Smoking guns and missing memos
David Blackburn 1:08pm
Sir Christopher Meyer gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry this morning. He spoke with characteristic flamboyance, awash with elegant witticisms and indiscretions calculated to amuse. Amid this tour de force, Meyer released one potential weapon of mass destruction. Hans Blix was given too little time to conduct a satisfactory inspection. Courtesy of Andrew Sparrow, here is the relevant transcript:
‘The real problem, which I did draw several times to the attention of London, was that the contingency military timetable had been decided before the UN inspectors went in under Hans Blix. So you found yourself in a situation in the autumn of 2002 where you could not synchronise the military timetable with the inspection timetable.The American military had been given instructions to prepare for war. Initially it was "we want you ready by January". There was a lot of confusion inside the American military establishment about the size of the force, they wanted to bring an army down from Germany and pass it through Turkey. So January was never realistic and in the end it went back to March.
All that said, when you looked at the timetable for the inspections, it was impossible to see how Blix could bring the process to a conclusion, for better or for worse, by March.
So the result of that was to turn resolution 1441 on its head. Because 1441 had been a challenge to Saddam Hussein, agreed unanimously, to prove his innocence. But because you could not synchronise the programmes, somehow or other, programme, preparation of war, inspections, you had to short-circuit the inspection process by finding the notorious smoking gun. And suddenly, because of that, the unforgiving nature of the military timetable, we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun, which was another way of saying "it's not that Saddam has to prove that he's innocent, we've now bloody well got to try and prove that he's guilty". And we - the Americans, the British - have never really recovered from that because of course there was no smoking gun.’
What a mess the US and UK made of justifying war, so incompetent that they managed to shift the burden of proof onto themselves. But Meyer’s words carry a deeper implication. Was the UN weapons inspection an American contrivance designed to fail? In other words, was it a sham placatory measure, subservient to inevitable military action? Meyer discussed this in a memo to Whitehall, but that memo has since disappeared – innocently mislaid no doubt on a commuter train. Missing memos have become the Chilcot inquiry’s dominant feature: this is the seventh I have noticed. They’re something of a smoking gun.
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mark c
November 26th, 2009 1:18pm Report this commentthe missing memos no doubt went the way of Blairs expense records ?
Cuffleyburgers
November 26th, 2009 1:22pm Report this commentMissing memos - sounds all rather quaint - can not all the computers of all these players be impounded and examined forensically in order to recover them?
Unless they were handwritten, this must be possible.
It is well known that it is practically impossible to delete irretrievably a file (unless you do it by accident to a file you need :-))
I mean , these guys are taking the p!ss. As usual we being given the mushroom treatment.
Andy Carpark
November 26th, 2009 1:33pm Report this commentOh, so Sir Christopher Meyer has a talent to amuse has he (dear boy)? Talent for self-abuse, more like. He should sport a plastic nose to match his red socks. What is the point of a Foreign Office? If relations are amicable, the Ministry of Trade can do the job. If they are not, we might as well just drop the bomb on them and have done with it.
oldtimer
November 26th, 2009 1:36pm Report this commentI followed part of Meyer`s evidence live on Sky News. I noticed that there were several instances where he said he could not find in the archives the telegrams he sent to London at the time.
It sounds as though they have been moved somewhere - or shredded like Mr Blair`s expense claims?
Draft Crunt
November 26th, 2009 1:57pm Report this comment"Cuffleyburgers
Missing memos - sounds all rather quaint - can not all the computers of all these players be impounded and examined forensically in order to recover them?
Unless they were handwritten, this must be possible.
It is well known that it is practically impossible to delete irretrievably a file (unless you do it by accident to a file you need :-))
I mean , these guys are taking the p!ss. As usual we being given the mushroom treatment."
Sorry, but it is not difficult to remove files completely, if you really want to.
All you do is overwrite a file's contents several times with various bit patterns. The US DOD recommends a standard overwrite of 3 times. The NSA requires 7 times and other systems offer up to 35 times overwriting the data. There's a freeware program called ccleaner, that will do it for you, whenever you use it to delete files.
There are also programs that will scrub all free space.
Having said that, Meyer spoke of "telegrams", so I don't know if he really meant what I understand a telegram to be, i.e. a hard-copy message only or not. He may have meant telex, but that is also hard-copy only.
The question must be asked, why Meyer didn't keep a copy for his own reference.
JohnPage
November 26th, 2009 2:08pm Report this commentThey were still using telegrams?
JONNY
November 26th, 2009 2:17pm Report this commentWhat's wrong with you Andy Carpark?
Don't you want to know what went on?
Don't you want to be told how this criminal murderous war was fixed?
Or are you the only Blair apologist left in the land? (apart from Mandy).
Andy Carpark
November 26th, 2009 2:41pm Report this commentHow on earth do you infer apologetics for Blair from a facetious remark about Christopher Meyer's red socks?!?
God, the nutters you meet on the internet.
JONNY
November 26th, 2009 3:24pm Report this commentNutter eh Andy Carpark. Is that the first insult that dropped into your -uh- brain?
Oh well we can't all be brilliant.
What I was trying to suggest was that by adopting a sneering patronising attitude towards a key witness
by implication you debunk the damning nature of his evidence.
In a 'fixed' war where hundreds of thousands of innocent people died.
Blair apologist or not, like him you clearly do not want to get at the truth.
Chuck Unsworth
November 26th, 2009 3:33pm Report this commentThe Blix account of the affair is also interesting.
Meyer is always entertaining, but he's no fool. Missing documentation often can unexpectedly turn up. Nobody with any real experience of dealing in or with the FO operates without taking some precautions.
Frank P
November 26th, 2009 3:35pm Report this commentOur penchant as a nation for self-flagellation is becoming deeply embarrassing. Much as I detest Blair and the NuLab project, his support of the Seppos in their determination to get rid of the Stalinist multi-murderous megalomaniac Saddam Hussein, his equally odious progeny and the whole brutal baathist regime was absolutely justified, and ultimately successful. I’m sure Blair did it for vainglorious reasons and against the wishes of most of the NuLab puppeteers – but he did it, and that’s what matters.
The Iraqi dictator had slaughtered millions of his own people, invaded one of our allies and suppliers of energy, and as he retreated from that thrashing, during the first Gulf War when we interceded, he torched the oil fields.
Then, after had been given an opportunity by means an ill-advised truce, to surcease from murder and threats; he put the ‘numero uno’ up to the UN for over 12 years, despite numerous resolutions being passed by that corrupt and useless talking-shop. His implicit threats to manufacture and use nuclear weapons and other poisonous munitions were constant. He even stuck up that buffoon Comical Ali to taunt us. He got what was coming to him and thoroughly deserved it. Whether he had the weapons and shipped them out whether he was bulshitting – who cares. His intentions were malign - and encouraging others to take advantage of the weakness of the West – which he had demonstrated for 12 years.
Who gives a shit about dodgy dossiers, days of readiness and Foreign Office memos? The lads on the ground did the business, albeit as Lions led by donkeys. It has been the same in all wars and will always be the same. The only difference is that the liberal literati and other divers moralizing twats have now convinced a large and stupid minority of the British hoi polloi that it is not worth defending our interests at home and abroad against those who wish to deplete our resources, destroy our culture and ultimately to reduce us to Dhimmitude.
Stop this public exposure of our weakness; stop paying wankers to sit around in judgment on things best left alone, particularly as it a rigged jury anyway. We did it! We won! Now let’s get on with winning the next stage and instead of spreading disaffection against the brave men and women, who are still putting their arses on the line, lets give them our full, unalloyed support and the tools to do the job. Mrs Christina Schmid epitomizes the true spirit of the British people. Not the naysayers, pacifists and traitors who would have us give up all we achieved over centuries of blood, toil, sweat and tears.
Andy Carpark
November 26th, 2009 4:09pm Report this commentJonny - I regret that your inference (my alleged implication) is another complete non-sequitur. The second insult that has dropped into my - 'uh' - brain is that you are over-excitable and perhaps need to go and make yourself a nice cup of tea. Good afternoon to you.
jon dee
November 26th, 2009 4:32pm Report this commentMeyer's repeated "missing from the archives" suggested a surprising blip in a renowned filing system.
Chilcot's promise of a search was a welcome reassurance.
David Lindsay
November 26th, 2009 5:24pm Report this commentWe are only two days in, and already we have "learned" that (for the benefit of the American market) there was no link to 9/11, that there were no WMD, and that Saddam Hussein would have been toppled by an internal coup anyway.
The one and only argument advanced for British participation in the Iraq War was the existence of Iraqi WMD (not a "programme") capable of deployment within 45 minutes against the British bases on Cyprus. No one bothered to ask why Iraq would want to attack those bases, and in any case the whole thing was totally false.
Lord Butler sat and waited for a journalist to ask The Question, and was left dumbfounded when none of the spineless hired help did so. But some of them seem to have grown backbones since then. Why don't the rest?
And why doesn't everyone who admires the American neoconservatives ask what it is about them that makes them so attractive to Tony Blair, of all people? If he loves them so much, then why do you? Are you hoping for some of the vast wealth that he has acquired, and is continuing to acquire? That is the real story: Blair's blood money. When is there going to be an inquiry into that?
Richard Buckley
November 26th, 2009 5:49pm Report this commentAs much as I loathe Blair, he was right to support the Americans and the UK was right to go into Iraq.
The good guys whacked the bad guys and the good guys won. There may or may not have been WMD. But most of the world's intelligence services thought that there were. It is entirely possible that Saddam himself thought he had them because his people were too scared to tell him that he hadn't. And if he knew he didn't have them, then he behaved as if he did and thanks to the war no tyrant is going to do that again.
The point is that even if he didn't have WMDs it was only a matter of time before he got them. That's why he had to be taken out. Remember that he would already have had nuclear weapons had the Israelis not destroyed the Osirak reactor in 1981.
It will be the same with Iran. Every country within range of Iranian missiles will privately give thanks for the Israelis whilst excoriating the 'evil Jews' in public and condemning in the UN.
Holly ......
November 26th, 2009 7:06pm Report this commentSo for all the whacking of the bad guys, what exactly did we win?
Does it make you feel like a winner knowing that Blair & Co had to lie,lie and lie some more to make the world the safe, peaceful place it is today?
It feels like a very hollow victory to me.
There is nothing good about invading a country you know can not defend itself,Bush & Co knew.
Why make things up if the truth was there?
andrew
November 26th, 2009 7:16pm Report this commentthere is a lot of talk about these lies, but it is not being acknowleged about the consequences these men caused. How racist. Why is it racist? Becasue 100,000 IRAQI CIVILIANS ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS YOU DESCRIBE HERE. 5 million children orphaned. If America and the UK caused the death of 100,000 western civilians, you all would be grabbing pitchforks and demanding TB and GWB face war crimes in the Hague, but Iraqi's? No, when it concerns non whites, trust issues of the electorate or the financial cost of the war dominate the discussion. How low you have fallen as a society, a country and as human beings.
Chuck Unsworth
November 26th, 2009 8:46pm Report this comment@ Richard Buckley
Have you been watching too much daytime television?
Who are these 'good guys' and 'bad guys'? How do we distinguish them? By the colour of their Stetsons, possibly?
Tankus
November 26th, 2009 9:44pm Report this commentBlair travels with a shredder.
2trueblue
November 26th, 2009 10:55pm Report this commentWhat a surprise, papers missing. Says it all. We didn't need an enquirey to tel us that. There is no point to this charade, we know that Blair lied, and worst of all made no preparation for the men he was sending out to war. What an unprincipaled man to send other peoples sons to do his work. Labour ended democracy, lets hope that it can be restored in our time.
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