The latest mind-numbingly silly cause celebre of the anti-war crowd is definitively laid to rest by Tony Blair: No Predetermination for Iraq War. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday the “Downing Street memos” paint a distorted picture, and he insisted that the Iraq war was not predetermined by the United States.

“People say the decision was already taken. The decision was not already taken,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

Blair added he was “a bit astonished” at the intensive U.S. media coverage about the leaked memos, which actually were leaked minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top government officials at his Downing Street office. ...

“The trouble with having a political discussion on the basis of things that are leaked is that they are always taken right out of context. Everything else is omitted from the discussion and you end up focusing on a specific document,” he said.

“It would be absolutely weird if, when the Iraq issue was on the agenda, you were not constantly raising issues, trying to work them out, get them in the right place,” he said.

Details of the memos appeared in British newspapers last month but the news in Britain quickly turned to the May 5 election that returned Blair to power. In the United States, however, the revelations raised criticism among opponents of the Bush administration.

“I am a bit astonished at how this has received such coverage in the U.S. because the fact is, after the memo was done, we went to the United Nations,” Blair said.

“What people forget about that memo is that that (it) occurred nine months before the conflict. ... So whatever issues there were, we resolved them ultimately by saying we have got to give it one last chance to work peacefully.”