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No end of a lesson

Tuesday, 18th March 2008

The Spectator on the necessity for an immediate inquiry into the Iraq War

The disastrous consequence of this campaign was that — in the public eye, and not unreasonably — the test of success in Iraq became the discovery of weapons of mass destruction. Yet the precise casus belli was never that Saddam was in possession of WMD, but that he had given the world every reason to believe he might have such an arsenal, or be developing one, and that he was in material breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 (and many other such resolutions) which promised ‘serious consequences’ if he did not comply fully.

It is now an all-but-unchallenged orthodoxy that the Iraq war was a recruiting sergeant for al-Qa’eda and its affiliates in this country. That may be true, but only in the sense that everything is a recruiting sergeant for this cause: the existence of the state of Israel, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the end of the Muslim Caliphate in 1924, the removal of the Taleban, the way women dress in the West. Last June, a bomb was found outside a popular West End nightspot in Haymarket. How much did the planting of the device really have to do with the removal of Saddam Hussein? Murderous theocrats do not need Iraq to justify slaughter.

As important as it is to audit the past, it is no less vital to keep a clear eye on the future. As John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, said on the night he secured his party’s presidential nomination, ‘it is of little use to Americans for their candidates to avoid the many complex challenges of these struggles by re-litigating decisions of the past’. It is a strategic and moral imperative that the West does not flee liberated Iraq until the insurgency has been quelled and the foundations of a stable, prosperous democracy laid. Clearly, this will take decades rather than years. The error was in ever pretending it would be otherwise.

The symmetrical error is wilfully to ignore the progress of the surge masterminded by General Petraeus, and the turning of the Sunni tribes against al-Qa’eda. There were fewer civilian casualties in January 2008 than in any previous month — a decline from almost 3,000 a year ago to around 600. A little over a year ago, only 8 per cent of Baghdad was under control; now the figure is closer to 75 per cent. The number of insurgent attacks on US forces has been reduced from 180 a day to an average of 60 a day in January.

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Becket M. Saunders

March 20th, 2008 2:57pm

in re: "Self-evidently, the mere fact that the insurgency is still raging is a measure of failure" With admirablly succinct language, and exceptional clarity how completely inverse is your view of this authentic war-a war perpetrated and orchistarted by the Enimies of the West ( ie, the ChiComs and the Russians via their clients, the savages known as islamo-facists, &etc ). What you put forth as facts, evidence, is but one of many tactical facets of the enemy we face-and shall face for many decades, thanks to the muddled and misguided thinking of folk such as them who pen "No end of a lesson". No doubt many are grateful for this exercise in revelation. I give all who ponder these things some 'cake' to go with the 'icing': http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2008/fax20080317.asp "Five Years of Slant Against Iraq War Success MRC Studies: Nets Minimize Iraq Success and Heroism, Emphasize Setbacks and Purported Atrocities" Kindest regards, from your cousin from across The Pond.