Brits Stunned By Tony Blair's US Peace Prize

LONDON (July 1) -- The announcement that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to receive the prestigious Liberty Medal for his "relentless" work in conflict resolution has been greeted with gasps of surprise in his homeland.

Many Brits regard Blair -- who stepped down as prime minister in 2007 -- as a deeply flawed figure, believing he exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to win support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A Daily Mail survey in January found that 80 percent of people thought he lied in the run-up to the war, and 70 percent said the subsequent war was illegal.

So the country was stunned to hear that the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia was handing their former leader the 2010 Liberty Medal. (Previous winners include Nelson Mandela, Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and U2 singer Bono.) David Eisner, the center's president, said that Blair was a worthy winner because of "his dedication to and his success in building understanding among nations and creating lasting solutions in areas of conflict."

Former President Clinton, chairman of the National Constitution Center, praised Blair for ending the 30-year-long conflict in Northern Ireland, and halting the "killing in and mass exodus from Kosovo" during his decade in No. 10 Downing Street.

Clinton, who will award the medal at a public ceremony on Sept. 13, added that since leaving office, Blair had also tirelessly worked to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as special envoy from the Quartet on the Middle East -- a group comprising the U.S., the United Nations, Russia and the European Union. "As a private citizen, Tony continues to demonstrate the same leadership, dedication and creativity in promoting economic opportunity in the Middle East and the resolution of conflicts rooted in religion around the world," Clinton said.

"It is an honor to receive the Liberty Medal," Blair said in a statement. "I am deeply indebted to the National Constitution Center for adding my name to such a distinguished list of recipients." The former British leader said he would split the $100,000 prize money between two of his charities: the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative.

Back in Britain, commentators fumed about the prize. "Blair's peace efforts in the Middle East presumably don't encompass his support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003," Richard Adams wrote in a post for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper. Will Heaven, a blogger with the right-leaning Daily Telegraph, noted that Blair lacked the qualities supposedly embodied by the medal, saying, "it would be difficult to equate justice and fairness with an invasion that promptly turned into a severely botched occupation."

Meanwhile the Stop The War Coalition -- which protested the 2003 invasion -- noted that the announcement was made on the same day that secret documents were released appearing to show Blair's annoyance at being told the coming conflict might be illegal. In one pre-war memo made public by the Chilcot Inquiry -- a government panel investigating why Britain joined the invasion, and why its forces were ill-prepared for the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein's overthrow -- Blair's legal adviser stated that U.N. resolution 1441, which Blair claimed as justification for the war, "does not authorise the use of military force."

In the margin of the memo, written less than two months before the invasion, Blair wrote, "I just don't understand this." At the top of the note, one of the prime minister's aides scribbled: "Specifically said we did not need further advice [on] this matter." The word "not" was underlined.