Blair, Bush & Iraq | 2. Up the Arse of the White House

The Fault Line: Dying for a Fight

Sony Music

Society & Culture, News, Documentary, Politics, True Crime

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did Bush and Blair get so close? We go back to the late 90s and hear how British Ambassador in Washington Christopher Meyer carried out Blair’s instruction to ‘get up the arse of the White House and stay there’. Meyer tries to find out what Bush’s position is on foreign policy and gets to know the influential group of conservatives advising him. They’re known as the neocons. Want the full story? Unlock all episodes of The Fault Line, ad-free, right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Just click ‘Subscribe’ on the top of The Fault Line show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. A Somethin' Else & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's 1997 and
0:07.0	1997 and Christopher Mayor is in Germany. He's a British diplomat,
0:12.0	newly installed as ambassador in Berlin.
0:14.4	So I was sitting there minding my own business on the banks of the Rhine,
0:17.8	smartening up my German, really starting really to enjoy the job and then the phone rings.
0:25.0	It was the permanent undersecretary in the foreign office on the line, with news.
0:30.0	We're moving you. We're moving you to Washington and you could have knocked me down with a feather.
0:36.2	Washington, it only just got to Germany and it had only been four months in the job.
0:41.4	And I remember saying to him something like, what? Are you
0:44.8	joking? And he said to me, you mean you don't want to go? And I said, oh no, no, no, no,
0:51.2	no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to say no to the United States.
0:55.0	And so Mayor goes back to London and waits for his new instructions.
1:02.0	And after a couple of days at home he gets called in by the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff.
1:08.0	He said to me basically what Tony wants is for you to get up the ass of the White House and stay there.
1:14.0	When mayor was posted to Washington, Bill Clinton was president and getting close to him,
1:19.4	no problem.
1:21.4	But an election was on the way which would present a new challenge.
1:26.0	There was a name floating on the wind on the Republican side and that was George W Bush
1:30.8	governor of Texas and we all knew bug her all about it. We had a clue.
1:37.0	I'm David Dimbleby and from something else this is the fault line, Bush, Blair, and Iraq.
1:44.4	Episode 2, the Prime Minister and the President.
1:48.7	How America and Britain joined forces to go to war in Iraq is a complicated story, not a straight road, more like a maze with all kinds of false turnings.
	...

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