The Banality of Evil

The Big Lie in Britain was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But hardly anyone here has ever believed that, anyway.

Whereas rather a lot of people in America did and do believe The Big Lie there, that Saddam Hussein had links to "al-Qaeda", and was indeed behind the attacks of 11th September 2001.

That was Bush's only case for war, just as Blair's only case for war was that Iraqi WMD could be deployed against British targets with 45 minutes. Neither Bush nor Blair employed any other argument whatever.

Yet this now passes with almost no comment: not only was Bush's case untrue, but it was obtained by torturing a man specifically into saying it, in order to justify a war already decided upon.