Straw: I tried to stop crazed warmonger

Thus the reporting of the Iraq Inquiry hearings ends, as it began, with distortion. The Evening Standard puts this headline on the former Foreign Secretary’s evidence:

Jack Straw: I told Tony Blair days before Iraq invasion not to send British troops

At least intelligent readers can work out for themselves that the headline does not reflect the report underneath it, which begins:

Jack Straw told today how he urged Tony Blair to consider keeping British soldiers out of the Iraq invasion just days before it was launched.

So he did not “tell” or “advise” Blair to keep out; he asked him to consider an alternative. He told the inquiry a year ago that he supported the decision to send British troops, and stands by it still.

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