and why the United States and Britain find themselves fighting a war in Iraq without the help of their most important allies, and the story of the man at the center of it all, Tony Blair, who risked everything in a failed effort to bridge the gap between the U.S. and the key players of Western Europe. Through interviews with insiders in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, and Washington, the report examines the failure of diplomacy in the months leading up to war and what that failure may cost, not only for Tony Blair but for the United States and the international order.

Maybe this will shed some light on why Tony has seemingly sacrificed his entire political career over the Iraq issue.