Iraq war inquiry - lessons to be learnt
After six years, the deaths of 179 British military personnel and countless more Iraqis, the government has finally agreed to set up an inquiry into the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Yet before it has even held its first session, it faces the charge that it will be an establishment stitch-up held behind closed doors whose conclusions are timed to come out after the next general election.
The prime minister can reply that he has granted just what the Conservatives have spent years demanding - a private inquiry by the great and the good - just like the Franks Report into the Falklands War.
He deploys the vastly expensive and interminably long inquiry into Bloody Sunday to argue that public inquiries all too often focus on the defence of individuals rather than the search for truth or lessons to be learnt.
Ever so quietly, some in Whitehall add that the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly proves that no inquiry - however public - will ever satisfy some.
Nevertheless, today's announcement is already facing criticism from keen advocates of the conflict as well as from its bitterest opponents.
The Chilcott Inquiry is being presented as an examination by experts of the lessons to be learnt from the Iraq war. The men Gordon Brown has chosen are familiar with the complexities, the compromises and the uncertainties involved in British intelligence, diplomacy and military planning.
It will not be a naming of the allegedly "guilty men", nor an opportunity for a public airing of the political wounds opened by the Iraq war. Nor a healing process.
The reaction to today's announcement suggests that may never actually be possible.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~07~RS~)
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If I never hear the phrase 'Lessons to be learnt' again it will be too soon.
There are more than lessons that need to be learnt from this whole debacle and once again Gordon fails to provide what he promised some months ago. What a shame for those who lost loved ones.
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Yes Brown has really changed. He is now worse than a week ago.
What price loyalty you labour MPs. Can't wait to hear the spin the ministers put on this one.
Shame on you Brown - resign now!
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The Government denied an open enquiry before on the grounds that it would harm the interests of forces serving in Iraq at the time. On that basis, since they're not serving there any more, it should be open now we're out.
So it does look ever so much like an exercise designed to defer any possible responsibility until after anyone relevant has left office after an election, never mind the fact that the public who supposedly authorise governments in our name to look after wars and defence won't have a chance to influence or observe the inquiry.
The Government is acting without much honour. Again.
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What a complete waste of time - just who is Gordon Brown kidding, a private enquiry? Why not just save the money? What a sham.
I wonder what our unelected prime minister and his unelected first secretary of state will be doing by the time it reports. Perhaps when it does report, we won't be such a pathetic excuse for a democracy.
Consequently, isn't the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague supposed to investigate this sort of thing or can we only get Nick Robinson's 'guilty men' on expenses?
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When allied to the recent pronouncements about the need to protect Cabinet papers from the FoI, this announcement about the enquiry being held in private, has the whiff & bluster of the Establishment telling us that they know best.
This is not a plank in building confidence of the people in their leaders. The recent hollow ring of confidence in politics, both with a capital & small case initial, is rattled to the core.
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It doesn't sound like this is the inquiry that people are waiting for, whether it's public or private.
But history can judge, and historians will judge.
Keeping people off the hook for now does not mean they'll remain of it forever, if they ought not to.
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How many lessons does this dispicable govt need to learn?
How may lessons have they not learned? - well, this is one of them. Brown can ponificate till he draws his last breath, the problem for him and this outrageous govt is simple: WE SIMPLY DO NOT BELIEVE YOU OR ANYTHING YOU SAY...
...and this report will be more of the same.
Timing, as ever is impeccable. I can tell you in two seconds what needs to be learnt:
STOP TELLING LIES!
Simple as that!
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Since the Chilcot is going to be meeting in secret, there was no reason for the enquiry to be delayed until the troops left Iraq. Apart from a little matter of the timing of its conclusions, of course!
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Of course the inquest should be held in public - the government turned a deaf ear to the publics voice when it entered into the war: now it wishes to hide from the publics eyes.
Wrong on so many levels.
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There is only one lesson that can be learned and it does not take a long, secretive, divisive inquiry to learn it.
That lesson is simple. IF YOU HAVE TO LIE TO JUSTIFY WAR, THEN THE WAR IS NOT JUST!
This will be another expensive whitewash. I will only believe it is otherwise, when Blair has been arrested and charged with war-crimes for his blatant lies over the immediate need to rush to war in Spring 2003 to remove WMD (which Blair KNEW Saddam no longer had).
A full, open, public enquiry is needed to look specifically at WHAT PRECISELY the PM was told and when and what decisions where made under pressure from the white house.
Blair lied to Parliament and to the country to get us into an un-necessary and illegal war of conquest and hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed and millions displaced as a result.
Blair has a lot of blood on his hands and he should rot in prison.
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So the Inquiry will be limited, secret and won't report until after the next election.
Quelle surprise! (as our Gallic cousins would say.) Normal service has been resumed at Westminster.
What happened to the increased openness and changed style the Prime Minister promised only a week ago?
And the Government affect bewilderment that no-one any longer believes anything they say...
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Nick, your second paragraph sums up what many anticipated. The critical issues of why the WMD case for war was exagerated and then changed and who should be held accountable for this shameful episode will be airbrushed into history. These questions remain unanswered. Why take a year? A report dossier could be written by any student or picked off the internet right now. Surely any culpability really should be openly investigated and held to account? This is the way to restore trust and the only lessons worth learning.
Is your reference to the Conservatives wanting a private inquiry a mistake?
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Any inquiry into our part in this conflict is welcome. I hope it will provide answers to the reason for not waiting for the sanction of the United Nations before going ahead, although I fear we may never understand this.
It is to be hoped the removal and execution of Saddam Hussein has been of long term benefit the people of Iraq. Sometimes conflicts are entered into without an adequate understanding of a country's culture and its people. Those I know who have served in the British Army in Iraq have explained to me that their role was mainly facilitating and training the people of Iraq in the policing and protections of their own country and its new democratic system of government.
It is to be hoped the damage done to the irreplaceable archaeology of Iraq and the stolen artefacts from its museums can be repaired and restored, although I fear some of the damage done can never be repaired.
For me, it is an appalling thought that our nation has taken part in a conflict in the "cradle of civilisation." Iraq is a place with an ancient history and civilisation its people can be proud of and the rest of the world could learn from, once the country is able to recover from the horrors of war.
For the benefit of all of us, and especially Iraq, I hope the proposed inquiry can be as open and clear about the decision to enter into this conflict as possible
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Dear Nick,
Another reason to hold this white wash in private is that we will never here the real facts about that 'dodgy dossier'. Shame really.
Nu Labour, new ways to hide the truth.
Xxxx
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How can a totally non military, non political committee interpret military and political documents? Never mind cross examining military or political witnesses and understanding what they are saying, or not saying, as the case maybe. This is a typical Brown, "smoke and mirrors," job. Brown`s cynicism in delaying publication of the committee`s findings, for at least a year, is a clear admission by him that Labour will not be in power after the next General Election. He and the rest of the Cabinet, who collectively sanctioned this illegal war, will be long gone - together with their inflation proof pensions and golden handshakes. The committee`s report will, I suspect talk in very general terms, blaming no one for the most disasterous political and military mistake in modern history.
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Of course it's a stitch-up and an insult to the families of servicemen and women. It's a sham, all carefully contrived for a bunch of cronies to meet in secret behind closed doors and report after the next general election.
Whatever side you take on the rights or wrongs of the Iraq war, this announcement blows out of the water any pretence that Brown and New Labour have changed their spots and are set to usher in a new era of transparency and openness.
Let's not forget the still raw anguish of the families of brave servicemen and women whose loved ones were sent to a bloody war, ill-equipped and duped into the Iraq killing fields on the back of a pack of lies and deceit.
On a point of information wasn't the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly also branded a whitewash? Will the truth ever be known?
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/iraq-kept-in-dark-and-fed-on-shit.html
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The key difference between the Falklands and Iraq, are the political reasons and process that took us to war in Iraq.
The timing of this enquiry proves that Labour cynically wish to sweep their political failings under the carpet. They are clearly planning to obscure the facts, by framing the nature of the enquiry themselves before they are booted out of government and a different government sets up a fair enquiry.
The public marched on London to try and halt the invasion in the first place. We should do so again and demand an open enquiry.
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It's a bit like living in N Korea or Iran.
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Dear Nick
This is not about what the Conservatives have been asking for. They supported the war. This is about what the public wants - openness and transparency.
Peter Kenyon
http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/2009/06/iraq-war-ii-inquiry-will-it-be-open-and-wideranging.html
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A Public Enquiry is just that - Public. The Hutton Inquiry specifically edged-out the decisions on the lead-up to war in Iraq. This is more simply more Blairesque spin, so that Gordon Brown can proclaim that there has been an enquiry. A desparate stroke by an embattled PM.
Would there really be a problem in naming and shaming unless there were people in positions of power that had something to be ashamed of. I suspect a public enquiry is only offered these days where society has a more damaging view that the truth would provide.
Thankfully the majority don't need an enquiry, we are not as dim as politians would prefer.
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How desperately sad. Another nail in the coffin of honour. We are most dreadfully served. If democracy is the "rule of the people" then our elected representatives are signally out of the reach of meaningful and informed accountability. And they ask why fewer and fewer bother to exercise their right of suffrage. Honour ended in this country after the resignation of Lord Carrington nearly 30 years ago. The future looks bleak.
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An inquiry carried out in secret, no apportioning of blame and results not available until after the next election? A waste of time and money.It would be more credible if Brown had stuck with the "no inquiry because it would jeopardise security" excuse; this will be the same as other inquiries...Dr David Kelly's death, the dodgy dossier, Blair's lies to parliament.The outcome is always the same..nobody acted improperly, decisions were made on the basis of information provided to the PM, honestly thought to be correct at the time. Because of the cover-ups and spin, the inquiry will do more harm than good because people have already drawn their own conclusions. Blair took us into an illegal war, is responsible for thousands of Iraqi deaths and the lives of our soldiers....and got away with it. The only remedy is to consign his Nu Labour project to the dustbin of history.
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The real question is not whether there will be an inquiry, but how much of the information will be released to the public?
I would guess that anything controversial, such as Tony Blair endorsing the war to ingratiate himself with the Americans or endorsing the War to boost labours popularity, will be hidden behind the FOI act.
Heaven forbid that the general public find out that the war was illegal and the perpetrators were in fact war criminals.
It beggars belief why you would want to destabilise the middle east by creating a huge Shiite controlled, anti western belt of nations reaching from Afghanistan across to Syria.
On reflection, Iraq may have been better off as it was.
A point that I am sure many Iraqis would agree with.
Interestingly enough, Tony Blair has now positioned himself as the Quartet Envoy and is interfering in Israel and Palestine.
I am not a religious scholar, but the parallels to Revelations is a little frightening.
Thank god Obama is on the scene now though.
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18 Wee-Scamp wrote: It's a bit like living in N Korea or Iran.
Wee-Scamp as least they have the b***s in Iran to go on the streets and protest. What do we do?, sweet nothing. We roll over everytime this master of duplicity spins us a line - again and again.
I wonder if we could get Joanna Lumley on the case?
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To paraphrase Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon:
"There will be no whitewash at Whitehall!".....
I don't think!
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Lets hope in the near future we are invaded and democracy restored in this great country of ours.
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The Labour leader just can't help himself; when will he and his pathetic ministers' start learning that the days of spin are over, we want to see honesty being delivered by our Government not more broken promises.
The PM refers to the Franks enquiry, as a comparison, set up over 25 years ago, a different era looking at a totally different scenario. He knows that there is a huge difference yet still spins to the contrary, shameful.
His promise of openness to his parliamentary colleagues has not lasted long, as expected I suppose, this enquiry, probably promised by him whilst on the back foot, will not produce the outcome and honesty our Armed Forces in particular those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, deserve.
A public enquiry overseen by a Judge and not ex Civil Servants some of whom are associates of the former PM and his ministers, is what's needed to satisfy a very sceptical public, so bring it on Mr Brown.
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I'd have thought a public inquiry would have been a perfect way to head off all the accusations of haste, connivance, distortion of facts and US-pleasing sycophancy that have dogged our Iraq involvement
unless of course..
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With the Falklands, we were the invaded country and we were defending outselves
With Iraq, we were the invaders and the agresssors - and that needs proper and public explaination
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I hope this is not an attempt to win support because, as I've said before, the public will not be fooled by policies with a "due date" after the election.
Sorry to be cynical about this.
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Ref 26. At 7:30pm on 15 Jun 2009, newthink
Don't Worry ... I have that in hand.
Heh, heh, heh .. etc
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So much for open government. This is an absolute disgrace.
The public have paid for this war with their hard earned cash and in some cases with the blood of their families.
Only a public inquiry will do.
If there's a demonstration against this decision I am there.
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There is no point in this inquiry..all contentious issues will be brushed under the carpet.
Transparent Government from this Prime Minister is impossible..he simply incapable of allowing the truth and his Governments' errors to be exposed.
Perpetual shame upon them all.
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#24 Briangare.
Suggest a day and time and I'll meet you outside Parliament. A 2 man demo is a start.....
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Crikey - Even Invador-Zim is taking this one seriously.
Personally I propose to refuse to believe anything that comes out of this enquiry. I will assume that the private enquiry means that the Government is hiding information that is damaging to itself and is denying the families of the servicemen lost in the war the justice that they deserve. I invite all reasonable people of whatever political persuasion to do the same and let Mr Brown know our feelings.
If there was any semblance of honour in this dreadful Government we would have the public enquiry that the people deserve. The cost to the Country in our tax pounds and more importantly the lives lost demands that we should know what has been done in our name!
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24. At 7:21pm on 15 Jun 2009, briangare wrote: Wee-Scamp as least they have the b***s in Iran to go on the streets and protest.
I thought lots of people (and if reports are to believed it was close to a million) did That's what democracy is about, I guess: vote me in to represent you and I'll ignore what you want and vote the way my "boss" wants me to. When you know, personally, 1% of the people who died defending "our democracy" in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's bad. That was 2 years ago!
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I cannot, for the life of me, see the point of ANY enquiry, public or private - we know the truth already ...
1. Blair promised Bush we'd join in, regardless
2. a supporting "case" (around WMD) was then fabricated
3. the real objective was regime change
thus an Enquiry has only a binary outcome, both deeply unsatisfactory
either
... it agrees the above, and therefore a great deal of time and money is wasted on telling us what we already know
or
... it disagrees and hence is a whitewash, so (equally) a tremendous waste of time and money
let's drop it and move on
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No names, no pack drill.
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Utterly disgusting!
The rest of the world must hold us in low esteem now! The UK the country that tried to bomb Iraq into democracy , while having NONE itself.
I well remember that Blair statement , This is not about regime change , this is about WMDs capable of 45 minute deployment, said without a blush.
And now he swans about the world playing Messiah.
On a cheerier note , the Daily Mash .com has captured the Lbour angle perfectly!
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It's extremely unlikely that any enquiry will heal wounds, because the Iraq war was about the UK supporting the US in an unjustifiable war.
For those who aspire to moral Parliaments, no enquiry will change that.
The real question is: what is the point of an enquiry if it doesn't address really tough issue?
It costs money, but it addresses little.
If so, what is the point?
Well, that is perhaps the point for Mr Brown and Mr Cameron to address?
Eh????
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Archoptimist @ 22 wrote:
"An inquiry carried out in secret, no apportioning of blame and results not available until after the next election? A waste of time and money."
Couldn't be clearer! Obviously Peter Mandelson (the puppeteer) must think that the inhabitants of this lovely island are a bunch of idiots. Is there any way or anyone who could stop this inquiry even taking off or at least to produce the report by latest March 2010? If not Mandy's judgement of us islanders will be right.
Let's at least save the millions of pounds that will be spent for this inquiry only to line up the pockets of many more "friends".
And then just a wish: the presentation of the report by March may force the Deputy PM Gordon to call an election in the autumn :-)
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It's a bit unfair to say the Conservatives were in favour of the war. In fact, I was in favour at the time, but based purely on the statements made by the government in the Commons. I suspect that if we had known then that Blair and his cronies were lying through their teeth, it might have made a difference.
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Not the most radical of protests - but for anyone who is interested there is a petition on the No 10 site calling for a public enquiry (by 2010!). You have to be quick though it closes on the 19th July.
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Sagamix
Well put.
The only way this Inquiry would add anything would be if it showed that current members of the Cabinet / Government were just as gung-ho for war as St. Tony.
However we know that Cabinet minutes etc. are now so anodyne that they don't record who said what.
Therefore chance of the final report containing anything unexpected and / or damaging to the Government about 0.0001%.
Simples!
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Could not have put it better myself;
"an establishment white wash held behind closed doors timed not to interfere with Nu Labours re-election.
Tony Bliar is safe and can stick to his claim " I did the right thing"
A phrase very much in use by the present Government.
Maybe we should the save the money and wait for 50 years for the actual documents to be revealed - unless like TB's expenses the e-mails have been accidently shredded.
Oh for a real democracy - no chance.
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38. At 7:55pm on 15 Jun 2009, sagamix
Saga, I agree with you completely.
But wouldn't there be some sort of satisfaction from having the Enquiry, hand-picked by Brown, reinforcing what we already knew?
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24 Briangare
I like you idea of asking Joanna Lumley to head up a campaign and march on London in order to demand an open enquiry.
Maybe other people posting on this blog can signal in their posts if they would like to appeal to Joanna to take this issue on?
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While stitching up the hand of a 75 year old Devon farmer, who cut it
on a gate whilst working cattle, the rural doctor strikes up a
conversation. Eventually the topic gets around to Gordon Brown and his
appointment as Prime Minister.
"Well, you know" drawls the old farmer, "this Brown fellow is what
they call a fence-post tortoise."
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asks him what a fence-
post tortoise is.
The old farmer says "When you're driving along a country road and you
come across a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that's
called a fence-post tortoise."
The old farmer sees a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he
continues to explain, "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he
definitely doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do whilst
he is up there, and you just have to wonder what kind of idiot put him
up there in the first place."
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The proposed enquiry should commence BEFORE 2001 should it not?
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If there is one cause that will unite the country it is the demand for a public inquiry into how we were dragged into a war in Iraq on the false pretence of WMD's. There must be something we don't know that New Labour will stop at nothing to hide, even if it means certain death. No prizes for quessing what.
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Typically enough it will be in secret.
Just whitewash out:
Lies of Saddam and WMD and Davide Kelly's Death;
Lies of mismanagement of logistics and winning the peace
Lies of the policy to support torture
Lies of the support to criminal warlords
Oh and my favorite:
Lies surrounding the official narrative of 9/11 (WTC7 freefall, nanothermite found in the dust, destruction of ENRON files, DoD budgets, Lies surrounding the military response, anthrax attacks etc etc)
So the whole thing is just a waste of money. Who is going to believe a word!?
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Well there is a surprise
Sagamix says lets move on.
Might as well with this lot in power
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I beg to differ with most (well, probably all so far) of the contributors.
It took Hutton months to conduct his inquiry into the relatively limited issues surrounding Kelly's death, and even then when he concluded that the evidence indicated a clear 'not guilty' verdict he was accused of a whitewash. People were not interested in the evidence, unless it happened to support their preconceived notions; if it didn't, the evidence was assumed to be incomplete or just plain lies.
Imagine how long it would take to do a Hutton style inquiry on all the events over a seven or eight year period. It would probably still be ploughing on two or three elections into the future, and if it didn't come up with the answers that people 'know' are the right ones it would just be labelled as another whitewash. Of course, the lawyers would be delighted to be presented with such a gold mine; and the media would have a daily supply of lurid comment to fill their pages (while consistently misunderstanding, misconstruing, and misreporting the evidence in the consistent manner they managed to achieve with Hutton).
If what you want is a searching inquiry into what happened, what (if anything) went wrong, and a report in some sort of reasonable time that will be of some value in informing the future conduct of affairs then Chilcott is what you should be looking for. If you want a long drawn out public breast-beating that would still not satisfy those who think the Bliar scenario has any validity, then by all means go public. In ten years time even the conspiracy theorists might be bored with it, and complaining about the cost.
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I am not at all surprised by this and I can't imagine many others will be either.
It was always clear that any enquiry would not report until after the next election and also there was no way nulabour would allow this in public. Gordon has used the excuse of waiting until after troops pulled out to delay the matter so that the report won't come out until after the election. All very convenient!
How foolish all those labour MPS who were bought off with a few words last week must feel now.
Its bad old control freak Gordon again!
Perhaps Dave should say that if the Conservatives won the next election he would hold a full and open public enquiry chaired by someone who isn't a serial labour party enquiry participant.
It would cut Gordon off at the knees.
Carpe diem Dave, carpe diem.
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A Private Enquiry with results to be announced well after the next General Election = a whitewash in anybody's book. Brown went to great lengths to say that the enquiry would take in an unprecedented 8 years of the issue. Who really cares what length of historical time it covers? It's the depth of The Enquiry and the non apportioning of blame that the families of those who died are really concerned about. The old crusts who will be sitting on The Commitee are a motley collection of historians and biographers with no political or military background.
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If I were David Cameron, I would promise a full public enquiry as part of my election manifesto. I would also put in the manifesto that a law would be passed as soon as they are in office that will bring severe punishment (like mandatory 10 years+ in jail) to any person found to have destroyed or authorised the destruction of evidence pertaining to the Iraq inquiry. The aforementioned law to be backdated to TODAY (or before!). By making this pledge now, that would scupper the present ill-conceived whitewash.
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The sad thing is that even if the inquiry is not a whitewash it will LOOK like a whitewash. Such is the poisonous legacy of lies leading to "Blair's war". All we need to know is WHY Blair was so keen to support the USA and what the Attorney General's real view was about the war's legality. It needn't take a year and £x million to establish that.
The other issue is that the WHOLE CABINET supported the war, including Gordon Brown - and only one "Honourable Member" (sic) resigned - I think - the late and lamented Robin Cook. Has any other cabinet in history been so supine? So are you SURPRISED that there will be no public inquiry, with a narrow remit, into the key issues?
I think the start of the inquiry should trigger a major demo - a reprise of the pre-war one. Who's up for it?
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18. At 7:08pm on 15 Jun 2009, Wee-Scamp wrote:
It's a bit like living in N Korea or Iran.
Only without the head honchos' dress sense.
Mind you, one did get an election (even if.. as the BBC might coyly put it, 'certain questions' remain as to its validity)
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Sir Humphrey Appleby was very clear: The point of an enquiry is NOT to find out the truth, we all know the truth, the point of an enquiry is to be able to say "We had an enquiry"
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It's about time, but does anyone else feel this has been conveniently timed to try and diffuse expenses anger? It's what it smacks of to me...
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
LISTEN to Eddie Mair's interview with Bob Ainsworth about this farce of an annoucement.
Eddie is the most incisive interviewer of spiv MPs...period!
Enough said!
(and NO!...I am not in any way related to Bob!)
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After the whole issue of expenses, the Labour party has brought out a shamble of an enquiry into the iraq war.
As before with the expenses ( which on most cases they were optained by making false expenses, which in my belief is FRAUD) they have set out a number of rules which do not even make sense for this enuiry.
They wanted to have an enquiry when British Service men and women returned home for their safety which is understandable. Well they are back now and there should be a PUBLIC ENQUIRY there is no point to a PRIVATE enquiry. Is this whole nation turning into a cloak and dagger dictatorship of our own.
Blair and Bush should be tried by the war crimes tribunal for causing deaths and damage to a country that posed no threat, they made up the dodgy dossier by means of lieing, and obtaining a report taken off the internet.
Iraq was a thriving country before 1991, with sanctions imposed it was not, it is as simple as that.
If we can not trust our democratically elected leaders, who can we trust?
For all the deaths of our service men and women and all the civilians that died also, They require a public enquiry, We as the British people require and demand it.
I mean we had to rely on the Telegraph to show up all the thieves we had as mps who made claims which had nothing to do with their expenses.
I do hope the Editor for the Telegraph runs for Prime minister.
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What a joke, hasn't Brown learnt anything about running an open and honest government?, what a fool he is.
A few points spring to mind, no doubt there are many others:-
1. The inquiry wont be independent as he claims because of the very fact that he has chosen the committee.
2. Some of the committee members have dubious pedigrees.
3. Because of the previous white-washes not only does the committee need to examine the witnesses but the public needs to examine the work of the committee, therefore the hearings need to be held in public.
4. Did Brown discuss in any way with Blair the format of the enquiry?
5. We will now see all the "yes men" Labour MPs and ministers lining up to support Brown - how nauseating.
6. He's probably just guaranteed that Labour will lose the next election.
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One bitter lesson that the military continues to re-learn is that politicians send them out on missions, without the necessary wherewithal to achieve the objectives.
The result is death, danger and humilation for our Armed Forces plus, for good measure, derision from our allies.
These politicians, who promise publicly that the military can 'have anything they want' to complete their tasks and then fail to deliver said assets, are completely despicable people.
NB. I write as a somewhat informed blogger on these matters having spent just over two decades working with the military.
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Money run things, but doesn't rule your soul..
King General - Lightning Strike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9L2EztHHdo&feature=PlayList&p=8633945AB908C9C8&index=34
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An inquiry in private, with no compulsion on witnesses to attend, with no subpoena power, with no testimony under oath and with no recommendations. What the bloody hell is it for? Why even bother?
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#armyofbats
The Tories had a secret enquiry after the Falklands War, so it is a bit rich of them to demand an open enquiry over Iraq. There was never any blame laid in the Falklands, even though it was common knowledge that as part of the cuts in the Defence budget, the withdrawal of the patrol vessel, HMS Endurance, from the South Atlantic sent the wrong signals to Argentina. Keith Speed, MP for Ashford in Kent (where I lived at the time), was Navy Minister in the Thatcher government. He resigned from the government because of the cuts in the Navy Budget. Then, of course, there was Mrs Thatcher's order to sink the Belgrano, when it was sailing away from the exclusion zone, with the loss of so many lives. Will we ever hear the truth about that; I doubt it. Not in Mrs Thatcher's lifetime anyway. The Franks report was heard behind closed doors, and the same will apply with the Chilcot report. I don't remember the Conservatives baying for a public enquiry on the Falklands; it suited them to keep it under wraps. As Nick says, it wont matter what the enquiry's findings are, it will still be seen as a whitewash, in the same way as the Hutton Report, Cash for Honours and, yes, the Franks report on the Falklands War. There were more British lives lost in the 3 month Falklands War than in the 4 years in Iraq! I have a personal interest, my son served in the Falklands on HMS Hermes and in both Gulf Wars; he was 19 at the time. Hermes had just returned from a tour of the US when it was struck by lightning amidships, both the radar and telecoms were knocked out. They were still trying to repair it when they left from Portsmouth for the South Atlantic. Nobody is better at cutting the defence budget than the Tories. That's why the QE2 and other luxury liners were commandeered as hospital ships, we were down to the bare bones. The Conservatives had 16 years to replace the ships lost, but they didn't want to spend the money. It fell to the Labour government to increase the Defence Budget.
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"After six years, the deaths of 179 British military personnel and countless more Iraqis"
I mourn the death of every single member of the British military sent on this escapade, but as for the Iraqis, why not visit here Nick? Somebody HAS been counting.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
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DEATH OF A NATION...there won't be an enquiry over that!
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I think I could save the government however many millions they are going to spend on this and write the conclusions of the report right now:
1. Going to war killed lots of people
2. It was nobody's fault (at least nobody senior: see point 4)
3. Everyone in government acted in good faith
4. Some junior official somewhere in the MoD (probably one with a bit of a reputation for not going along with the Labour spin machine) ordered the wrong kit for the troops, resulting in some unfortunate deaths, and will therefore be sacked
5. Tony Blair is a very nice man really
Did I miss anything?
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Why not save the money! It was me. You'll never prove it. There is no evidence, you won't find phone, meetings, written documentation or witnesses. I persuaded Bush and made Blair take out Sadam Hussein's regime. We told him if he didn't let UN inspectors into Iraq we would take military action, and we did. Threats without substance would soon become a farce; the boy who cried wolf. But then again I might just be some nutter trying to take the mickey. Long live the Sovereign!
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64 Unitedearth
"Iraq was a thriving country before 1991, with sanctions imposed it was not, it is as simple as that."
=====================
Rather ignores the fact that the year before Iraq invaded its neighbous without warning wouldn't you say?
THen goes on to carry out state sponsored genocide of thousands of its own citizens!!!
Sadly as in all conflicts, a despot can wreak havoc mainly on there own country...look at history its repeated time and again.
You gan have a hundred public inquiries and they won't change a thing, had 9/11 never happened Saddam would probaly still be killing and torturing to his heart's content BUT thousands now dead could be still alive? I'm just thankfull I don't have to make such decisions unlike so many hindsight warriors who always Know better.
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This is the government that is supposed to believe in Open Government. Whenever possible they then hide behind the letter rather than the principle of the law.
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Disgraceful!
Behind closed doors and no one to be blamed
My own theory on what is going on I cannot say apart from this is not Gordon Brown's work it is the dark lord protecting his own.
An enquiry must be held because Gordon said it would be but for the sake of history what spin will be put on it?
Never can it be compared to the Faulklands for they were attacked and this country defended them.
Iraq did not attack us and we killed thousands of innocent people and left a country dessimated.
We really do need to know the reason why.
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So Gordon - Everything has changed has it?
You want to change the old way of doing things do you?
You want to be open?
You want to be transparent?
You've listened to the voters?
YET AGAIN YOU HAVE LIED. Hang your head in shame. Resign Now.
At the weekend many labour party activists and supporters were willing to give you a chance and now you do this? Enough is Enough. I'm surprised. Are you really so stupid?
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I can save time and money by reporting the outcome now. Fudge,mudge and kludge.
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I don't get your point Nick,
"The Chilcott Inquiry is being presented as an examination by experts of the lessons to be learnt from the Iraq war. The men Gordon Brown has chosen are familiar with the complexities, the compromises and the uncertainties involved in British intelligence, diplomacy and military planning.
It will not be a naming of the allegedly "guilty men", nor an opportunity for a public airing of the political wounds opened by the Iraq war. Nor a healing process.
The reaction to today's announcement suggests that may never actually be possible."
There are reasonable grounds for rational observers to conclude that Britain was taken to war on the basis of falsehoods deliberately calculated to mislead parliament. This might be described as treason. How can there be "a healing process" unless this is investigated by people entirely independant of government (and thus not chosen by it)and, if shown to be true, those who carried out this deception are required to answer for it? Are you saying that there is no case to answer and that those who feel agrieved are being irrational?
It would not be difficult to arrange for a healing process. Lets choose an unaffiliated, intelligent public figure from outside politics. Give them all powers and facilities to enquire without hinderance and with all necessary help (but with a requirement to keep secret things which it would be against the public good to reveal - like the identities of our spies) and let them conduct an enquiry with the remit both to investigate and to bring those guilty of deceiving the public to book. You sound, Nick, like you think it irrational to remain angry that the government won't deal with an apparently profound wrong committed by the government on the public. Why?
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shame, shame, shame
Shame on this Government
Shame on Eaton and Saga for trying to defend this act of contempt and deceit
Shame on us for allowing this deceit by sitting on our behinds like the good keyboard warriors we are.
Unitedearth - you're being very foolish, learn the facts, learn what happened and then when you think you understand what went on, try again.
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Valdan 70 makes many points and is a good advocate for labour; however I think he is misguided if he thinks withdrawing a ship is an excuse for one country to invade anothers' territory. The proposed defence cuts of the early 80's were part of a defence review and our role in NATO, it is true the Falklands conflict helped save the RN.
As for the sinking of the Belgrano, ships do change direction and, as his son was on Hermes, a prime target, he should be grateful that we had a PM who gave her military commanders real teeth, compare that with today and the one hand tied behind the backs of our forces, had she not that ship posed a real threat and could of destroyed Hermes or Invincible; instead the decisive action on sinking the Belgrano put the Argentinian navy to port for the rest of the conflict.
When we go into battle we go to win and where there is doubt surrounding the reason for war then a public enquiry should be held, there was no doubt surrounding the reason for conflict in the south atlantic.
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68. At 9:33pm on 15 Jun 2009, JohnConstable
Mr Cameron is not worth GBP30 million.
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Another half a million BNP votes stacked up.
When will these people learn that our democracy does NOT belong to the political (and media) elite. To me, they are now my avowed enemy. Anything they want - they get the opposite.
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The lesson is that the intelligence services, the military and the public servants must act always and only in the interest of all of us, ignoring the politicians. The politicians may act in the interests of foreign countries or listening to those lobbying for the self-interest of those within and without who try to use our resources and lives for their gains.
It will take one year to plan and execute an elaborate spin.
Is GB's camp using this as revenge and leverage against Tony, Cherie and Blairites ?
Long and expensive? Nothing else will do then.
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Without a proper explanation of why Tony Blair felt he had to support George Bush's decision to invade Iraq, we will feel cheated and not trust any Govt. to act on our behalf.
I don't know how Govt can re engage with the people, I just suspect that the longer and the more extreme the feeling of disenfranchisement gets, the more serious will be the ultimate consequence, I just hope this recession os over soon and we don't get a monstrous bout of inflation to really stir up the masses.
The trouble with a low turnout at elections is that the really keen/politically active always get out and vote, which may outweigh the lazy moderate who feels he can't be bothered. Hence Nick Griffin elected to the EU parliament.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
How can this inquiry be open and transparent.
One of the members is on record as saying Bush & Blair would go down in history alongside Churchill & Rooservelt and another wrote a speech for Blair given in Chicago in favour of pre-emptive intervention wars.
If Brown thinks this will restore his (moral) authority with the public and his own back benchers then he had better think again.
The public won't be taken in again by Mandleson, I think he's been rumbled.
Time for an election.
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Lessons to be learned #1: Don't promise the US President you will join him in war if you suspect you'll have to tell a pack of lies at a later date to bounce Parliament and the public into supporting it.
Oh, and Nick, your sources that claim the public enquiry into Dr Kelly's death prove there will always be those that will never be satisfied? Eh, no, all that shows is an 'enquiry' that fails to uncover the truth is most unsatisfactory.
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In today's political climate the public don't want any-more hidden secrets.
If someone is proven to have sanctioned an act against humanity and lied about a certain issue, then it serves the public no good to conceal that truth.
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If any of the 'other parties' promised to initiate a war crimes commission...they'd get my vote.
The Iranians, tonight, are showing us how to do it!
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It is high time that the people of the UK took a leaf out of the Iranian people's grit and courage.
How much longer are we going to sit back whilst Brown treats us like docile cowardly fools? Filling his cabinet with unelected rejects. Telling us that labour being actively rejected by 95% of the population is a cry for him to stay on and indulge in further constitutional vandalism without ANY democratic mandate whatsoever.
Now he is announcing a kick in the guts to the families of the deceased service people in creating a whitewash inquiry designed solely to exonerate the Blair Cabinet that lied to Parliament and the people to take us to war.
How much lower can this vile and sick minded man sink? He even makes Nick Griffin look respectable.
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Nick-You didn't mention the time the inquiry would take when you did your report to camera on BBC news. Why not?
David Cameron expenses seem to be exercising a few people here. Have you heard about Gordon Brown who apparently bought a flat in London from Robert Maxwell then put it into his wife's name? He seemed to have some difficulty also in deciding what his second home was when he was actually in a 'grace and favour' home as Chancellor. Shouldn't we be looking at everyone?
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sagamix - dont be off topic, it wont work, its an issue that should be discussed on the right forums dont you think. And if we know all this about cameron - why arent Labour going for him with both guns? Its almost an opengoal unless tehre's something we're not being told about it.
Also, shall we discuss why ALL of Tony Blairs Receipts were ordered to be shreaded? Why? What was there to hide?
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Nick, your comment re Hutton is ridiculous. It was set up by Lord High Crony Falconer, he picked a man who would obey orders and stick to the extremely narrowly defined focus and you say some people will never be satisfied. Get a grip man, you're supposed to be a political editor, it's little wonder politicians behave so badly when you fail to hold them to account
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So...
It will be held in secret
no attendees will be held to oath
No politicians will atend
No blame will be apportioned
Brown = lies
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What a farce........So much for Gordon the transparent. Nick you also failed to mention that the inquiry will report post general election...Nice
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#89 ftse_muppet: "Oh, and Nick, your sources that claim the public enquiry into Dr Kelly's death prove there will always be those that will never be satisfied? Eh, no, all that shows is an 'enquiry' that fails to uncover the truth is most unsatisfactory."
The truth being, of course, what you happen to believe? Don't you see that your comment simply supports the claim that Nick makes?
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For all of you who wonder what the near future may hold for our country, here's some pleasant bedtime reading:
http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/03/flattening-laws-of-england.html
Pay particular attention to the possible application of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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36. At 7:54pm on 15 Jun 2009, oldreactionary
Yes my old reactionary comrade, there is a first time for everything.
Invader-Zim takes this subject seriously, no poetic licence or sarcasm here.
There have been too many casualties for that.
Many soldiers lost their lives unnecessarily.
Many civilians lost their lives unnecessarily.
The world has become a very volatile place, making it much more difficult to Invade.
What was achieved in real terms: -
Iraq was returned to the stone age. (I don't consider that a real achievement.)
Blair and Bush won elections to keep them in office. (Again that isn't a real achievement.)
There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they were the ones that the west used on the Iraqi population. (and again this isnt a real achievement.)
The price of oil destabilised. (George Bush's cronies made a dollar or too out of this, which leads me to believe that this was the real objective.)
No wonder any inquiry needs to be done in secret.
If we knew the half of what went on we would end up lynching half the labour Government - deservedly so too.
Out with Brown!
In with Zim!
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brad @ 94
okay fair enough, I know the Cameron mortgage scandal is off topic but I didn't bring it up, John Constable did (@ 68) - anyway I'm pleased to see that both his comment and my reply have now been moderated - that's absolutely as it should be - as regards what IS on topic, the Iraq War, I see that very much as one man's folly ... Anthony Charles Lytton Blair ... and, Enquiry or not, he'll be remembered for it - that's his punishment and, for a person of such overweening personal vanity, it's a fitting one
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Will the enquiry investigate how Euan Blair came to receive a placement in the White House and a scholarship to Yale, whilst other people's sons died in Iraq?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I do think that the enquiry should be public but there again I can see why it is to be behind closed doors and no government is going to do it differently as too many people and MP's are involved on all sides
We will have to wait 20 or 30 years to get the full truth like we have in the pasted on such matters
I remember when the government used to issue D notices to papers to prevent them publishing stuff
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mitcham @ 73
Did I miss anything?
you missed the most important point of all, a classic Catch 22 ...
- the reason we invaded was they had WMDs
- but the reason we invaded was they DIDN'T have WMDs
... which is why North Korea et al have to have WMDs
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#105
Err! there are thing we know, that we don't know and the don't know things are the things we thought we knew!.
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I wonder which of the 3 main parties will go into the next election with the slogan...
Honesty!
Honesty!
Honesty!
...answers on a post card to...???
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102. At 11:24pm on 15 Jun 2009, Zootmac wrote:
Well Said!
To draw a comparison, my daughter graduated top of her class with a First Class BSC Hons.
She did not get any of the opportunities afforded to Bumbling Blair Junior.
As ever, it's not what you know, it's who you know and who your father or Mother is. Obviously being an Invader doesnt count.
What a truly wonderful democracy we live in, with inequality for all, freedom and opportunity for none.
Clearly part of the Blair War deal was for the Americans to provide a plethora of opportunities for the Blairs.
Maybe Disney land will have a new ride - It's a Blair World after all.
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The man is dishonest, ignoble, dishonourable. In fact he is a pile of worthless nonsense. Unwillingness to deal openly with his own problems is one thing. Cloaking the nonsense his predecessor is inexcusable. He must go and he must go NOW.
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#84 - Bluematter - "Another half a million BNP votes stacked up. When will these people learn that our democracy does NOT belong to the political (and media) elite. To me, they are now my avowed enemy. Anything they want - they get the opposite."
You've expressed my feelings exactly.
Sign me up to your cause.
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The death toll rises. The Blairs get richer.
Funny old world.
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db @ 106
and when we know something, we only know we know it if we know the full extent of what we know and don't know
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Is this another 10p mis-calculation?
Would a more open inquiry have been that dangerous? If so won't those that know the things the public don't know (in Rumsfeldian speak) feel justified in leaking them if there is to be a whitewash.
Otherwise Brown simply shows again a contempt for the public and the democratic process. That will at the least reinforce the discontent and make his new image consultants job more difficult.
The damage of Iraq politically has already been done so why compound it?
It is amazing what poor political judgement the people in power actually have.
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107. At 11:45pm on 15 Jun 2009, BankSlickerminustheR wrote:
There is only one answer to that question: -
Vote Zim (Leader of the Zim 'Honesty for honest earthlings' party)
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How dare this wretched, evil, corrupt, filthy swine of a government yet again deny the British people open access to this long overdue public inquiry. They deliberately used false allegations and lies to mislead people in their decision to start an illegal war. We have tangible evidence of what happens when you get a corruption of the truth. The daily trauma of this country's finest young men and women being broght back in body bags having been forced to fight illegal wars, on the basis of lies, corruption, greed and dishonesty. Brown et al is again using government cover-ups to whitewash the findings of the inquiry. He has also appointed some very favourable establishment figures to the inquiry panel. The sons!and daughters of Brown, Blair, Darling, Cameron...et al are noticable for their ABSENCE from the battelground. No doubt they are safely studying Social Studies at The University of the Bland and Weak so they can be the next bunch of liberal cowards to become the next generation of professional politicians. I hope this rotten, corrupt, dishonest, fraudulent disgsusting bunch of gangsters and bullies are brought to account. They are war criminal and they should be brought before a tribunal for their cowardly, evil deeds.
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Hi Folks,
Well Mr Brown, youve cracked this one. This wheeze is so transparent everybody can see through it.
I dont know if I should laugh or cry.
And your legacy, you Orrible little man
A few days ago, you elbowed HM the Queen out of the way to stand alongside some other important people by the sea-side in France. In front of you, were the survivors of the finest generation of Britons who have ever walked the earth. And they booed you.
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Ref 115. At 00:08am on 16 Jun 2009, Democrat2009
I agree wholeheartedly.
This Swine of a Government needs a good dose of Swine flu to thin their ranks.
Brown is covering the whole issue in a sticky, thick Brown wash.
Those that grieve, regardless of nationality, deserve the truth.
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Well my comment earlier that was refered, must have been too close to the truth for comfort.
I wonder who complained?
A labour spy in the ranks methinks.
Bloggers beware.
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Transparency, what a load of bull from Gordon Brown, why the heck doesn't he just have the inquiry in his sitting room? I see another whitewash on the horizon and we have to wait until after the election.
It's high time we got this joker out, if their MPs can't do it then we can and in double quick time, if he really does think that we are all gong to fall for this one he is deluded.
Having an inquiry behind closed doors is only going to anger, not quench the anger, I sincerely hope his leadership will reflect on Labours votes at the general election... and this guy wants to reform parliament - pugwash.
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Please MI5 or whoever monitors these posts print off all of the above and MAKE Brown read them.
But then whats the point . He is infallible and does not recognise any anti comment as legitimate.
Oh you poor Labour lost souls led by a mendacious megalomaniac.
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#112 Saga
So we can look forward to a whitewash where the known unknowns are ignored and the unknown unknowns are buried.
Which halfwit told Brown this would be a good idea it is a lose-lose situation - or has he found the self destruct button again?
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They're here.
I knew I was close to the truth.
Must go
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#120
Hey up! xTunbridge a bad hangover or what?
Megalomaniac? come on read the story correctly!
It's the terms of reference that's the problem not the enquiry!.
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I thought I would add something meaningful to the debate what are this government up to now with this inquiry? Well .
I have got stuck with the image in my mind of the things the oars go into on a rowing boat and young male cattle
An hour has gone by
No still got the same images for the government on this one rowing boat all at sea with big brass - oar holder things - and male cows at the waters edge drinking salt water what could it mean - it is worse than blank page syndrome
I will just try something new in the morning
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123 derekbarker.
Hangover is in a few hours my friend.
So the terms of reference meand Mendacity Brown retains power over what if anything comes out ?
Hutton, that was Dr Kelly ? . For me the telling evidence was from the first paramedics on the scene who expressed doubt about the position of the body and the fatal wounds in relation to the ability to self inflict them .
So if the Hutton enquiry is still doubted what chance Browns behind closed doors effort on Iraq ?
People are not stupid and know that some operational things are best kept under wraps, so go into camera for those bits, have the rest in the open.
Now I have a headache.
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Well at the end of the day First Gulf War (2 August 1990 28 February 1991) none of the government involved wanted to finish the job
then after that Saddam Hussein played games with the world over WMD and no one knew what he had or did not have and in the end the world had to decide what to do about him as he was just laughing at everybody as he all ready had shown the world he would kill his own people and invade other country's the options got less and less as he was never going to cooperate with anyone he pushed the bluff once to often and Iraq and it's people paid the price
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#125 xTunbridge
Yes absolutely! it's government and? it's what it is!
of course they'll convince some! it's all done in the best possible taste
and others that national security is never compromised.
It's almost a game of half truths and the peoples know what they know.
On a brighter note! Wow! three runs that's close, that's very close....good game....good game.
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The inquiry proposed is merely designed to add yet another coat of whitewash, in order to try to conceal the unconcealable.
How can an enquiry possibly not name the guilty men? Are we to be told that a person, referred to as Mr B for security reasons, ordered the British forces to invade Iraq?
It is quite obvious, that even if at an earlier time some members of the government believed in the existence of WMD, by the time the final order for the invasion was given, no reasonably well informed person could have been sufficiently certain to justify starting a war. In any case the alternative was to suspend the attack to let the UN weapons inspectors complete their task.
There does not seem to be any way that those responsible can be called to account by the British judicial system. So those suspected of very serious war crimes will have to be tried by the International Criminal Court. Once there is a fully independent Iraqi government, perhaps it will lodge a complaint, and we will finally hear the full story as evidence given under oath before the ICC.
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Ain't got no energy to keep civilization going
And by the signs of the times I know the end is showing
With all your scientific research you know we reach completion
No more cars planes trains and boats
It's the Arab's Oil Weapon
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Finally people remember Bliar , he is the top dog in all of this
Tony Bliar needs to stand trial for the deaths and continued deaths of the soldiers and the genocide in Iraq as well as Afghanistan
Claire Short and Robin Cook left because Blair too it upon himself to commit the UK to go into Iraq
Tony Blair had their hands forced by Bush to go in for other reasons
The UN could have taken care of this just like every other trouble zone on the planet
Iraq was invaded for its oil and for the money that could be made out of rebuilding it
Iran is next on the list
Tony Bliar should hang his head in shame taking this decision then he decides to become a Catholic after the event
No country should ever enter another ,the whole point of the UN and Nato was supposed lessons learned from WW2, what is the point of these organisations if they are pushed aside and ridden roughshod by the USA and its allies
So Bush, Blair Rumsfield, Cheney. Condi Rice and everyone else who could and should have blown the whistle on this need to stand trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
I'm not saying what happened in Iraq was good, it wasnt up to the US and Bliar to go steaming in, if not there are and were other countries in worse states, but they cooked this one up with WMD's
I bet this doesnt get posted even though all the above is already in the public domain
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Having worked in the armed forces, served in iraq and worked for the government as a consultant I am of the opinion that lessons are at best only ever identified. They are almost never 'learnt' from. In taking the decision to go to war, the PM and cabinet clearly did not appreciate any of the well known lessons from history. Such as, fight only on terrain that favours your stengths, understand and exploit your enemies physche, have one unified objective, have lots of money and public support, have a post-objective plan for withdrawal. Unfortunately, none of the decision makers had any military experience or clearly the sense to read history books. Shameful and indefensible. That's why the doors will stay tightly shut on this enquiry. The only way we the people can get any sense of progress is to SHOUT FOR A GENERAL ELECTION and vote in a new government. Every day we wait damages the country and our childrens future.
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#84 & #110
"When will these people learn that our democracy does NOT belong to the political (and media) elite. To me, they are now my avowed enemy. Anything they want - they get the opposite".
Me too !
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I welcome the enquiry, though the way it's been set up can hardly be described as step towards restoring public confidence in politics. It looks like the latest "New" Gordon which emerged from last weeks PLP meeting has all of the characteristics of old Gordon to me.
I'm not actually sure what I'm expecting to be revealed by this enquiry anyway, as Blairs style of "sofa government" meant that relevant records etc are unlikely ever to have existed in the first place for obvious reasons.
I think it will be like the Hutton enquiry personally. I actaully thought that the way that the Hutton enquiry was actually very good, though his final conclusions from the mass of evidence beggared belief.
I doubt we shall ever know the truth behind the run up to the war - as Tony Blair told us about "weapons of mass destruction", then "programmes of weapons of mass destruction" then to "evidence of programmes of weapons of mass destruction". He knew the 45 minute dossier was full of caveats, which were simply ignored when he presented his case for invading Iraq. The decision to invade had been made by Bush, and Blair was going to join him, whatever the circumstances.
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Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Tony Blair said they were ready for use within 45 minutes.
David Kelly said there were no grounds for this assertion.
Tony Blair got it wrong, went to war and ended up a Middle East Peace Envoy!
David Kelly got it right and committed suicide.
That sums up the way in which we are governed, people are rewarded for failure, those who tell the truth are ridiculed, and as so many have said there are still unanswered questions about the Falklands.
We need more openness and transparency to prevent the same mistake from happening again but that is a lesson governments will never learn.
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valdan @ 70:
If in doubt blame The Conservative Opposition and better still blame Thatcher seems to be your constant theme in order to divert attention away from Government policy decisions. We are in the here and now. Gordon Brown promised that there would be more transparency in politics. His promise lasted less than a week!
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Let me see if I follow this - The reason we can't have an inquiry in public is that the people paid by the public, supposedly acting on behalf of the public, are afraid to tell the truth to the public about what went on and would not reveal the whole truth unless it's behind closed doors?
Which part of 'open democracy' is Gordon failing to understand? I know it's awfully inconvenient for him, but it's OUR government, not HIS.... Any chance we can have it back?
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#134 Neocromwellian
A couple of other things....
- Hans Blix said there were no WMD.
- Unprecedented numbers took to the streets to protest against war.
Tony Blair was not interested in either of these things because like George W Bush, God was backing him and his decision to attack and kill no matter what.
Of course we need more openess and transparency but just how do we get it? Brown promises a restoration of democracy only to make the unelected 'Lord' Mandelson of Hartlepool the second most powerful politician in the country.
The New Labour disaster must be brought to an end - hopefully some in the Labour party will have some decency and get rid of Brown so we can have an election.
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Of course this is a stitch up. It has to be held in secret as the war was illegal.
We ALL knew there never weapons of mass destruction, it was a war for two reasons.
1. Oil, first and foremost
2. For the Bush family to save face after not hitting Saddam hard enough during the first Gulf War. Bush senior was left embarrassed.
Blair was a white house puppet, he kowtowed continually to the Bush demands.
I remember the March against the war very well (15/02/2003).
We passed Big Ben at exactly midday, yet the Mail on Sunday showed the crowds approaching Big Ben as it struck three pm. There were still huge amounts to pass the clock.
Remember as well that the march had TWO start points. There were far more than the police estimate of two mil marching, you couldn't move in Hyde Park.
This secrecy is to cover the lies this government continue to feed us. Shame on you Brown, the quicker you're out the better for us all.
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#70 valdan70
Sounds as though you have a pretty low opinion of the Franks enquiry. On that basis, I am therefore correct in assuming that you believe this Iraq enquiry is also a complete farce.
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#135 sicilian
The here and now is a product of history. Surely, if you think it unreasonable to relate back to what has happened in the past, what was done by previous governments, as in this case. Then you must agree that an inquiry into what was done during the lead up to Iraq is of not value?
Aren't all these blogs devalued by them all being a rally for those who just call for an election or wish to call the PM a liar?
It would have been more desirable to have not gone to Iraq or Afghanistan. The argument Bin Laden has with the West would have been much better played out on the streets of the capital cities of the Western allies. As it turned out, Iraq became a focal point for most of the supporters of Al Qaeda, which made them more easily targeted. The alternative is to have every holiday spot, every symbol of Western Government a target all over the world.
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As the Iraq war was apparently God's will, perhaps the archbishops should make up the enquiry panel.
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Could our elected representatives possibly show less
understanding over what is needed re the war that our
nation was dragged into? A full public enquiry held
to hold them to account over the way in which all the
secrets and lies were told to strong arm us into it.
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Its all been said above- namely that this enquiry lacks any substance - the defence of the 'in camera' non-judicial review that 'is not about apportioning blame' and will deliver findings after the next election by the Defence Minister was frankly an embarrasement. The scales have fallen from our eyes, the public is able to distinguish between fact and Spin and NuLabour are exposed. The panel members are close supporters of Labour and Iraq so even if you get past all the other issues the participants themselves would never be allowed to stand in a jury as they have a prr interest.
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Its more than a little ironic that the first decision our newly reformed, open and honest PM make is to hold a private enquiry. The timing stinks most to me. If it is a private enquiry, it could have started months, or even years, ago.
One thing though, my recollection our our reason for going to war is different to every body elses. I thought we put an ultimatum in Saddam to let us in to Iraq to look for WMD, or face "serious consequences" (Resolution 1441)? He didn't let the weapons inspectors in, leaving no option (in US/UK eyes) but to invade. If Saddam had co-operated more, the war could have been avoided. This is NOT THE SAME as going to war because Iraq had WMD - we went to war because the Iraqi regime refused to show that they didn't have them. I do recall that the resolution was a little ambiguous and the French/Germans did not think the "serious consequnces" meant war, but that is poor work on the UN diplomats part (of all nationalities), not necessarily the fault of the UK govt. If I remember right, Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously by all members of the UN Security Council.
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york1900
Scot Ritter the American appointed first weapons inspector resigned suggesting the whole WMD was being dragged out as a paper exercise to prove the location of all materials sold to the regime by the Americans. As Iraq was at war at the time and did not have records for each shell fired this was impossible. The Americans knew this but persisted for as long as they persisted Iraq was subject to sanctions and Saddam was weak. During this period the Americans played games such as claiming enternox was a potential WMD and as a result women all over Iraq were denied pain relief during child-birth.
The Americans never went all the way because first time around they realised the obligation it would put them under and the size of the task, unlike the last crop of fantasists.
All the real WMD went in the first few years. The rest was about maintaining sanctions and ultimately an excuse to make a mis-judged return
Shame on the lot of them
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Just heard an Iranian on BBC Radio 2 News talking about why he is in this country. He said the government in Iran was rotten because the Supreme Leader was in power, not because he had been voted in by the people; but because it was his choice to be the leader.
I have got news for this poor deluded individual. Its the same here, the longer you are here the similarities will become more striking.
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Again I see someone further up the thread is dragging out the old leftie chestnut about Thatcher ordering the Belgrano sunk while it was sailing away from the warzone. For the 40 millionth time, the Argentine Navy was attempting to carry out a pincer attack on the RN task force, the Belgrano and 2 destroyers were the southern pincer, the Belgrano herself was obsolete and not much of a threat but her escorts were armed with Exocet missiles and were a serious danger. The northern pincer consisted of the aircraft carrier 25 de Mayo with it's Skyhawk bombers who specialized in anti-ship strikes and it's escorts. The Argentines planned to attack on May 2nd but the attack was aborted because 25 de Mayo developed a problem in one of her boilers which meant she couldn't steam fast enough to launch her Skyhawks. Therefore the 2 groups were ordered to hold station for 24 hours and attack on the 3rd after repairs had been completed to the carrier. The direction the Belgrano was sailing in when HMS Conqueror attacked was irrelevant, they weren't on a whale watching cruise as Thatcher haters would have you believe, what matters was their intention. The Belgrano's CO, Captain Hector Bonzo has always stated that they were planning to attack again, the sinking was hugely regrettable for the loss of life involved but under every law of war ever written it was a justified military action, something Captain Bonzo readily admits. The only shameful act that day was the fact that the Belgrano's escorts fled the scene leaving men who had survived the sinking to die of hypothermia. IMO their captains should have been put against a wall for cowardice.
You can make justified criticisms of Thatcher in the run up to the Falklands, especially in terms of the devastating cuts proposed to the RN, you can also blame Denis Healey for cancelling the RN's CVA-01 aircraft carrier project in February 1966 which would have given Britain a huge military edge over Argentina, but the difference between The Falklands and Iraq is that Thatcher did not set out to seek a war with Argentina, whereas "Yo Blair!" meekly went along with his mate Dubya and spun a case for war based on dubious evidence. None of this may not have mattered had their been a coherent plan for the aftermath of the war, instead Rumsfeld tried to do it on the cheap, probably believing the stories of Iraqi dissidents that the Iraqi Army would defect en masse. The preparations for war were shambolic, we know that Blair wouldn't allow the Army to order equipment like body armour because he was afraid of sending out the wrong signals to Labour waverers, which we also know cost the lives of British soldiers. If you are going to war you have a moral obligation to give the forces every resource that they need to carry out the operation. Perhaps Brown had a role in the decision not to increase the military budget and this is why he's desperate to sweep the issue under the carpet until after the election? Whatever the motivation yesterday's announcement was a slap in the face to the families of those who gave their lives for this misadventure.
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#140 wasowenright
I believe you misinterprete the public mood.
There is a clamour for a public Iraq War enquiry with open terms of reference because the whole thing still stinks. What's more, the man who took us to war (against the will of the nation) is now a Middle East Peace Envoy, some sort of neo-Catholic preacher and soon to be saint, a highly paid banker and many other things.
Sure, Tony Blair may never take responsibility (because of course God told him to do it), however, seeing him squirm under questioning will provide an awful lot of satisfaction.
This is not about Conservative or Labour, it's about seeing some dispicable politicians account for themselves.
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#144 Bell_4_Goalie
However, didn't our Attorney General believe the war to be illegal? Oh yes, sorry, he thought it was illegal until pressure was exerted upon him to change his mind.
I understand if you disagree but surely an open public enquiry with broad terms of reference may establish what actually did happen.
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The lessons to be learnt, will be learnt by the Military and promptly ignored by future administrations in the name of political expediency or agendas. How many of our current political masters have children serving in the military who will face the consequences of their decisions?
The Franks Inquiry was primarily concerned with government failures to act on Intelligence and thus avoid war. Hindsight is a marvellous thing, but did anyone really expect a full scale invasion at that time? Any Inquiry dealing with Intelligence failures can hardly be made public, laying our strengths and weaknesses open to foreign inspection, remember the Cold War was at it's height.
The Chilcot Inquiry really has nothing to do with Intelligence failures, we already know it was made up and there was a predetermined path to war irrespective. The Inquiry should deal with how one man on a personal crusade to right Daddys mistakes convinced our PM to lie to the country and start a war on fabricated evidence. This should not be private if only to ensure this never happens again. Tony Blair has escaped scot free from the consequences of his lies, the political elite must be held accountable for their actions. Where's Harperson and her "court of public opinion" now?
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I almost forgot.... Bob Ainsworth, Defence Minister, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha what a joke!
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Elsewhere in todays news there is talk of strengthening the law to stop foreign war criminals hiding in the UK. It makes you wonder what they have against foreigners because British war criminals can apparently act with impunity the British government will go to enormous lengths to keep their misdeeds secret.
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Any enquirie will be a whitewash simply because Brown will never want to admit the fact that our government and the american government were effectively forced to go to war for private economic interests.
Up until Gulf War 1 Saddam was a popular corrupted tyrant the americans liked. But then he invaded Kuwaitt (with good reason as they were stealing iraqs oil). So he was pushed back but intentionally not beaten.
The CIA then attempted to corrupt him offering huge loans in return for rebuilding contracts and to keep oil currency in dollors. Saddam refused and started doing business with france and germany giving contracts to them and offering to sell oil in what ended up being euros.
So the CIA tried to assassinate him to no avail because Saddam used to work for the CIA and so had top notch security.
So the final solution was to invade and take him out so a new corrupt leader could get in to power and agree to get iraq in more debt than it could ever repay, which has now happened.
So the anglo american empire got what it wanted. Iraq is now so heavily in debt it has had to give up all of its utilities to american and british companies and it has to sell oil in dollors.
Its classic US/UK tactics, its been going on all over the middle east and south america for decades.
Take Hugo Chavez, after years of corrupt leaders he decides to take back his countries utilities by force to help his people. So the CIA move in and try and corrupt him and fail.
So they try and assassinate him and fail. so they pay people to stage a coup and that also fails.
So he is still here today, but for how long?
Britian and America are ruled by corperate interests, the idea our government even had any choice is absurd. Do people really think we live in a democrasy? I don't remember voting for globalisation? I don't remember voting to give away all our power to those who attend the yearly bilderberg meetings.
American and the UK, fundamentally the federal reserve and the bank of england have been commiting economic terrorism, assasinations and war to get power for a very long time and no government enquiry is going to change that. Our government don't even have the security clearance.
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#140 wasowenright
"Aren't all these blogs devalued by them all being a rally for those who just call for an election or wish to call the PM a liar?"
Putting the need for an election to one side, I think this whole issue just exemplifies Brown's lack of touch.
Presumably this enquiry was launched to appease backbenchers but then he completely undermines the enquiry by making it private.
The Iraq issue implicates Blair not Brown so why the secrecy?
As it stands this is juste a waste of time and money.
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Re: 3. cogitodexter
Readers, REMEMBER this poster.
He/she has penned what will undoubtedly become a much-quoted EPITAPH for this government:
"The Government is acting without much honour. Again."
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No that's incorrect, weapons inspectors returned to Iraq on 13th November 2002, by March the following year there were several unresolved issues. These were mainly chemical WMD of which not trace could be found, but little evidence existed to show their destruction or the rockets to deliver them. At this point Bush, Blair and Aznar declared diplomacy to be over and set us on the path to war
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Just last week Brown promised to behave less like a tyrant and more like first among equals. Now he packs a secret inquiry with establishment placemen (no women) without any discussion with the other party leaders. Of course Brown doesn't want to get at the truth behind the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. If he did that, he might find there are one or two colleagues and civil servants, past and present, who get their collars felt as a result  and maybe even his own into the bargain. The lies that were told to start the Iraq war are, I believe, at the root of the current malaise in British politics. There has been a widening disconnect between electorate and Government over the past 6 or 7 years, but that parting of the ways began with Blair's determination to start the war in the face of overwhelming public opposition and the largest demonstration ever seen on British streets. Brown just doesn't get it. The Labour Party and UK democracy need to get rid of him  now.
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Of course there were no Weapons of Mass destruction, as someone has said in an earlier post, Iraq had been completely sanctioned in 1991.
The strategic and tactical capabilities prior to this were extremely basic.
Remember the Supergun? You should do we built them, designed by a Canadian fellow, who was bumped off by allegedly by Mossed. It didn't go very far in construction, and was only in the preliminary design stages, but that was it, the country had only the capability of a big (very big) gun.
In addition during Gulf War I, all the Iraqi Air Force, which wasn't destroyed disappeared over the border to Iran and was impounded. So there goes another avenue of Weapon Deployment.
Short of sending the WMD's in the post their warheads would not get very far (strategically speaking).
Since then the country was heavy sanctioned for 13 years and had not advance technically in that time. All of this is public knowledge; we just forget the facts sometimes.
As for chemicals, to my knowledge we have only uncovered, one bunker which had some rusty 105mm projectiles stamped up with lewisite type agent, dated 1988, which were unserviceable.
The government knew all this, and chose to ignore it.
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So Brown has changed his spots.......
One week later...
Will not admit that HIS (well Darlings) budget document shows that the goverment is cutting spending.
Says he will have a 100% elected house of lords, but uses his power to appoint lords to bring in 4 members of his cabinate.
Says he is tough on expenses but no 10's spiners attack the one MP who actually resigned and is forcing a by-election.
And now does the popular thing and calls an enquire unto the war, but makes it private!
More, more, more of the same old brown.
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Until were actually told the truth about why we went to war I think we are free to speculate. I think that Tony Blairs inspiration for Britains role in this mess was his roman catholic faith. It was certainly his sole decision, against the will of his Foreign Secretary, and it must have been something deep enough in his psyche that no-one else could fathom it. If there is an immediate lesson to be learned it is that the Prime Minister has too much power, we need a constitution where his role and authorities can be clearly defined.
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Tony Blair told the house that because of the nature of the intelagance claims in the dodgy dosier only brief details could be given and not sources listed, BUT HE had been full briefed on each example and could confirm that they were all real and tangerable threats.
All well and good untill it emerged a few weeks later that the 45minutes till nucular attack was actually depleted urainum shells! Hardly a fact that he lisented to his fully breifings on each threat.
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Without knowing how easy of difficult it will be for the inquiry to collect information it needs, Brown has already specified that report will not be published until after the next election. Such a constraint can only be politically motivated as nobody can know how challenging obtaining information will be, nor how much information will be needed. Constraining the report date to a political date can only be for political reasons.
It seems very likely that the public was mislead about issues relating to the war. To what extent we still need to understand. However, those who did the "misleading" will probably be giving evidense to the inquiry. Without requiring them to swear an oath, without the threat on comeback for lying, why does Brown now assume they will tell the truth where it seems likely that they did not before. There is far more pressure to tell the truth when releasing public documents to the country (i.e. to be able to justify what you have said) than when talking informally, in secret, with no come-back to a group of people who have no legal standing and you are there through your own goodwill. How Brown can assume people will now suddenly come-over all truthful just beggars belief.
This inquiry will not satisfy the public. It will not and should not. Appart from the public statements of those carrying out the enquiry (e.g. likening Blair to Churchill and Rosevelt) the fact that it is in secret means no public accountability. the fact that nobody will be blamed means we cannot get to the causes. After all, assuming we were mislead or lied to, somebody did that misleading or lying. At a time when public funds are somewhat limited, wasting money on a whitewash is just unaccetable. Either have aproper enquiry or don't waste the money.
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I can't see how a public inquiry would benefit anyone. I find no difference in the decision to send troops to Iraq from the decision to send troops to the Falklands. Both decisions helped to perpetuate the myth these small group of islands is still a major world player. The decision to declare war in both these cases, in my view, was taken in error and should be investigated in the same way. The Falklands expedition was, and still is, very costly to us and condemned around the world at the time, even by the Americans.
I was very much hoping the decision to join the Americans in a campaign in Iraq would be reversed. When I heard Andrew Gilligan on the today programme that morning, I listened in vain for a repeat of it, because I hoped it would provide a reason for reversing the decision.
We are no longer GB, we are part of the UK. As such it would be ridiculous to imagine we can make any other kind of impact in world politics, or function politically or economically, independent of Europe or the United Nations. NATO (in my view) is a different case. Those pushing for a public inquiry are hoping to pin blame for going to war on political leaders within this country. But, I must point out, that such is our position in the world today, those who took the decision here, were almost certainly acting on and agreeing with decisions taken elsewhere, in places where we have no ability to hold an inquiry, public or otherwise. What is the point of naming and shaming decision-takers here for world events they have little control over? As far as I can see, it could, and most likely would, further weaken our political and economic standing in the world.
As part of NATO our troops are still active in Afghanistan. As with the troubles in Northern Ireland the main opposition in Afghanistan relies on the illegal arms and drugs trade for support. Might I suggest that a public inquiry into who might be supporting this trade within the UK would be more beneficial to the UK, and our troops serving in Afghanistan, than a public inquiry into the Iraq conflict.
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"JunkkMale wrote:
18. At 7:08pm on 15 Jun 2009, Wee-Scamp wrote:
It's a bit like living in N Korea or Iran.
Only without the head honchos' dress sense.
Mind you, one did get an election (even if.. as the BBC might coyly put it, 'certain questions' remain as to its validity)"
Certain questions remain about a Scottish By-election from last year!
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70. The Falklands war was to protect our own people and our own territory which had been invaded. It was an honourable war and, so far as I remember, Goose Green and all that, there was no public outcry or outrage at it.
This futile war was started by BUSH to continue with the work which his father BUSH Senior had not completed. It was Bush's mission and he roped Yo Blair into it. Blair, whilst a likeable chap, was well intentioned but extremely naive. Brown is also naive.
What gets me about these Labour politicians is that they came to it through the academic route and think they are absolutely right in everything they do. They get some sort of self gratification in thinking they "saved the world". Well they didn't.
They are a failed government trying desperately sadly to hang onto their last vestages of power and haven't the guts to GO NOW.
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#128 stanblogger: " no reasonably well informed person could have been sufficiently certain to justify starting a war."
Well, I think that David Kelly could be considered 'reasonably well informed' in this area. In fact he was probably the best informed person in the UK (maybe anywhere) when it came to the nexus of biochemical wmd/Iraq/weapons inspection. And he persuaded members of his family to change their initial view, and think that the invasion of Iraq was 'necessary and desirable'.
Of course, that is part of the evidence to Hutton, so it must be a lie/whitewash.
It's interesting that a Tory who actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to inquiries, and who has seen much of the 'secret' evidence as a member of the Butler Inquiry, supports the form of inquiry set up by Brown. More evidence of the great conspiracy, I suppose.
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Why does Brown never learn. Had he discussed this with the other parties first, come to an agreement then the inquiry, whatever happened, would have been recieved better. Had the other parties then supported the inquiry then the public would have taken and limitations better. However, Brown doing his "I'm in charge, I'm deciding, etc." is just him, digging his hole and jumping in it. Now, he cannot change things because thi will be seen as him backing down. Few are happy about it, trouble is mounting, attitudes to Labour are becomming more negative, etc. and all because Brown has been Brown and not bothered to consult. It is actually a problem with his underlying character. The sooner he changed the nature of the inquiry the better (less damage to Labour), but he wont becuase he doesn't do that. If hs does anything it wil take weeks and he will wait until loads more damage has been done to his and Labour's reuptation, etc.
So much for his claims last week about transparency, trust, etc. Says one thing one week then acts completely differently.
Or maybe he has just answered the questions everybody has about the war. In making it secret and reporting after the next election, there is clearly a lot of things to hide - which we all thought but he has now conformed.
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#154 meninwhitecoats: "Presumably this enquiry was launched to appease backbenchers but then he completely undermines the enquiry by making it private."
I think your analysis is incorrect. If Brown had really wanted simply to throw a sop to his backbenchers (and the contributors to this board), he would have announced a public inquiry confident in the knowledge that nothing would come out of it for years (as with the so-called Bloody Sunday Inquiry, bogged down in interminable legal arguments).
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Was the visit by Michelle Obama a response from Brown's wife to their low position after the two elections which were the worst for Labour ever? I think Michelle came over to give support and then went to see the Queen - maybe they discussed the dissolution of this parliament - I hope, if they did, the Queen decided to go ahead and do it.
Fanciful thinking of me some will say but more truth to it than is evident.
Another secret meeting.
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BOB AINSWORTH!
Just listened to last nights PM.
Bloody Hell! We are in safe hands now! What a ..........! You can fill in th blank.
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#140 wasowenright wrote:
"As it turned out, Iraq became a focal point for most of the supporters of Al Qaeda, which made them more easily targeted".
This is completely wrong. Neither the people of Iraq nor the ruling Bath Party had any truck with Al Qaeda. In fact quite the opposite. Al Qaeda was an object of hatred in Iraq and had absolutely no influence.
I'm afraid you, like many, have been had by the Bush/Blair propaganda machine.
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153. bigsammyb
True, superpowers don't go to war on humanitarian grounds otherwise America, with us in tow, would have sorted out the Sudan/Darfur, Somalia and Zimbabwe by now.
The results of any inquiry will be prejudiced by the evidence that's already available. There was no conclusive evidence of WMD. Simples. If the same principles are used on other countries we should be invading North Korea and Israel.
Sad to see some on here are still trying to put a gloss over the decision to go to war.
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#78:
Absolutely spot on. I couldn't have put it better myself.
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#157 redmichael2: " Now he packs a secret inquiry with establishment placemen (no women)"
Arrant nonsense. One is a Baroness (there's a clue for you there), and two are distinguished military historians neither of whose views could be considered 'establishment'.
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Is there anything useful that can be done with the huge amount of white wash that will be generated by this inquiry? Sadly I can't think of anything other than pouring it into Downing Street as a reminder to all future Prime Ministers to listen to the people and not to lie through their teeth. Blair should be ashamed of himself; Brown too and all the others involved in this scandal that has caused massive loss of innocent life. The whole thing is sickening and has damaged the UK in the eyes of the world. Poodle Blair is how he'll be remembered. A very rich poodle but still a poodle.
Our Forces deserve better from our politicians and so do the people. Now Brown is looking for a new king of spin!! Give me strength.
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#158 HarryPagetFlashman:
The fault with your argument is that a real expert on biochemical wmd, Iraq, and weapons inspection (perhaps THE real expert on that particular combination of areas of expertise) thought that there was a significant chance that Saddam had evaded sanctions and had some level of wmd capability. He didn't think there was any realistic way of dealing with that situation except by invading Iraq and removing Saddam.
Of course, I am sure that you were better informed than was David Kelly.
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"If you are looking for a great conspiracy you are not going to find it," David Milliband. The only thing he's neglected to say is, "we'll make sure of that!" at the end of it! Clearly a whitewash before it's even started.
Anybody with half a brain knows that the Iraq War was about Money, Contracts & Oil as kost Wars often are. Unfortnately, 179 decent British service men & women had to die for it not to mention god knows how many innocent Iraqi Men, Women & Children who, I guess are happliy resting in their graves knowing they are "casualties of war", not "victims of terror". Has anybody realised that they believe in their cause just as much as we believe in ours? What price human life? Brown, Milliband & especially Blair & Bush are nothing more than bare faced, lying murderers. Is this enquiry going to address the most basic fundamental question of what gives us & the yanks the right to sling machine guns over our shoulders & swan off around the world telling other people how they will or won't live their lives? And, on the subject of WMD's, America still has the biggest nuclear aresnal in the world, why are they allowed to have WMD's & no-one else is? Why aren't they made to disarm? Who's policing the police?
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While I am totally in favour of a public enquiry and think Brown is an idiot to deny us one, I can't help myself. I have to point out the complete lack of logic in the comments on this page.
Either the report will be a total whitewash which will exonerate everyone, or it is being timed to report after the election because it will criticise people in the government. You can't have it both ways!
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It made me really angry seeing Bob Ainsworth on C4 News last night trying to justify why it needed to be held in private, saying that it would encourage those giving evidence to be more honest.
So in other words, if it were given in the open, he'd expect politicians to tell lies, would he?
And anyway, whatever happened to the government's mantra: "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear"?
Seems that they must have plenty to hide. No wonder they want to make sure it stays well hidden.
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"valdan70 wrote:
#armyofbats
The Tories had a secret enquiry after the Falklands War, so it is a bit rich of them to demand an open enquiry over Iraq. There was never any blame laid in the Falklands, even though it was common knowledge that as part of the cuts in the Defence budget, the withdrawal of the patrol vessel, HMS Endurance, from the South Atlantic sent the wrong signals to Argentina."
Fair point that the Falklands War was a secret enquiry, but isn't Gordon Brown and New Labour trying to bring in a new era of transparent and open government? Or does that only apply when they are trying to bring attention to the second jobs of Tory MPs?
Even if the patrol vessel was withdrawn that is hardly an open invitation to Argentina to invade. We are talking about countries here not children fighting over a toy.
"Then, of course, there was Mrs Thatcher's order to sink the Belgrano, when it was sailing away from the exclusion zone, with the loss of so many lives. Will we ever hear the truth about that;"
I know Wikipedia is not a 100% reliable source but it has the following to say about the sinking of the Belgrano. So even the Argentina government and the Captain of the Belgrano agreed that the sinking was legitimate.
"The Belgrano was sunk outside the 200-nautical-mile (370 km) total exclusion zone around the Falklands. However, exclusion zones are historically declared for the benefit of neutral vessels; during war, under international law, the heading and location of a belligerent naval vessel has no bearing on its status. In addition, the captain of the Belgrano, Hector Bonzo, has testified that the attack was legitimate (as did the Argentine government in 1994)."
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As usual, people here seem completely happy with the 9/11 story. Yet there is physical evidence to disprove the official narrative (WTC7) and unsupported by anything else (eg no fire or aircrash investigations). And ALL the so-called evidence extracted by torture was made up!
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/1098707.html
Bush then lied about Saddam's association with 9/11 and the UK politicans either swallowed the lie or were accompalices to the lie. We will never know if the whole Iraq inquiry is in secret.
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As long as the Government is in control of, sets the terms of reference of, or appoints the members of, public enquiries, we shall never see any semblance of the truth.
The feeling one has about certain previous enquiries, is that the final reports have been doctored to suit the Government, and in some cases to protect the vainglorious Mr Blair.
As for delaying the report until after the General Election, the inference must be that there is much to be hidden, once again, to protect the Labour Party.
As for the point about keeping things secret in the interests, of national security, the interests of some aspects of national security ie financial, would best be served by the instant removal of this feckless Government.
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How can it be a free and fair enquiry if it has already drawn the conclusion that it won't find any blame. If they're not even going to go into it with an open mind, really, what is the point?
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So typical of this Governement. It wants to know everything about its citizens ( ID cards, CCTV, DNA, email and phone intercepts ) but when it comes to us knowing more about its activities, the shutters go up.
Is it possible we can ever have open and honest Government, not afraid to highlight its mistakes, never shying from uncomfortable truths, and always willing to keep the people whom it represents in the loop.
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"sagamix wrote:
the Iraq War, I see that very much as one man's folly ... Anthony Charles Lytton Blair ... and, Enquiry or not, he'll be remembered for it - that's his punishment and, for a person of such overweening personal vanity, it's a fitting one"
Blair didn't act alone, if he didn't have the support of the House he would never have won the vote. Although I am not surprised to see New Labour supporters trying to shift the blame onto someone who is no longer in government - they have been doing it since they got elected back in 1997 :)
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"I can't see how a public inquiry would benefit anyone. I find no difference in the decision to send troops to Iraq from the decision to send troops to the Falklands." Newtactic
Well, right or wrong, the Falklands is an overseas territory of the UK, so its citizens are UK citizens. Iraq is an independant sovereign state and its citzens are not UK citizens.
Argentina invaded the Falklands. The islanders did not want to be under Argentinian rule. Iraq did not invade any UK territory. In fact at the time of teh second Iraq conflict it was invading no territory at all.
If you really can't see the difference, I would suggest reading a little of the history of the two conflicts.
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Again, no mitigation for Brown at all, but those defending the Falklands as a response to an invasion of the U.K. are deluded. I suggest they buy themselves a map. The first colonists of the islands were French. They ceded the Falklands to Spain and they then passed to Argentina when it became independent. The creation of the British colony was as a result of a British invasion. The Argentinian invasion was an attempt to recapture their territory. Falklands Islanders weren't even entitled to British citizenship until after the war.
The sinking of the Belgrano (a ship outside and sailing away from an exclusion zone) was as much of a war crime as anything that happened in Iraq. The only difference was that it was ordered by Thatcher and the right refuses to accept that she can be criticised.
The motives for the British task force were entirely political. Thatcher was so far behind in the opinion polls that even Foot might have beaten her. The Falklands campaign secured her majority for years.
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140 wasowenright
Your quite right owen the posts on this blog are not out of any interest in the Iraq war it is being used sadly not out of respect for those that have died in this conflict its being used as another vehicle to slag of the government, I think there should be a inquiry. Had gordon brown have decided to hold a inquiry in Hyde park in full view of any one who wanted to attend he would have still been critcised in exactly the way he is being now [as in the Hutton report] by 95% of the bloggers on this blog today. They have almost without exception suggested that this inquiry will be a white wash before a word has been spoken, the shame lies with you people on this count not the government.
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Lessons to be learned? Yeah! like when? How many times are we going to hear those very same words I wonder. This inquiry will reveal little if anything that the public would like answers to. Quite simply the system of government in the UK is stacked against us. Ever heard of 'The Representation of The Peoples Act'? It's just another big CON - because that's exactly what we do not have, what we do not get. Our system of government works only in the best interests of those who set it up and those who run it. A very small minority who seek to maintain control by any means necessary, be it the introduction of new laws, frightening the general public, misleading parliament & public and so forth. The inquiry will be about as clear and as transparent as a lump of coal because once again it's going to be 'limited' and will not be blaming anyone for anything. Hardly a surprise is it!
1. WMDs ready for use within 45 minutes of the command to use them being given? NO.
2. Was parliament misled, and if so by whom? THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TELL US.
3. Why did Attorney General suddenly change his mind on the question of the legality of the war? Was he leaned on, and if so, by whom?
THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TELL US.
4. Why were the inspectors not allowed to complete their jobs in Iraq?
BECAUSE SOMEONE WANTED WAR, WAR, WAR - NOT JAW, JAW, JAW.
The inquiry will be just another waste of public funds (our money) because we will be prevented from learning anything near the truth by the very same people who continue to claim that they 'represent' us.
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Stuff this inquiry.
But the real question is, if we toppled Saddam Hussein to end his tyranny and the torture of innocent Iraqis, why do we allow one of his henchmen torturers to live freely in the UK?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193299/Free-walk-streets-war-criminals-deport-human-rights.html
Oh, silly me, of course his human rights are more important than human decency. Perpetrators of genocide in Africa can stay here - cool!
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For the sake of the families of the 179 personel who died and for those personel themselves, the enquiry should be public. All concerned must be made to give their evidence and I mean ALL. GB once again totally detaches himself from the people.
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#168 Jimbrant
However diligent the enquiry is [and I am not prejudging this], because of the scret nature of the enquiry no-one will ever believe its findings.
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Wonder if they will examine why Veterans Support UK was constructively closedown
were they getting to near the issues around PTSD , overstretch and others issues facing the armed forced that Nu-labour put in the firing line.
What ever you think of the war right or wrongs HMG has treated is service personal very very badly. Form a human level to one of equipement and all point inbetween.
Nick can we have a comment on VSUK as I know that you have been there personally as a news reproter on a number of occassions ?
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131. At 03:52am on 16 Jun 2009, Scotspoet wrote:
Having worked in the armed forces, served in iraq and worked for the government as a consultant I am of the opinion that lessons are at best only ever identified. They are almost never 'learnt' from.
Absolutely! Almost every time an enquiry is held anywhere the purpose is not to seek the the truth and learn from it, but to find somebody to blame. Or it the case of 'enquiries' such as this, nobody to blame.
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I used to vote Labour. I will never vote for them again because of Iraq. Shame on the party for allowing itself to be hijacked by THAT neocon trickster.
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Rubber-Stamping Facade Exercise
-> No Weapons of Mass Destruction
(except on our side he he)
-> Rude Boy Saddam H is dead
-> Officially No Conspiracy
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Here is the link to the Number 10 online petition calling for a PUBLIC enquiry: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Iraq-Inquiry/
If there's a demonstration against this shocking decision I'll be there!
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Why go to all the time, trouble and expense of an inquiry. Just wait until Blair's autobiography is published and we will be able to read a complete and honest report on the whole thing..won't we?
More likely we'll see the publication date of Blair's book pushed back until after the inquiry to make sure the accounts tally.
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With regards to this quote;
"It will not be a naming of the allegedly "guilty men", nor an opportunity for a public airing of the political wounds opened by the Iraq war. Nor a healing process."
If the above is, indeed, the case; if it's just going to turn out to be another Butler (and, to a lesser extent, Hutton) report which concludes that yes, stupid mistakes were made and yes, the evidence for war was unsound and ought not to have been foisted onto the General Public as a definite and incontravertible need to go to immediate war and no, Saddam didn't have the WMD the US and UK governments insisted he did... but that NOBODY - not least those in charge who were actually making the decisions, misinterpreting the evidence and misleading the public as to the nature of the "proof" - is actually at fault in any way...
...what does it matter whether it's held behind closed doors, or in public? Or whether it goes ahead at all?
And if "Chilcot Report" refers to the same Sir John Chilcot who was one of the five committee members for the Butler Report, I think it quite likely that it IS likely to be a similar white-wash.
I guess it's quite correct to say, as Mr Robinson reports that Whitehall sources are doing, above, that no enquiry is going to satisfy everybody, no matter how open it is nor what it concludes. Nonetheless, I think the majority of people WOULD be satisfied with an enquiry that actually addresses the issue of why Tony Blair (and others) took a bunch of largely inconclusive and sometimes entirely theoretical/hypothetical reports about Saddam's possible activities, and described them using words like "compelling" and "incontravertible" without being clear about what it was he was basing his conclusions on. Why the British Prime Minister decided that doing 'what he personally believed was right' (which, co-incidentally, just *happened* to also be exactly what the hawkish US Administration wanted him to do) took precedence over what most of the country, and even half his own party, wanted him to do.
As far as I can see, he both deliberately deceived the electorate and put the wishes of a foreign government above the wishes of the people he represents. This makes him, in my eyes, both a liar and a traitor. Now, I don't expect that any official report is going to describe him in terms nearly so strong as those; nonetheless, it would be nice to see *some* sort of recognition on the part of those in charge of investigating the invasion of Iraq that doing what he did was, fundamentally, wrong.
If it's not going to do that, as I said above, there's little point in wasting public money having another enquiry. Secret, Public or whatever.
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@ 186 Andy C555
I suggest you read your history books and get the actual facts. Perhaps if you are interested enough you could take a degree in history, as I did. I find it amazing how the propaganda machine of the 1980s is still able to distort the facts in this unwanted conflict with Argentina. Once in possession of the facts you might consider it would have been easier and cheaper to have resettled the Falkland Islanders here.
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Rot!
The shame lies with the Government, for sending us there in the first place, lying about it, ignoring the people who didn't want it (from both countries), messing the campaign up royally, the list goes on.
All that has been confirmed by the government is that the enquiry will:-
1. Will be carried out in Private.
2. Will not have witnesses that will be obliged to appear. (So no Blair then).
3. Will have no Blame will be apportioned for sending us to war.
4. Have no authority to have witnesses telling the truth.
None of this has been denied by Bob Ainsworth (Secretary of State for Defence - Well done Gordon btw next time why not make Swampy minister for Roads), admittedly he did say that we should have faith in the people selected to carry this enquiry out. Why shouldn't we if anything else the government has proven trustworthy!?!
This from a Prime Minister who has promised frankness, and honesty.
Brown is Rubbish
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forgetting about the detailed ins and outs, it's clear to me that we knew Iraq had no WMDs when we invaded - if we'd have thought there was a serious possibility that they did have such an armoury, we would not have gone in - would have been far too dangerous - I may be wrong about this but it would take a lot to make me change my mind
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Who can picture tomorrow's PMQ's?
Cameron: "Would the Prime Minister care to explain to the house we the enquiry into the Iraq war will not be held in public"
Brown: "M M M M Mr Speaker, I am most surprised by this question, we have done much more for an enquiry into the Iraq was than his party when they were in power
(Harman coughs urgently)
N N N N N no, thats not what I meant. I mean the British public obviously do not want an public enquiry
(Harman coughs urgently)
N N N N no, thats not what I meant, I mean he would not call a public enquiry if he was in power
(Harman coughs urgently)
We have increased spending on the public sector in real terms by (etc.)
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#192 meninwhitecoats: "However diligent the enquiry is [and I am not prejudging this], because of the scret nature of the enquiry no-one will ever believe its findings."
Hutton was a public Inquiry, so of course everybody believed what it discovered, didn't they.
The sad fact is that many will not believe the outcome of any inquiry unless its conclusions support their preconceptions.
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#187 Minnsy if we're going to talk about "creations of colonialism" then by your standards Argentina, an artifical creation of Spanish colonialism should also be abolished, the land returned to the native Americans and all Argentinians who are descendents of Europeans should voluntarily repatriate to their ancestral homelands?
The rest of your post is ill informed nonsense. Go and learn about the rules of war and look at post #180 which explains the rules of war in relation to the Belgrano. Yes Thatcher made mistakes in the run up to the war but did she go about it with the express intention of provoking Argentina into an agressive act? By all rights the UK should have lost the Falklands War, Argentina held every possible strategic advantage and thanks to Helaey's cuts in 1966, Britain had lost most of the capability necessary to perform the operation, even the Americans had doubts as to whether or not even their navy could have mounted such an expedition. Britain prevailed because of a series of strategic blunders by the Argentine High Command, and the superior quality of British military personnel, the Argentine Army was very good at machine gunning unarmed women but when confronted with a proper military opponent they collapsed. The Falklands operation was a colossal political risk for Thatcher, so the idea of engineering an invasion so that an ill equipped naval force can attempt to retake them doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny. As for the argument about Thatcher's poll ratings, the Tories polling nadir came in the summer of 1981 in the aftermath of the Brixton Riots. Through the autmn and winter of 1981 they began to slowly recover so that by march 1982 they were just behind the Alliance and well clear of the imploding Labour Party. Your idea that Foot would have beaten Thatcher but for the Falklands is totally ridiculous. Thatcher may have won a majority on a similar scale to 1979 or slightly less, the Alliance's 1983 campaign was an absolute shambles and they would have best only won a few more seats than they actually did.
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#148 extreme
I've just caught up with these entries and have spend fifteen minutes replying to you in, what I hope was a rational way. Then I scrolled down and came across you're addition at #151 and decided it wasn't worth spending anymore time on it.
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#148 extreme
I've just caught up and spent fifteen minutes replying in, what I hope was a rational way, to your criticism of my entry. Then I scrolled down and saw your next entry at #151 and thought it wasn't worth the effort.
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Revelation say
Who say?
So the prophet say
A serious thing
No jestering
Fighting against humanity
Fighting against reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIQ3UpORjHE&feature=PlayList&p=FAE4801EE658CF0B&index=15&playnext=6&playnext_from=PL
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I like some of the themes that are infiltrating this subject. That we are losing control of our involvement in world affairs, due to globilisation. Even, some have suggested, that our elected government has little power to make it's own decisions because of the globilised economy.
It begs the question, who does have control then?
Is it the mysterious people who hold billions of pounds worth of shares on the the world's stock markets perhaps. Who was the guy who invested millions of pounds into Barclays Bank, saving them from having to come to us, (via our government), for funds. The injection of this money, sponsored a rise in Barclays' share-price, as the markets believed this was a long-term investment, but no!. A few months later, he withdraws and makes a massive profit. We are talking millions of pounds of profit.
Just another example of a hard-working successful man, I guess.
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If Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction, the lesson to be learnt would have been 'Don't bomb a country that has weapons of mass destruction'.
But they didn't did they - phew that was lucky!
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195. At 11:57am on 16 Jun 2009, redmichael2 wrote:
I used to vote Labour. I will never vote for them again because of Iraq. Shame on the party for allowing itself to be hijacked by THAT neocon trickster.
======================
If you did vote Labour, and you remember why you voted Labour, do you think the last hundred years of progressive change has been lost because of this one action. I accept your disagreement with going to war, alot of people feel that, but the Labour Party is more than this one event.
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#200. Rubbish!
They want to live there as Britons. I suppose if they had refused your genorous "offer" you would have had the Army forcibly resettle them?
What a great advert for this country that would have been!
The only people who wanted that war were Galtieri and his gang of fascist criminals.
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War makes you Poorer
(but not for them with a direct link with the devil)
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204. At 1:02pm on 16 Jun 2009, jimbrant wrote:
#192 meninwhitecoats: "However diligent the enquiry is [and I am not prejudging this], because of the scret nature of the enquiry no-one will ever believe its findings."
Hutton was a public Inquiry, so of course everybody believed what it discovered, didn't they.
The sad fact is that many will not believe the outcome of any inquiry unless its conclusions support their preconceptions.
-----------------
The sad fact is, a few will believe the outcome of any enquiry as long as it supports their favoured party.
Hutton was clearly not objective, and yet some still accepted the pack of lies provided.
Ho hum.
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The Rich Man Live
+
The Poor Man Cry
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Im really sick of hearing about the Irag War...what about Mr 10 percent...? instewa\d of asking Andy Burnham about which services are being cut ...wehy not ask David Cameron whcih doctors, nurses, teacher, social workers , policmen and women and armed service are going to be thrwon on to the dole if Mr cameron wins the election...Nick we want you to do your job...act independent and start to ask questions about tory cuts and Mt 10 percent...no one bothered when it was the falklands and we also have heard enought about Iraq...what about us in UK...
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# 181 ynda20
You do yourself a dis service. You have no credible evidence that 9/11 was a inside job, it was suspiceous yes, but leave it at that.
Hold on to reality, the stuff you can prove. Like why does the bilderberg group exist? Why is this group kept secret and why are their yearly meetings not reported on despite the highest levels of government and industry attending?
Moreover why were the riots that took place in france last january, in reaction to the meeting, blacked out of the media?
Ask Nick Robinson (not that he ever reads or comments on his own blog) why he doesn't report on Bilderberg?
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211. At 1:31pm on 16 Jun 2009, wasowenright wrote:
195. At 11:57am on 16 Jun 2009, redmichael2 wrote:
I used to vote Labour. I will never vote for them again because of Iraq. Shame on the party for allowing itself to be hijacked by THAT neocon trickster.
======================
If you did vote Labour, and you remember why you voted Labour, do you think the last hundred years of progressive change has been lost because of this one action. I accept your disagreement with going to war, alot of people feel that, but the Labour Party is more than this one event.
-------------------
Yes, regrettably, the Labour Party is indeed more than this one event.
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wor @ 211:
You are right. The Labour Party is more than one event unless perhaps you are a family member of those who were disabled or lost their lives in the conflict. Do you seriously believe that this particular blogger has lost faith in The Government merely because of The Iraq War? The other failings which now prevent previous supporters from voting Labour have been well documented on here many times.
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wor:
As for bloggers using this latest enquiry to hammer Gordon Brown I don't think that holds any water either. Gordon Brown is doing a perfect job of hammering himself by continuing to make the wrong decisions at just about every turn!
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The Hutton Inquiry was a whitewash from start to finish! Nothing more nor less.
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Cameron is exactly what he looks. An ex spin doctor whose company went bust owing millions.He asked for a Franks type enquiry, now that such an enquiry has been proposed he is calling for a different type.He is clearly not to be trusted. He looks to me as though he could not work his way out of a paper bag, a few weeks down one of the few remaining pits would do him good, however, it is doubtful if he would last a full shift.
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#222:
To say that someone who slept on the floor of his dead son's hospital bedroom for hours on end when he was being treated could not last a day down a pit is laughable. I'm sure he'd take you up on your challenge if you asked him. I doubt btw that many people would jump at such a challenge without prior experience! Try talking a little sense!
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219. At 2:34pm on 16 Jun 2009, sicilian29 wrote:
220. At 2:36pm on 16 Jun 2009, sicilian29 wrote:
Spot on. Gordon Brown hasn't lost the plot because he never had a plot.
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"davidou1234 wrote:
Im really sick of hearing about the Irag War...what about Mr 10 percent...?"
Your use of the term "Mr 10 percent" makes me suspect that you are a Labour plant, the only people I have heard using it are members of the Labour Party trying to focus attention on Tory cuts.
As a put down it just doesn't seem snappy enough to break into mainstream and be picked up by neutrals unlike the Cable comment calling Brown "Mr Bean".
As for Robinson acting independent, this post seems to be a defence of the Labour party's inquiry. There is no mention of the fact that a private inquiry is launched less then a week after Brown suggested that Government should be more open and honest.
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You could askyourself where were the 460+ labour MP's at the time of
the vote, there moral compass, there justice and their fair values that I hear so much of, that the labour party is more than one event.
Those 460+ are just as responsible as Mr Blair did he arm twist the whole lot such that they did not use there own intelect etc.
The nation hwas told a lie to placate the backbench labour MP's that was what the dossier was all about giving them a bone to chew and releive there conscience on.
Yet 170+ have died and many many other have been injured and will have long lasting effects such as PTSD.
This is the greed we should be talking about not bankers or expensives claims but the greed of staying in power at any cost to democracy and the wider public.
And there is an ocean of differnece bewteen the falklands and Iraq.
but it does depend of which revisionist version of history you want
to read.
Like an aeroplane , history has many dimension. The aeroplane has 4,
pitch,roll and yaw and the forth is polictics (See Healy 1965 TSR2) and
History is no different.
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JPSLotus79
Your reply is a mix of deliberate misunderstanding and misinformation. I never suggested Thatcher provoked the invasion for political gain. I suggested that her response to it, i.e. the launch of the task force was a political decision calculated to boost her own popularity. A calculation which worked. As Brian Walden put it:
"In early 1982 Thatcher's opinion poll ratings were appalling and she was a deeply unpopular figure. The skids were well and truly under her. And then came the Falklands War. It changed everything."
You will also have noted the words 'even' and 'might' in my statement that 'even Foot might have beaten her.' The expression was a way of emphasising just how unpopular she was. Unlike you, I don't have a crystal ball which tells me how the campaigns would have differed if Thatcher had retained her deep unpopularity, nor what the election result would have been. I only know what happended - and how she used the Falklands as a campaigning tool.
I am more than acquainted with the rules of war. I am also aware that the attack on the Belgrano was a political decision. Admiral Sandy Woodward made it very clear in his memoirs that the rules of engagement under which HMS Conqueror was operating were specifically changed to allow the attack. This decision was taken personally by Thatcher.
The rest of your argument undermines itself. The poor quality of the Argentine conscript army was well known. You confirm in your own words how ineffective they were and how badly they were led. The risk, therefore, was minimal. I agree entirely that they were beaten by a much better trained, better equipped military force. My point (which you happily reinforce) was that this was a more than likely outcome.
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I fear the delay in his removal from office has given Gordon the idea that he can carry on regardless with the 'same old same old'. Still think we should take to the streets.
There is clearly something to hide. If there was any element in the politial debate (or lack of) in the build up to the invasion of Iraq that could be regarded as positive, then he would release the information tomorrow so he can be seen as the great 'uncoverer of the truth'.
Maybe this was the deal that he struck with Tony. "You leave early and i will keep your Iraq debacle under wraps".
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#227 unpopular in who's eyes then ? Because She took the decisions that callaghan + co , like brown + co today will not take. You cannot live beyond your means in any system without paying the price at some point.
from where I was she was very popular from 1979 onwards
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"Minnsy wrote:
I am more than acquainted with the rules of war. I am also aware that the attack on the Belgrano was a political decision. Admiral Sandy Woodward made it very clear in his memoirs that the rules of engagement under which HMS Conqueror was operating were specifically changed to allow the attack. This decision was taken personally by Thatcher."
If you are aware of the rules of war why did you (previously) refer to the sinking of the Belgrano as a war crime, when the attack was allowed under international law? By definition a war crime is something that falls outside of the laws or customs of war - the sinking of the Belgrano didn't.
The decision to sink the Belgrano WAS taken by Thatcher, but it was a decision taken under international law and helped end the Argentine naval threat. The anti-Thatcher bloggers seem to think that Thatcher was in her underground lair planning the sinking of a cruise liner not a cruiser.
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#227 You miss the point. Yes the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marines were infinitely better soldiers than their Argentine equivalents and once the British had landed in force it was likely that their superior training and leadership would prevail but you still fail to take into account 2 very important factors.
First the British have to land on the islands and for that you need air and sea superiority over the enemy. As I said the Royal Navy's power projection capability had been gutted by the Wilson Government. There were no large carriers, just Hermes, a converted amphibious assault ship and Invincible, primarily an anti-submarine helicopter carrier, neither of which was ever envisioned for such an operation. The big outcome of the Belgrano sinking was that it forced the Argentine Navy which had limited anti-submarine capability into harbour. If you've read Admiral Woodward's book, you should know that another RN submarine, HMS Spartan, had been tracking the 25 de Mayo but had lost contact with her. Woodward has said that if she had still been in contact with her then he would have requested that both capital ships be sunk. That's what you do in war, you seek to kill the enemy before he has a chance to kill you. Had an Argentine submarine had HMS Hermes in it's sights do you think they would have passed the chance up? The only fighter available to the British was the Sea Harrier, it was hugely outnumbered by the Argentine air force and it only got the better of it's adversaries because Casper Weinberger ensured that Britain received the latest version of the Sidewinder missile, the AIM-9L ahead of the US military, without that missile, the Harriers would have been outgunned. What air superiority they achieved was highly localized and wasn't enough to cover British ships in San Carlos from Argentine air attack, the ships themselves lacked adequate anti-aircraft systems. When HMS Coventry was attacked by Skyhawks after her missiles refused to engage, her crew were forced to resort to shooting at them with rifles and shining the ship's signal light at them to try and dazzle the pilots.
Secondly you have to keep your invasion force supplied. The original plan had been to transport the troops from San Carlos to Stanley by Chinook helicopters. But those helicopters were lost when the Atlantic Conveyor was sunk by an Exocet. Again if the Argetineans had used their navy more effectively then they could have sunk more supply ships and the whole operation would have been lost. Without the Chinooks, the troops had to match across East Falkland and then take part in an intense battle, this also meant that they had to be supplied by ship leading to the horror at Bluff Cove. Britain had just a window of a few weeks to conclude the operation by the end of June before the onset of the harsh South Atlantic winter. Admiral Woodward has said that if the Argentine garrison hadn't surrendered on June 14th then he would have had to recommend to Whitehall that the operation be ended as the ships were wearing out, Hermes in particular, couldn't have physically lasted in the stormy seas. The whole Falklands operation came close to complete disaster for Britain on several occassions and had the Argentine military been only slightly more competent then they would have prevailed.
No I don't have a crystal ball but I do know that Labour was an unelectable rabble of fueding factions in 1982 led by a man who while decent, hourable and principled (qualities that Blair never possessed) advocated a policy platform that was too far to the left to win power. Yes Thatcher was unpopular, but without the Falklands it's likely that she would have been seen as the best of a bad bunch. Her government mucked it up in the run up to the war but she took a huge personal and political risk by commiting to the military option. Just suppose the Falklands had been a disater, there wouldn't be a Tory Party today! That's how much was at stake!
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#211 If you did vote Labour, and you remember why you voted Labour, do you think the last hundred years of progressive change has been lost because of this one action. I accept your disagreement with going to war, alot of people feel that, but the Labour Party is more than this one event.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The problem is Owen that what we have now is not a Labour Govt, it's Nu Labour with all it's spin and nonsense. Taking a country in to an illegal war, (which even only the most stupid among us would argue about now) is a betrayal of everything that a true Labour Govt would have stood for over the past 100yrs.
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227. At 3:07pm on 16 Jun 2009, Minnsy wrote
"the launch of the task force was a political decision calculated to boost her own popularity"
"The risk, therefore, was minimal."
Absolute revisionist rubbish. It has been detailed in numerous sources how close this venture came to failure. To claim this was a calculated decision to boost popularity beggars belief attempting to justify this by adding Brian Waldens quotation out of context is a disingenious way to provide evidence to back up your political agenda driven claims.
In his book, One Hundred Days, Admiral Woodward makes it clear that he regarded the Belgrano as part of the southern part of a pincer movement aimed at the task force, and had to be sunk quickly. He wrote:
"The speed and direction of an enemy ship can be irrelevant, because both can change quickly. What counts is his position, his capability and what I believe to be his intention."
Yes it was a political decision, because Cdr Wreford-Brown nor Woodward would carry out the attack without approval, they did however advocate attack.
Attempting to muddy waters like this to justify a ridiculous decision by a lame duck PM only illustrates precisely what is wrong with the Labour Movement at present. Too busy with Playground Politics not enough trying to make a better, fairer future. New Labour are Tories in Pink with no morals or ideals than self preservation and a distinct know it all attitude
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Jah is my co-pilot
Purger of mankind
So called leaders of the world
Circumcise your heart
and make a brand new start
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miXtvOxzXTY&feature=related
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#206 & 207 wasowenright
Thank you for your sanctimonious response.
In future, I will endeavour to show my contempt for our dreadful excuse for a democracy in more serious terms next time.
However, on this occasion, I repeat that I think the public mood demands justice and who better to start with than the Tory Trojan Horse, Tony Blair?
I still think Bob Ainsworth is a joke as defence minister but at least he won some votes unlike Mandelson who seems to be running the country.... the Muller with all Portfolios.
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An Official Enquiry into the Iraq War!?
For what purpose!?
Well, the reasons Mr Robinson gives are as good as any other in that nothing of any value will come of it: "..criticism from keenest advocates..", "..bitterest opponents..", "..allegedly 'guilty men'..", "..public airing of political wounds.." and "..healing process..".
Let's shorten the whole process:
The Advocates' case: Intelligence sources suggested Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq; Iraq was led by a ruthless and cruel Dictator and a vicious sectarian Political Party; some in the West believed/suspected Saddam Hussein was sponsoring Islamic Terrorism; some thought 'Regime Change' to a more 'Democratic Iraq' might improve chances of general Mid-East peace process; Independent west-backed 'democratic' Iraq would counter-balance anti-west, anti-Israel Islamic Iran and Syria; some USA and west Oil Companies wanted to establish control of key oil supply; some in 'west', in U.N.O. and in Mid-East believed Saddam as longterm threat/destabilising influence had to go.
The Opponents' case: Everything above is a lie or falsehood or calculated excuse to enable the USA and any other 'west'/'mid-East' supporters to get rid of Saddam just so they could control the Oil and threaten the rest of Region.
Enquiry findings in favour of Advocates: Advocates were within UNO Security Council Resolution parameters; invading 'coalition of the willing' forces were acting responsibly and with good intentions, but faulty intelligence led to errors and they were at fault for not making preparations and not foreseeing the tragedy that unfolded post 'reguime change'.
Opponents view of findings: Disgraceful fix by the powers that be and a deliberate cover-up plus a demand for another Enquiry!
Enquiry findings in favour of Opponents: Advocates used unreasonable and contrived excuses in breech of UNO Security Council Resolution parameters to justify invasion; USA and 'coalition forces' campaign lacked appropriate preparation and used excessive force to effect 'regime change' by an attack on a sovereign nation; all this was to allow USA to control Oil supply and have strategic domination of the Region.
As a result of either pro-Advocate or pro-Opponent Enquiry findings the following will occur.
1) The current USA and any other 'coalition of the willing' forces' National Governments will announce their regret over past mistakes, initiate various good-will schemes of support for Iraqis, and declare that such a thing must never happen again.
2) The current Iraq Government, if pro-USA, will endorse the pro-Advocate findings and the USA led response.
3) The current Iraq Government, if anti-USA, will endorse the pro-Opponent findings and refute the USA led response.
4)A: The more than a decade-long Iran/Syria funded-backed-trained-armed pro-Islamic fundamentalist attempts at 'regime change' in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestinian areas, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel etc. will continue with increasing violence and threat to the 'modern democratic-capitalist' Nations.
B: Somehow the people of the 'West' and the Muslim world will eventually come to accept the reality of the fact that there is a war against unenlightened/backward fundamentalist-terrorist Islamic movements underway and it will indeed take years of effort and sacrifice to ensure the 'enlightened west and Muslims' prevail.
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The people who are baying for a "Public Enquiry" are forgetting the fact that there are still thousands of troops not just from the UK but from around the world in Iraq. They are the priority here not the chattering classes who think wrongly that thier armchair political self centred supposed 5 minuite self centred "outrage" needs to be asuaged by spending million on what we already know. Why do we need an enquiry to tell us that this was a political decision based on "Dodgy" evidence and "Oil interests" which sent the troops in. Did the removal of Saddam save more mass graves?, was that justification? only history will tell. The whole thing is a mess but it is a mess that is ending and the people of this country need to get on with the job of living from day to day in this disasterous economic climate. Jobs are going, lives are being devastated in the same way that happened under Margaret Thatcher. Lets put our collective muscle on that problem noit one we already know everything about
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43. John Pryor.
John, The Tories had all the time in the world to ask for additional information, but they didnt bother because they jumped on the War Wagon at the first opportunity.
Thats pretty sloppy when you realise the importance of the decision.
Perhaps if the Tories had been a bit more of an opposition party instead of cuddling up to Blairs NuLabour, then things might have been different.
Its a bit late in the day for Cameron to cry about it now isnt it?
All well & good him going on, but it makes you wonder why he cant just commit himself to a full public enquiry as part of his future manifesto.
As for Blair, remember that after the Nuremberg Trials, we executed German Officers & Government officials for far less.
May his God forgive him?
·
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216. davidou1234
222. braveSouter
I may just vote Labour at the next elections, just so I can be amongst such illustrious company.
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223 Sicilian,
I agree it is important to try and talk sensibly at all times.Perhaps you can explain your view a) that the medical profession are now 'treating' dead people? b) Can you recall how many Tory members of the House of Commons voted for the war?, with their then leader wanting to go earlier c) Was Cameron a failed spin doctor? d)Are you aware that the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman disagrees profoundly with your ideas on economic decision making, particularly in relation to the Global Crisis. When I look at your contributions the word infantile comes to mind.
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#237 WestminsterFarm
In answer to your 'mass graves' question, history has already spoken.... yes. Enormous graveyards had to be hastily created to cater for the dead bodies that resulted from this action.
I generally agree that this 'enquiry' is pointless and wasteful as the government has already fixed it with it's narrow terms of reference like the other two.
Shame on Mandelson Brown - they're just taunting the taxpayer.
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126. At 00:49am on 16 Jun 2009, york1900 wrote:
Well at the end of the day First Gulf War (2 August 1990 28 February 1991) none of the government involved wanted to finish the job
then after that Saddam Hussein played games with the world over WMD and no one knew what he had or did not have and in the end the world had to decide what to do about him as he was just laughing at everybody as he all ready had shown the world he would kill his own people and invade other country's the options got less and less as he was never going to cooperate with anyone he pushed the bluff once to often and Iraq and it's people paid the price
===
On that basis, why haven't we invaded North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe, amongst others?
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144. At 08:55am on 16 Jun 2009, Bell_4_Goalie wrote:
.... I do recall that the resolution was a little ambiguous and the French/Germans did not think the "serious consequnces" meant war, but that is poor work on the UN diplomats part (of all nationalities), not necessarily the fault of the UK govt.
===
The US, UK and Syrian ambassadors to the UN, amongst others, were clear that 1441 did not give an automatic right to attack Iraq.
"While some politicians have argued that the resolution could authorize war under certain circumstances, the representatives in the meeting were clear that this was not the case. The ambassador for the United States, John Negroponte, said:
[T]his resolution contains no "hidden triggers" and no "automaticity" with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the Council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA or a Member State, the matter will return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12. . .If the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of a further Iraqi violation, this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq, or to enforce relevant UN resolutions and protect world peace and security.[2]
The ambassador for the United Kingdom, the co-sponsor of the resolution, said:
We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" -- the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response... There is no "automaticity" in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. We would expect the Security Council then to meet its responsibilities.[3]
The message was further confirmed by the ambassador for Syria:
Syria voted in favour of the resolution, having received reassurances from its sponsors, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and from France and Russia through high-level contacts, that it would not be used as a pretext for striking against Iraq and does not constitute a basis for any automatic strikes against Iraq. The resolution should not be interpreted, through certain paragraphs, as authorizing any State to use force. It reaffirms the central role of the Security Council in addressing all phases of the Iraqi issue.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1441
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#235 extreme
Your acidic remarks, when blaming Tony Blair for everything until 2007 and now Gordon Brown from then on, suggests the justice you talk of has already been decided, by you.
You are not interested in justice for anyone, you see the Iraq war as you see everything else, just another stick to beat a Labour government with. I know plenty of people who have left the Labour Party over the same issue, I say the same to them. I don't see the Tory voters abandon the Conservative Party over Suez. It's an event in history. The judgement will be made at the appropriate time. We elect people to make these decisions on our behalf.
Would you prefer that future governments put it to a referendum when they judged we should fight? I don't know about you, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to decide. But if I did, and voted against going to war, who could I comfortably blame then? My neighbour, the couple down the street, or would I go around with a sticker on my car, as so many people did in the early 80s, saying "I didn't vote for her". Well somebody did. The same will be said when a war we vote for by referendum, goes wrong, you won't find many who will admit to saying yes.
I think we should remember the context that the decision was made in. Post 911, where will the next strike be? The Iraq war, focused the al qaeda attack on the west and we had an enemy we could see. At the time, virtually any holiday resort, of symbol of the west was a target. I am by no means a military stratergist, but I do wonder whether very astute politicians, as Tony Blair was and is, made that call.
Surely, no-one would envy any PM who makes these decisions, but maybe an attack on Saddam, in order to draw the fight out in the open, was the best option. The rest of the Arab world was not going to step up to defend him because of his associations with the west in the past. After all we put him there.
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souter @ 240 wrote:
223 Sicilian,
I agree it is important to try and talk sensibly at all times.Perhaps you can explain your view a) that the medical profession are now 'treating' dead people? b) Can you recall how many Tory members of the House of Commons voted for the war?, with their then leader wanting to go earlier c) Was Cameron a failed spin doctor? d)Are you aware that the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman disagrees profoundly with your ideas on economic decision making, particularly in relation to the Global Crisis. When I look at your contributions the word infantile comes to mind.
a) I think you knew what he meant.
b) A great many because like a whole swathe of Labour members they were taken in by the WMD argument.
c) It is Gordon Brown who is turning out to be the failed spin doctor but big time.
d) The Paul Krugman link is an old one from last year. He may have won The Nobel Prize but there are a lot of people who find his views rather weird and skewed. Gordon Brown may have won some kudos for handling the Credit crisis but so he should because he helped cause it.
As far as Sicilian's comments being infantile I feel that he is usually spot on and very relevant with his remarks. His views on Gordon Brown are cogent and shared by many on here.
Your blind loyalty to Gordon Brown is worthy of note but misguided I believe. In most comedy and news programmes as well as political satires he is now regarded as an object of fun and disdain!
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163. At 10:00am on 16 Jun 2009, newtactic wrote:
I can't see how a public inquiry would benefit anyone. I find no difference in the decision to send troops to Iraq from the decision to send troops to the Falklands.
===
Sorry, but you are just talking nonsense here. Do you really not see any difference?
Let me spell it out to you.
The Falkland Islands were/ are British sovereign territory, they were invaded by a foreign power in an act of aggression. We defended ourselves.
Iraq was/ is a sovereign nation, we invaded it to effect regime change and gain control of its oil reserves.
Clear enough for you?
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#246 yellow
I do wish you had been my history teacher. You make it so simple.
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#246 yellow
And before you say it, yes that was a one-liner. And so is this.
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Thanks newbie. It's not often I've been accused of being infantile and just because I disagree with him. Says more about the blogger himself I think. When confronted with the facts there are a few on here who resort to personal abuse. Looks as if he's joined the ranks of these.
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216. At 2:21pm on 16 Jun 2009, davidou1234 wrote:
Im really sick of hearing about the Irag War...what about Mr 10 percent...? instewa\d of asking Andy Burnham about which services are being cut ...wehy not ask David Cameron whcih doctors, nurses, teacher, social workers , policmen and women and armed service are going to be thrwon on to the dole if Mr cameron wins the election.
===
I can answer that for you. None.
Why not ask the same question of Mr 7% (in denial) Brown?
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216. At 2:21pm on 16 Jun 2009, davidou1234 wrote:
Im really sick of hearing about the Irag War...
===
Word of advice, don't read a blog about the Iraq War then!
Simples!
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#244 wasowenright
You're quite right, I can't and never could stand Tony Blair and I think he's got much to answer for including the decision to attack Iraq.
You are however wrong that this is simply a stick to beat the Labour party with as I believe that the Labour party ceased to exist the moment Blair became leader - I knew he was a Tory and I've never voted for him or his ilk.
To be honest with you, post-911, I wasn't concerned about who Al Qaeda were going to attack, it was who the Americans, with our help, were going to attack - and I worked in the City.
Throughout the 1990s 'cruise missile' Clinton had attacked more countries than any other post war US president and Blair also saw himself as a liberal (in the most generous of senses) interventionalist. For example, we're fed a pack of lies about Kosovo, however, the story is a little longer and starts with the US sponsoring and supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army to attack ethnic Serbs.
For the dreadful period to be followed by the election of Bush et al, 9/11 and the beginning of the 'War on Terror' was horrendous. In my view the whole thing needs to stop, and sure, there'll never be a trial as there should be but an enquiry that works along the lines of the US Senate hearings would probably help.
On deciding to go to war, well, any war justified using lies is probably unjust - I wouldn't vote for it.
On the future of the Labour party.... there is hope, hope with people like John Cruddas, John McDonnell, etc. Anyway, in my mind we don't have a democracy according to the majority rule definition so the system needs fixing along with party funding.
Keep New Labour and you may just as well vote Tory - they're two party dictatorship with very little seperating them.
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dianbloanco #40: '"The rest of the world must hold us in low esteem now! The UK the country that tried to bomb Iraq into democracy , while having NONE itself."
Don't worry, they will only after they get finished with the US first!! To all you complaining about how "unfair" and "unjust" and "opake" this inquiry will be, and is therefore not worth it, I implore you to please take comfort in the fact that your inquiry will be a hell of a lot better than any one we will fabrocate, because we won't have any such inquiry at all!! You've already had two! We've only had one looking into our intellijence in the lead up to the war. Who's nation is more democratic and acountable to its people? Ooooo I know!! Its greatest leader quoted that thing that is the structer on which it is built that on a good day any given president respects once...O God...what was it? O yeah, "Government is of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Damn Obama and his "wanting to move this wrechid nation forward!!"
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222. At 2:45pm on 16 Jun 2009, braveSouter wrote:
Cameron is exactly what he looks. An ex spin doctor whose company went bust owing millions.
===
I think you are being a little disengenuous here, it wasn't his company.
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246 Yellow
said
Iraq was/ is a sovereign nation, we invaded it to effect regime change and gain control of its oil reserves.
============
Whilst I agree that regime change was a desirable outcome before the invasion took place and the "oil" motive is often thrown in for good measure I'm not sure there's a jot of evidence to back up that rhetoric?
Do you have any evidence or just the conjecture?
I suspect other major powers (particularly Russia) would heve strongly opposed/warned/threatened if that was the case.
What control do we exercise over Iraq's oil?? I'd like to know or even the States for that matter??
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247. At 5:37pm on 16 Jun 2009, wasowenright wrote:
#246 yellow
I do wish you had been my history teacher. You make it so simple
===
Thank you for that compliment.
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spartans @ 233
In his book, One Hundred Days, Admiral Woodward makes it clear that he regarded the Belgrano as part of the southern part of a pincer movement aimed at the task force, and had to be sunk quickly
touch of the MRD / Profumo there ... could hardly say anything else, the good Admiral, could he?
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It seem very strange that the Iraq War Inquiry seems to have taken a large amount of comments about the Falklands from the Zanu-labour bloggers. It seems that Nu-labour are despensing with a Chaff Deflector mechanizim about the Falklands to draw fire away from the decision to hold it in private and BTW its also Mr Thatcher Fault. (She left Number 10 in 1991, 18 years ago doh)
Whom has been in Number 10 for the last 12 years then ? do you need some clues.
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rjjager #41: '"It's extremely unlikely that any enquiry will heal wounds, because the Iraq war was about the UK supporting the US in an unjustifiable war."
Could not have said it better myself. So the real "inquiry" should be caried out by the US. But will it? Absolutely not! Because Obama still thinks that Republicans are good people!!
Is it bad that I sometimes severely regret my country's founding? I mean we would have been so much better off as an "over seas territory," and all the great things we've done and/or created for the world? Well they would have been done or invented by some other country some time through the years. The only real contributions the United States of America has raught upon the world are malicious ones.
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#252 extreme
Tony Blair was at the head of the first Labour Party that was electable. This I suggest was due to the news media realising that the Tories were unelectable. You say Blair is a Tory but that argument is no different to the one acted out after WW2 when it was whether Atlee of Herbert Morrison should be leader. Right v Left.
I think you should have been worried about where al qaeda would attack next, because if you worked in the "City" then you were part of the organisation that was their prime target.
You claim that John MacDonell and John Cruddas holds a ray of light for your vision for a Labour Party future, well you have no say in that unless you are a member, and I find it interesting that a grafter for capitalism supports two high profile socialists. Who may, if they have there way dismantle the city.
I maintain that Tony Blair was a product of his time. We got Tony Blair because we deserve Tony Blair. As a co-operator he wasn't what I think of as the end game for the Labour movement, he is a stepping stone. The socialists will move the party forward burt the powers that have been unleashed by globalisation are emense, and we and any government we elect will have a great difficulty in controlling it.
Gordon Brown is another stepping stone, moving back toward the traditional Labour view. By contrast, Cameron is just the capitalist's toy poodle, he will go along with it because he has no choice. His will be movement to strengthen the city investors position, utilising the cheapest labour they can find around the world.
When you criticise the weapons of Clinton and Bush, don't forget you helped fund the projects.
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Evrybody is going off topic.....
talking about the falklands and so on...
realistically you have to laugh at the labour government...
they could not even hide the fact that they are lieing..
even to date no WMDs have been found...
So a public enquiry should be enforced....
Just makes you think, are the politicians above the law??
Feel sorry for countries who are unbale to defend themselves in 40yrs time when resources will be scarce...
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257. Funnily enough, the Argentine Navy and government agrees with his assessment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Belgrano#Later_political_controversy
"In 1994 the Argentine government conceded that the sinking of the Belgrano was "a legal act of war".
Admiral Enrique Molina Pico, head of the Argentine Navy in the 1990s, wrote in a letter to La Nacion, published in the 2 May 2005 edition, that the Belgrano was part of an operation that posed a real threat to the British task force, that it was holding off for tactical reasons, and that being outside of the exclusion zone was unimportant as it was a warship on tactical mission."
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Moderators, #263 is on-topic, contains nothing defamatory, and contains links to credible sources. Stop censoring free speech.
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owen @ 260
We got Tony Blair because we deserve Tony Blair
I think I know what you mean but, more prosaically, we got Blair because Smith had a heart attack - but I wonder whether the whole New Labour project would have happened in any case - hard to say, it's the "structure versus agency" argument which political philosophers (like me!) find fascinating - the person or the forces? - the Nazi takeover would have happened without Hitler? - the Thatcher revolution would have happened without Thatcher? - on balance I think yes, the individual is merely the cipher
No Rash @ 259
The only real contributions the United States of America has visited upon the world are malicious ones
don't be such a masochist! - it's just that America is the colossus of the modern world ... so when it's good, it's great and when it's bad, it's a shocker
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Spartans11
Enough from me on this after all you are right it is supposed to be about Iraq. However I must respond to 2 points:
Firstly, I didnt start this discussion to attempt to muddy waters to justify a ridiculous decision by a lame duck PM. I responded to others on here who portray the Falklands as some glorious example of national self-defence. If you read my first post you will note that I started: While I am totally in favour of a public enquiry and think Brown is an idiot to deny us one
Secondly you argue that:
To claim this was a calculated decision to boost popularity beggars belief attempting to justify this by adding Brian Waldens quotation out of context is a disingenious way to provide evidence to back up your political agenda driven claims.
Well, heres Brian Waldens quote in context (if anything it is more damning about her popularity pre-Falklands in context:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/3701928.stm
And if you dont like that one, try this one from the BBCs Fight for the Falklands:
The fall-out from the conflict could not have been more different for the victors and her success in the Falklands war transformed Margaret Thatchers fortunes. Her appeal to the voters swung from record lows before the conflict to such an extent that she won the 1983 British general election with a massive majority and she remained in power until 1990.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/falklands/guide7.stm
Whether you like it or not, Thatcher benefited enormously from the Falklands campaign, yet there was no non-political objective in fighting this war (which is why the Foreign Office advised her against it). You cannot ignore the fact that the government wasnt in the slightest interested in the Falklands from 1979 -82 and that Richard Luce, the Secretary of State at the Foreign Office was negotiating with Argentina over sovereignty. If you dont consider going to war over something you dont really want to be criminal, then what do you find unacceptable?
Oh, and by the way, I have never voted for NuLabour (though I did briefly join the Labour Party under John Smith). My agenda is anti-war, not pro-Labour.
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If the Iraq war was justified when will shock and awe be inflicted on Iran. The conditions are all there, Moslem Dictator (rigged elections),anti west propaganda and oil.
No chance because the USA will not risk another illegal war after the Bush/Bliar axis fiasco.
Blair is a war criminal and should be put before the courts in the Netherlands sooner rather than later.
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#263, 267, 272, 273, 274 yellow
I don't think you are going to win on this one, no matter how you phrase it.
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#255 Eatonrifle
Yes I do have evidence, unfortunately the BBC censors will not let me share it with you.
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Moderators, I await my emails with interest explaining why you wont allow these posts, which would be a first seeing as you constantly break your own house rules by not sending an email of explanation, and not allowing any appeal.
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#266 saga
The new Labour project was begun with Neil Kinnock, to gain some sense of direction and control. So I suspect John Smith, who I think everyone feels was a loss to the political scene, would have moved the party on in a similar direction but obviously, in a different way. My reason for saying we deserved Blair was that in the Party there was no-one else, and in the country, the public would not have warmed to a move to the left.
The sense of inevitability you speak of is perhaps what Jim Callaghan summed up as a sea-change in politics. Nothing he could do was going to change the public mood. The interesting thing now is, whether that sea-change in public mood is with us now. I think probably not, as the results of the last elections showed no massive swing to the Tories, just a Labour, stay at home day.
The desperation in the voices calling for an election is all too evident. Most notably from the Tories chosen leader, he knows that he is soon entering borrowed time.
As far as the Iraq war is concerned, I think the time that public mood should have been most anti-Labour was at the last Gen. Elec. when on the door step, it didn't figure anywhere near as much as was predicted. I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, and non Labour voters were telling me that they were happy with their lot, particularly the pensioners. One said "We've never had it so good".
I don't think Tony Blair was anything like, what most people thought was a Labour leader. But given the globalised economic climate and the mood generated by TV, radio and the print media, he allowed the Party to redress the inequeties built up during the Tory years. The future is still to be decided upon.
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The first and last casualty of this war is the truth. It cannot be let out because too many are culpable to war crimes. In the same way as the much lauded Abu Ghraib tortures are to be kept out of the scrutiny of the people.
Are the leaders of this senseless war to be tried for war crimes? Of course not and they have the neck to bang on about the likes of Mladic the butcher of Serbia running free. What does intrigue me is that senior people in the BBC such as Greg Dyke got hoofed out at the behest of the Blair spin merchant Campbell. When they reported that the Iraq dossier was sexed up. Later it was found to be true so did the BBC apologise to the likes of Dyke are they still crawling around that loud mouthed nut case Campbell. C'mon you've seen it all Hutton another cover up. All Brown is doing is trying to deflect the media from asking, nay demanding the real answers. Brown will go eventually, he'll not lose any sleep and he may just do a Blair and leave the house of ill repute for good. He'll not have the guts to hang on the back benches. City job perhaps lots of perks. I'm sure his mate Blair will fill him in on the ways to make some extra cash.
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268. At 7:36pm on 16 Jun 2009, Minnsy wrote
If you dont consider going to war over something you dont really want to be criminal, then what do you find unacceptable?
Exactly what this topic is about. I find it unacceptable to invade a sovereign country and start a war based on a pack of lies, then to have a cover up, sorry private inquiry, to protect the guilty parties. I appluaaud your anti-war stance and if more politicians held those beliefs we would have a better world. But that doesn't entitle you to quote out of context to back up your own agenda
"I suggested that her response to it, i.e. the launch of the task force was a political decision calculated to boost her own popularity. A calculation which worked. As Brian Walden put it:"
Walden didn't suggest she acted in any such manner nor did the link to the BBC article. You suggested it and it is nothing more than a suspicion in your mind. She undoubtedly did gain politically from the outcome but your idea this war was fought for political gain is ludicrous. She benefited from the fighting in the Labour movement, when the SDP and Libs formed the Alliance splitting the socialist vote, far more.
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Ready, Aim, Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycl7aSEp_mE&feature=related
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xavierbloggz and #279.
You started with: ".The first and last casualty of this war is truth.."
Then proceeded to declaim about certain issues, e.g. "..much lauded Abu Ghraib tortures( did you mean torturers?)..", followed it with, "..when they (BBC) reported that the Iraq dossier was sexed up.." and ".. later it was found to be true.." plus, "..Hutton another cover up..".
Well, you certainly got the bit right about 'truth' being a casualty!
Now, if you would care to substantiate any of the above allegations with verifiable fact and not your opinion/perspective of how those matters occured I am quite sure the UNO as well as the UK legal profession would be delighted to hear from you!?
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257. At 6:20pm on 16 Jun 2009, sagamix wrote
"touch of the MRD / Profumo there ... could hardly say anything else, the good Admiral, could he?"
Very true, but if he had actually wanted anything else, might we not be talking about the very bad admiral?
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Moderators, aside from not allowing the truth to be published on here about why we went to war in Iraq, why have you also blocked a comment from me on our Foreign Secretary admitting that the British government would use information obtained under torture, thus colluding in the act?
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Just a word of caution. I know of someone with a habit of referring who was taken off the blog by The Mods. When he returned under a different name he was barred from referring!
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242. At 5:01pm on 16 Jun 2009, yellowbelly1959 wrote
Because they have friends
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193475/Government-use-torture-intelligence-prevented-terror-attack-says-David-Miliband.html
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Strange how some people still dispute the importance of oil in the decision to invade Iraq, isn't it?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimeline
If it was all about ridding the world of an evil dictator, I guess we're off to Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan next?
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#287 yellow
Try and imagine life without the Mail. Is there anything so shocking in that article? We don't condone or use torture, but if another country tells us that an attack on us is about to happen, we would use that knowledge.
I'd be interested in what you, or the Mail would have to say, if an atrocity took place and the government did nothing to stop it, because the information was gained by torture?
Tell me you would support the gov. if they did that.
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I would like to reply to some criticism above which objects to the fact I compare the inquiry into the Falklands conflict with the proposed inquiry into the war in Iraq. My point is that both wars might have been avoided, and inquiries, whether held in public or behind closed doors, are hardly likely to illustrate this.
In 1982 there were many government and military advisers who argued against sending troops to the Falkland Islands, with its population of barely 3,000.
There was, and still is, a great deal of doubt as to legitimate claims on this small group of islands, which was first settled by the French, who, like the Spanish and British, have at various times claimed the territory. As with the conflict in Iraq, those of us who felt a war could and should have been avoided, were horrified when it actually happened.
War, many people think, should be a last resort, when everything else fails.
But, when there is a war, the government of the day must be seen to be completely behind its troops.
My point is that there is no way of reversing what many people consider to be a wrong decision by holding any kind of inquiry.
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#290 newtactic
I think I'd agree with you there.
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#260 wasowenright
Thanks for the interesting reply.
Thought you might pick up on the fact that I was a 'banker', and no, I haven't forgotten that although not directly involved, I was closer to the funding of horrible weapons than most others.
Regarding AQ, in the same way that I don't worry about being bashed over the head and having my wallet taken, I didn't particularly worry about Al Qaeda and whether they were going to kill me on the way to work. Hmmmmmm, the politics of fear - as people become better off, they become more fearful.
Personally, there are more important things than my own wealth and I would like to be able to vote for a Labour party that reflects this.... my vote would still be with Cruddas/McDonnell.
I believe you're right, we're a plutocracy, and Cameron, whatever he is or stands for (I've no idea), will be chewed-up and spat out pretty quickly. Mainly because, as you say, the corporates have an agenda, and the major media owners have lost control of information - voters are able to receive 'spin-free' knowledge of the state without vested-interests providing it.
Thanks again for your reply and sorry if mine is a little sketchy - am on nasty treatment at the moment and am unable concenrate as well as usual.
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#292 extreme
The only way either McDonnell or Cruddas will become leader is if members decide, that is what they want. So, you'll have to join to affect the result. We have to win the argument with the electorate, and that means overcoming the anti-left media, which does fuel the politics of fear.
Do you know? I think most people are left of centre, it's what make some people go along with most religions. Christianity is socialist, but that is because they both promote the human condition, fairness.
Somewhere, we allowed a small minority to convince us that we needed them more than they need us. I can do no more than recommend the book I have mentioned before, Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", it explains everything.
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We need a genuine inquiry, held in public and free to draw its own conclusions. Lets make sure that it happens!
http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/IraqInquiry
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289. At 11:33pm on 16 Jun 2009, wasowenright
You just can't help yourself can you, having to comment on what I post?
I don't need to give up The Daily Mail, it is one of several online papers I view, and its views and stories are as valid as those in Socialist Worker.
You are new here, aren't you? There was a debate on this blog some time back about the use of torture, and how a lot of bloggers found it abhorrent, and the UK should not be any party to it.
I pointed out the hypocrisy of this stance at the time, as we used torture both during and after WWII to elicit information we needed.
I pointed out that governments always have, and probably always will, use torture to extract information.
I don't like the idea of torture but I am more pragmatic about its use, so I would have no problem in supporting government action that saved innocent lives after gaining information obtained under duress.
My point was the hypocrisy of Miliband, whao had earlier stated that the UK government did not use torture and was not any party to it, clearly a lie as the Binyam Mohamed case showed, but the moderators didn't like that.
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#295 yellow
You are absolutely right, I can't help myself.
I do take your criticism though and I shall amend my comment.
I should have said, "Try and imagine the world without the Mail on Line.
I do disagree with you that the Mail is equal to the Socialist Worker. The Mail is just a vehicle for the establishment, whereas the SW (on-line) is an alternative voice. There are plenty of the former but few of the latter.
I remember a story my dear old Dad told me, about Harold MacMillan. He appeared in the dailies doffing his hat to the Queen in the Mall, in what was intended to appear like a chance meeting on a quite morning.
The Daily Worker, I believe it was, showed a different photo. One of MacMillan doffing his cap to the Queen, but from the opposite side of the road. And there, on ranks of staging were the dutiful press all assembled to catch the chance meeting.
If you believe the SW is equal to the Mail, then why do you only put links to the Mail or the Telegraph?
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296. At 5:23pm on 17 Jun 2009, wasowenright wrote:
#295 yellow
If you believe the SW is equal to the Mail, then why do you only put links to the Mail or the Telegraph?
===
If you bothered to check your facts you would find that I have posted links to the Daily Mail, Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Spectator, Scotland on Sunday, Socialist Worker, Asian Times, The Australian, The West, Yorkshire Post, Daily Mirror, London Gazette and others.
It is you who are blinkered and dogmatic if you only believe the Socialist Worker and refuse to acknowledge that the Daily Mail might just publish the truth sometimes.
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# 297 yellow
If not believing a word that the Mail publishes makes me blinkered and dogmatic, then I plead guilty your Honour.
Whilst your eclectic mix of paper references may seem, on the face of it, broadminded, I bet there was a familiar theme running through them. Anti-New Labour. Picked for your own narrow view which is that you need rich people to look after you and you are willing to suplicate yourself in front of them in the hope they will drop a few crumbs from their well stocked table.
You have tried to persuade sagamix you are not a Tory, but it shouts from every word of your posts. The hope that eminates from your posts is as dim as a Toc-H lamp.
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#298
Ha ha. You think you are a class warrior like Che Guevara, but you are in reality more like Wolfie Smith with your "power to the people" nonsense. What do you head up, the Bethnal Green Popular Front?
My guess is you are something like an assistant manager at your local Co-op store, fresh fruit & veg is it, just a downtrodden wage slave with a huge chip on his shoulders about anyone earning more than you.
You can't have it, so you don't think anyone else should have it either, the politics of envy.
I don't need anyone to look after me, I run my own business you are the one trapped in the capitalist system, resenting it every day.
If you had more about you other than your class envy and your blinkered support for NewLabour, maybe you could better yourself, but no, that would take hard work and determination, better just to bleat on about how unfair capitalism is, and how nasty all employers are.
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#299 yellow
Crikey! Who rattled your cage. Oh! Sorry it was me wasn't it.
And what is so wrong with being an assistant manager at the local co-op? I happen to know that the fruit and veg at our local co-op is some of the finest in the area.
And do you know anything about the Bethnal Green Popular Front?
And what is it that you think I can't have and so I don't want anyone else to have?
The politics of envy is the mantra of a low level tory, so you give yourself away with that one.
You run your own business so you don't need anyone to look after you. So, do you buy your own goods and services? If not, then you do need others don't you. We are all interdependant.
I hesitate to indulge you but I don't give blinkered support to New Labour, but I do give support to the Labour Party. That is because I have seen the benefits of Labour over my life-time and the last hundred years of history. Do you believe the Tory propaganda that they would have made the changes anyway, it's just Labour happened to get there first.
Read "The Ragged Trousered Phillanthropists"
You are so judgemental. I could better myself? What do you mean by that?
It would take hard work, determination. Can you quantify how hard I work as you obviously think you know?
How nasty are you as an employer?
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sicilian @ 285
I know of someone with a habit of referring who was taken off the blog by The Mods. When he returned under a different name he was barred from referring!
that's rather enigmatic! ... how do you know these things?
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#300 wolfiesmith
Not rattled, you misrepresented me by not sticking to the facts, I highlighted that you were a liar.
Simple.
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#302 yellow
Well, I've only just caught up with your last comment.
Not rattled, oh! I think you were, there was true anger in your post, you should try and control it.
Strong stuff, coming on here and calling people liars. I think you should give some evidence for your acusation.
And you are affected by too many TV advertisemants. Simples.
Compare the Mail on Line.
Compare the Socialst Worker on Line.
Snot the same.
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@217. At 2:24pm on 16 Jun 2009, bigsammyb wrote:
# 181 ynda20
"You do yourself a dis service. You have no credible evidence that 9/11 was a inside job, it was suspiceous yes, but leave it at that."
Actually we do have credible evidence. How about explosive found in the ground zero dust and discussed in detail in peer-reviewed scientific paper published in respective journal? Google Harrit and nano-thermite. The explosive is not just any old explosive but very high tech. This is on top of NIST's admission of the freefall collapse of WTC7. So you maths, physics and chemistry all supporting the fact it was inside job.
Now couple that with Motive, Means and Opportunity of the competing theories? How could it be done? Well who was in charge of security at WTC? Or Dulles airport?
bigsammyb continued "Moreover why were the riots that took place in france last january, in reaction to the meeting, blacked out of the media?"
Ditto why is Dr Harrit's paper which received mainstream media coverage elsewhere is ignored in UK and USA?
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It has now been calculated on Labour's own figures that we will need cuts of up to 15% in Public Sevices over the next few years if we are to achieve the desired balance on the books. It makes Brown's claims that 'We will invest while The Conservatives will cut' look even more ridiculous than it originally was.
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#301:
'I hev vays and means!'
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