The dark side of the Iraq inquiry

Benedict, it will be a whitewash, not for the reasons you give, but because the ‘judgment’ has already been written because the set up allowed no forensic brains to be doing the interrogation.

It’s the same on this side of the Atlantic, I still think their mentally deranged to think that way.

The criticism is pointing the wrong way.

Blair is many things but not a war criminal. The war was legal. Saddam was in breach of countless infringements of the UN ceasefire.

Saddam was a murderous megalomaniac and something approaching a democratic Iraq is good not bad for the region.

The issue is Blairs immoral treatment of parliament and the disingenuous public reasons he gave for the war and his treatment of the army and the way they have been overstretched. Being incompetent is not illegal.

What is not coming out in the enquiry is that the British army was defeated in Basra – not least because there were too few of them and the govt gave no leadership or indication that it was prepared to bare the cost of winning. The army need to be criticised for its operations but some of that resulted from the straitjacket the govt put them in.

Between 650,000 and one million Iraqis dead, Brogan, and all you’re talking about is whether there is an anti-Semitic undercurrent in the thinking of those who wish to see justice. It won’t wash.

What Tony Blair did was not morally wrong, according to Cicero’s definition of morality, because he genuinely believed that his decision to invade Iraq was right. He is not a mass murderer. He is guilty of monumental misjudgement and criminal negligence because he did not first satisfy himself that there was an effective post-invasion strategy in place. It is not only the lives of British servicemen and women and those of the tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of innocent Iraqi citizens’ lives subsequently lost that have to be weighed in the balance. More than two million Iraqis were driven from their homes and a million or so displaced by post-invasion violence that the Coalition was powerless to prevent. A vile tyranny has been replaced by a repressive theocracy to which a nation’s women are in subjugation.

Mr Blair still believes that he did the right thing and will not be afraid to meet his Maker. The chance will be a fine thing.

“The army need to be criticised for its operations but some of that resulted from the straitjacket the govt put them in.”

One would have thought that after the McNamara experiment debacle, the politicos would get out of the nuts and bolts issues on military campaigns,but nooo, they simply added PC to the mix.

“Sir John Chilcot was just ten minutes in to the first public session of the Iraq Inquiry when he told the first big lie – and a lie which, when examined, exposes the entire charade.

“My colleagues and I come to this inquiry with an open mind.”

That is demonstrably untrue. Three of the five members – Rod Lyne, Martin Gilbert and Lawrence Freedman – are prominent proponents of the Iraq war. By contrast, nobody on the committee was in public against the invasion of Iraq. How can it be fine to pack the committee with supporters of the invasion, when anyone against the invasion was excluded?”

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/iraq_inquiry_th.html

Pointing to the anti-Semitic opinions of a few may well be your last hope at defending this disgraceful escapade, Brogan, but as I said, it won’t wash.

If there is a profitable, world dominating Jewish conspiracy, then the cheques must be still be in the post for most Jews who are unaware that they were so powerful, and potentially rich.

Really. When will this nonsense of a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ stop? The contest of ideas and outcomes is as old as…

Hang on a second. I can’t finish the sentence because it might ignite another conspiracy. I’m Protestant, btw, so I’m not saying this for any personal gain.

Facts. Figures. The contest of ideas. The rest is scaremonering.

“Sir Lawrence Freedman

Lawrence Freedman is the most appalling choice of all. The patron saint of “Justified” wars of aggression, and exponent of “Wars of Choice” and “Humanitarian Intervention”. He is 100% parti pris.

Here is part of his evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution on 18 January 2006:

The basic idea here is that our armed forces prepared for what we might call wars of necessity, that the country was under an existential threat so if you did not respond to that threat then in some very basic way our vital interests, our way of life, would be threatened, and when you are looking at certain such situations, these are great national occasions. The difficulty we are now facing with wars of choice is that these are discretionary and the government is weighing a number of factors against each other. I mentioned Sierra Leone but Rwanda passed us by, which many people would think was an occasion when it would have been worth getting involved. There was Sudan and a lot of things have been said about Darfur but not much has happened…

…Iraq was a very unusual situation where it was not an ongoing conflict. If we had waited things would not have been that much different in two or three months’ time and so, instead of responding either to aggression by somebody else, as with the Falklands, or to developing humanitarian distress, as in the Balkans, we decided that security considerations for the future demanded immediate action.”

An open mind? Really?”

I am wholly unsurprised that Nick Cohen and Benedict Brogan are not Fern Britton viewers, but even so. Blair has now admitted the whole thing. On television.

Opposition to this war was supposed to have been “anti-Semitic” at the time, although heaven knows how or why. Any threat to Israel would have depended on the existence of WMD, an existence believed neither by ninety per cent of the population nor, as everyone but Cohen could tell and as everyone but Cohen now knows from the horse’s mouth, by Tony Blair.

But they have exhausted everything else. They have exhausted everything else on Afghanistan, so they are back to 9/11, a wholly unconnected event. And they have exhausted everything else on Iraq, so they are back to accusing that war’s totally vindicated opponents of being anti-Semitic for never having supported the deaths of, as even Kelvin Mackenzie baldly stated it on Question Time, one million Semites.

Another Semite, Nick Cohen, is so much better than this. As is Benedict Brogan. Is this the pre-emptive strike against those of us waiting to react accordingly if there is another whitewash? I think it is.

This is a smokescreen: throwing up a “Jewish conspiracy” conspiracy in order to clear Blair is a classic move.

Blair and Campbell (and Brown) lied in order to get the war started. I guess you could throw Mandy and Millies 1 & 2 under the bus, but that’s a side issue.

“Sir John Chilcot

Member of the Butler Inquiry which whitewashed the fabrication of evidence of Iraqi WMD. The fact is that, beyond doubt, the FCO and SIS knew there were no Iraqi WMD. In the early 1990’s I had headed the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, tasked with monitoring and preventing Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement. In 2002 I was on a course for newly appointed Ambassadors alongside Bill Patey, who was Head of the FCO Department dealing with Iraq. Bill is a fellow Dundee University graduate and is one of the witnesses before the Iraq Inquiry this morning. I suggested to him that the stories we were spreading about Iraqi WMD could not be true. He laughed and said “Of course not Craig, it’s bollocks”. I had too many other conversations to mention over the next few months, with FCO colleagues who knew the WMD scare to be false.

Yet Chilcot was party to a Butler Inquiry conclusion that the Iraqi WMD scare was an “Honest mistake”. That a man involved on a notorious whitewash is assuring us that this will not be one, is bullshit.

Bill Patey (or “Sir William”, as they call him) is a witness before the committee this morning. Doubtless between Sir John and he, they will manage to steer round the fact he knew there were no WMD.

Funny thing is that, just as with Sir Michael Wood and his view on the legality of torture intelligence, Bill Patey is also an extremely nice man. When you unleash the evil of aggressive war, the corruption of your own body politic is one of the consequences.”

Is this a crude attempt to head off the whitewash accusation by accusing those who make the claim of being anti-semitic? Clever -but not clever enough. The enquiry looks like being a whitewash whether there are jewish members of the panel or not.

The British Establishment conived with Blair to invade Iraq -there were hardly any resignations but much muttering-most of those involved will continue to conceal their tacit complicity by finding no fault with the process which led to war.

We all know the truth without waiting for the findings of Chilcot.

Bush had decided to go to war. he wasn’t interetsed in WMDs Blair agreed to suppport him whatever happened but wanted to use the UN to cover his actions and find some WMDs to prove his case.

Realising that his plan had no support from the British electorate, Blair used Intelligence reports to justify the case for war. In doing this he had the reports manipulated and stretched to the limit to strengthen his case to Parliament.

In doing this he compromised the inependence of the Intelligence Service by bending its work for political reasons.

The Cabinet were an ignorant irrelevance and in any case easily fooled-Blair ran the country like a despot on a sofa -no notes were made of his private deliberations with trusted accolytes.He did as he pleased. The Tories under IDS behaved like simple minded fools.

Blair took the country to war on a false premise. The Labour party and Parliament as a whole were fooled and spooked into consent by the fear of rockets landing in Cyprus in 45 minute.

The war was a complete disaster for the US, the Iraqis, British prestige in the Middle East,

Bombs still explode and kill people in Iraq nearly every day.

The attack on Iraq was the stupidest British Foreugn Policy decison in almost a century-less justifiable in terms of British interests than even the Suez operation and less well planned.

One consequence will probably be that we will never again see British forces used in a foreign intervention of this kind.

Blair;s behaviour is probably the greatest abuse of power by a British Prime Minister on record -he remains totally unchallenged for effectively subverting the British unwritten Constitution for his own ends.

Misleading Parliament used to be the greatest offence a British politician could comit -now nobody gives a damn.

The spectacle of the British establishment ducking and weaving squirming and bending to avoid the obvious conclusions reached by the British Public should be enough to all reasonable people of the total institutional corruption and rotteness of the British political establishment

.It is simply not fit for purpose.

Nothing but a thoroughroot and branch purge and massive reform will make it clean again. As things are our hoplessely outdated Constitution and system of Governnment is incapable of resisting the will of a demagogue determined to have his own way and willing to exploit every weakness in the system for his own ends.

We ought to earn the reals lessons of Iraq but thelikelihood is that nothing at all will happen.

Well, we know that even the slightest criticism of Israel will bring shrieking accusations of antisemitism, but I’ve never heard this particularly preposterous canard used to libel those who opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq.

With the epic horror of this crime against humanity already long known, and the sheer scale of duplicity involved to bring it about further exposed on a daily basis, it would appear that the warmongers are increasingly desperate to cover up their catastrophic moral and intellectual failure by any means necessary.

If the Iraqus broke UN rules then it was up to the UN to pass that judgement of war.Israel has broken umpteen UN rules; illegal ownership of Nukes is one.
UK gave Saddam the mustard gas. Did she not break the UN Rules?

I was prepared to give Blair the benefit of the doubt on the evidence that was too sensitive. However, on reading what the evidence was, it was not enough to go to war.

We should remember that Blair had learn from previous mistakes e.g. the break up of Yugoslavia, where the EU was prepared to let genocide return to this continent after what happened in World War 2, the same with the intervention in Sierra Leone. This gave him the confidence that he was right and therefore was willing to ‘mis-judge’ the evidence, even when it was so obliviously to matching his reading of the situation.

Coupled with an American president who wanted revenge on Saddam for trying to assassinate his dad or confused Iraq for Iran.

There will not be a straight cut decision either way and it will end in a fudge. This will add to the discrediting of the current politician class for the next ten years or more. Unfortunately, there will be bigger problems for them to be dealing with that this enquiry. I am sure we will have to get use to seeing Tony swanning around doing his bit for some such other good cause and think wasn’t he the person who……

beaton on Jan 17th, 2010 at 10:33 pm

Superbly put.

One more time:

There is no ‘jewish conspiracy’. Realpolitik and dimwit apparatchiks of any political persuasion should justify their actions without hiding behind a religious skirt.

Adding to what has been said above, but not repeating unnecessarily, Bliar promised Bush he was onside, so he had to deliver.

Campbell was his instrument of detail for delivery, allowing Bliar to distance himself. Campbell knows the skinny, and is staying mum.

The real knowledge was conveniently disposed of, and I doubt that there is innocence in the ‘Establishment’, and the main players know this, notwithstanding the Hutton ‘conclusion’. Given his remit, his report was partially written off Whitehall.

Campbell was really desperate about Kelly. Why, and why so gloating when the known ‘conclusion’ was delivered. He had the studios pre-set up.

Logic tells me that there is a lot more to the story which we will never be allowed to know. Bliar was the front but the detail was handled by others (and a conductor) and still being aided and abetted by those still in office and a lot to hide, never mind the blood spilled by withholding funds.

The statement by Chilcott is a blind, he is tainted and should have recused himself, but as he had shown himself willing and a known quantity was drafted in. And, as an additional red herring, or is it herrings, two Jews are added to the mix just because they are. The conspiracy is not so much the make up, but those with known views and the format and lack of experts in extracting the truth and/or exposing the gaps, flaws, inconsistencies and falsehoods.

This is almost a friendly fireside chat, non threatening. This will never disclose the facts nor the truth.

This new revelation about Straw warning Blair of an Iraq invasion’s illegality was brought about by the pressure of the Chilcot inquiry and it being public. And it in no way absolves Straw from his own complicity, considering how he and Powell tried to sell our war crime war to the UN and public anyway.

The snakes are turning on each other … finally.

And criticizing our very powerful Israel lobbies in the US and UK for their possibly decisive support of our strategically DISASTROUS invasion and occupation of Iraq is in no way “anti-Semitic.” They are being questioned over their political actions, not their race or religion … which may be a motive for them but not for us legitimate critics.

And it should be remembered that especially in the States there are a number of very fanatical Christian members of the Israel lobby, like John McCain and Joe Lieberman’s buddy “Rev.” John Hagee, as well.

Wrongfully trying to bring race/religion into such a profound political issue as the criminality of the Iraq war is itself the worst kind of racism.

Do Brogan and Telegraph (and an election-desperate Conservative Party?) really want to cultivate your Israel lobby’s friendliness and to attack well-justified Iraq war critics so heinously?

Lou Coatney, http://LCoat.tripod.com (Free/educational 1st Alamein lunch-hour boardgame)

Thank you Mr Brogan, it is quite a shock to read such a sensible article from the Guardian, my thanks.

There is hope for common sense and logic after all.

Thank you Mr Brogan, it is quite a shock to read such a sensible article from the Guardian, my thanks.

There is hope for common sense and logic after all.

A whitewash of the whitewash and the enquiry has barely started! Is this a first?

If one were to point out that Israel’s not-so-clandestine nuclear weapons programme has developed around 200 warheads, which it denies the very existence, of and therefore refuses to sign non-proliferation treaties, such a statement would, of course, be deemed anti-Semitic by the likes of Brogan and Ratbiter.

And for what it’s worth, Brogan (in case you think I’m some seething Jew-hater), I find it equally reprehensible when someone tries to defend against legitimate criticism of Islam by deploying the term ‘Islamophobia’.

Brian Tomkinson on Jan 18th, 2010 at 9:40 am

“A whitewash of the whitewash and the enquiry has barely started! Is this a first?”

Yes, or a pre-emptive strike aimed at stifling debate. Really quite foul.

There are less than 0.1% of British population of Jewish religion/ethnic group.
Why is there 40% of Inquiry Jewish?

Is it a fact that Tony Blair met Lord Levy at Israeli Embassy in 1994 at a party hosted by Gideon Meir an Israeli diplomat/
What was discussed?

Is it a fact that Lord levy effectively assisted the funding of New Labour Party until Blair stepped down?

Who was the New Labour General Secretary in 2003? Was it David Treisman?

If there were weapons of mass destruction in 2003 what country were they aimed at?

Were British soldiers used for a Zionist strategy?

Did Mossad kill Kelly?

Of course it doesnt matter who is on the Inquiry.
We already know the result.

It will be the Greatest Story Ever Told but a complete pack of lies to rival the unprovoked attack occupation and genocide of “the land of milk and honey”

The Iraq Inquiry prophecised .

LEVITICUS 13.13
“He shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague, it is turned white, he is clean”

Early stoneage example of a whitewash.