Why the Bristles, Tony?

Why is the Blair government bristling so at the recent report concluding that UK's involvement in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorist attack?

It's true!

Does that necessarily mean that the people making that claim are saying that the UK (or any other country) should have kept out of it in the hope they would be left alone?

If so, then yes, the mindset is craven.

But I would suggest that the reason that the Iraqi invasion should not have been supported was not because some yahoos might start making threatening gestures, but because it was the wrong thing to do!

None of the justifications for the war have stood up to close scrutiny:

• Weapons of Mass Destruction? Not a scrap (Oh! they existed, once, but had already been decommissioned. I suspect, though, that it appealed to Hussein to be able to play poker)
• Hussein's links with Al Q'aedda? What links? His brand of nastiness was very firmly secular, and solely for the benefit of his good self!
• The liberation of a suppressed people from a hated tyrant? Maybe some truth here, but boy! Look at how the world was dealing with Iraq prior to invasion, and who suffered as a result? (hint: it wasn't the Baathists!). And look at what is happening now: a tyrant is gone, and the race is on to fill the vacuum (and BTW just think: Iraqis now have to deal with the equivalent of London bombings on a daily basis. With no infrastructure).

So, yes, the world is a more dangerous because of the actions of the coalition of the willing. The ironic thing is that the invasion had precious little to do with the 'War on Terror' anyway.