Tony Blair's image repair discourse in response to the Iraq Inquiry Report: A critical analysis

Abstract

The present study aimed at analyzing the discursive image repair strategies employed by Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister (1997-2007), in the statement that he made on the 6th July, 2016 in response to Iraq Inquiry Report (IIR). The Iraq Inquiry was commissioned in June 2009 by the British government to examine the UK’s involvement in Iraq from 2001 to 2009. The Inquiry's findings have been severely critical of Tony Blair, whose reputation has been considerably damaged since it turned out that his case for going to war on Iraq in 2003 was based on flawed intelligence information. The analysis was carried out mainly within the framework of the theory of image repair discourse developed by Benoit (1995, 2015). Benoit's framework of image repair discourse consists of five general strategies: denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification (apology). The first three broad strategies comprise each a number of variants or sub-strategies. The analysis of Blair's (2016) statement focused on identifying the strategies employed in response to each of the criticisms presented in the IIR, examining the arguments made in each of these repair messages critically in terms of their (in)congruity with other instances of Blair's discourse in the same statement and/or established facts, and critically analyzing the linguistic constructs demonstrated in each of these messages. The analysis indicated that Blair employed (variants of) the following image repair strategies: apology, reducing offensiveness, evading responsibility, and denial. It was argued, generally speaking and based on certain features of these strategies, that they might not have been very effective in redeeming Blair's damaged reputation. One of his two apologies, lacked one of the two crucial elements of a valid political apology. The arguments involved in the other repair messages were mostly inconsistent with the established facts. The statement also demonstrated some instances of self-contradiction. Some of his arguments were based on hypothetical situations, which could potentially trigger more criticism.