{"id":214548,"date":"2016-01-07T14:54:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=214548"},"modified":"2016-01-07T14:54:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:54:45","slug":"gaddafi-accused-blair-supporting-al-qaeda-unseen-phone-transcripts-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/gaddafi-accused-blair-supporting-al-qaeda-unseen-phone-transcripts-reveal\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaddafi accused Blair of \u2018supporting Al-Qaeda,\u2019 unseen phone transcripts reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Transcripts of two phone calls between Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi reveal the Libyan dictator forced the former prime minister to confirm he did not support Al-Qaeda, as civil war engulfed the North African state.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Thursday, the ex-PM submitted a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/documents\/commons-committees\/foreign-affairs\/09TBandGaddafiCallTranscript-1115-1145.pdf\">transcript<\/a>\u00a0of the calls he made to Gaddafi on February 25, 2011, to MPs as part of their investigation into the UK\u2019s policy on Libya.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing MPs in Parliament, Blair insisted he contacted Gaddafi as a \u201c<em>concerned private citizen<\/em>,\u201d and confirmed he cleared the phone calls with Prime Minister David Cameron and the US State Department.<\/p>\n<h3>Blair accused of supporting Al-Qaeda<\/h3>\n<p>Blair appears to have been pressured to respond to a number of allegations during the phone calls, including claims he supported Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>People spreading rumors through the TV stations. Those people are from Guantanamo, we know them by name, they support Al-Qaeda \u2014 do you support Al-Qaeda?<\/em>\u201d Gaddafi asked Blair.<\/p>\n<p>Blair, who drove the thaw in relations between the West and Gaddafi, replied: \u201c<em>No, absolutely not.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xvykS22fsXc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">Gaddafi then accused the ex-PM of attempting to recolonize Libya.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>It seems this is colonization, I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blair insisted: \u201c<em>No one wants to recolonize Libya.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Let me be clear, no one wants to recolonize Libya \u2014 Libya is for its people<\/em>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018Get to a safe place\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>During the conversation, the ex-PM urged Gaddafi to get to a \u201c<em>safe place<\/em>\u201d in order to promote a peace process in Libya.<\/p>\n<p>The transcripts show Blair was attempting to convince Gaddafi to allow a peaceful resolution to the crisis engulfing Libya and avoid a protracted civil war.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The position of the leader is crucial, if he indicates that he wants this to occur now, and that he will stand aside and go somewhere safe I think this will resolve this peacefully<\/em>,\u201d Blair told Gaddafi, referring to him in the third person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>He needs to signal acceptance of that change and he needs to stand aside to let that happen peacefully<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018We have no problem\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>However, the deposed Libyan leader repeatedly refused to leave the country and insisted there was not much fighting going on in Libya.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>We have no problem, just leave us alone<\/em>,\u201d the Libyan leader told Blair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>We are not fighting them, they are attacking us<\/em>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I want to tell you the truth. It is not a difficult situation at all. The story is simply this: an organization has laid down sleeping cells in North Africa. Called the Al-Qaeda Organization in North Africa &#8230; The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9\/11<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He then warned Blair that jihadists would attack Europe if his regime was allowed to collapse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>They [jihadists] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blair has since been accused of trying to protect Gaddafi when he warned him to flee Libya.<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018I was not trying to save Gaddafi\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking during a Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the UK\u2019s policy in Libya, the ex-PM said: \u201c<em>It\u2019s been presented as if I was trying to save Gaddafi. I wasn\u2019t trying to \u2018save Gaddafi<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>My concern was not for his safety, it was to get him out of this situation<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the uprising, in which Gaddafi was killed, the relationship between the West and Libya came under heavy criticism in the wake of numerous commercial deals.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/25z4ExkGiqw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Libya remains in the grip of civil war with many areas controlled by Islamic extremists linked to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL).<\/p>\n<p>Crispin Blunt MP, chair of the Committee, said: \u201c<em>The transcripts supplied by Mr Blair provide a new insight into the private views of Colonel Gaddafi as his dictatorship began to crumble around him<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The failure to follow Mr Blair\u2019s calls to \u2018keep the lines open\u2019 and for these early conversations to initiate any peaceful compromise continue to reverberate<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Blair\u2019s business interests tripled in profits<\/h3>\n<p>The transcripts were made public a day after accounts published for Blair\u2019s business, Windrush Ventures Ltd, reveal his company saw its turnover increase by a third to \u00a319.4 million in 2015, while profits tripled to \u00a32.6 million.<\/p>\n<p>Staff working for the firm have received an average pay increase of more than \u00a330,000, according to the Mail Online.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Blair\u2019s office said in a statement: \u201c<em>As we stress every year, the financial results released today do not present the overall profits of either of the Windrush or Firerush businesses<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Via\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/328173-gaddafi-blair-transcripts-libya\/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transcripts of two phone calls between Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi reveal the Libyan dictator forced the former prime minister to confirm he did not support Al-Qaeda, as civil war engulfed the North African state. On Thursday, the ex-PM submitted a transcript\u00a0of the calls he made to Gaddafi on February 25, 2011, to MPs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}