Who needs evidence when we already know the verdict ?

Pot Head

"I do not believe we were ’taken to war on a lie’."

Where are the WMD then?

North Northwester

Spot on.

The utter triviality, blindness, narcissism and wrong-headedness of our political class from its Left-liberal foundations to its powder-blue Blue Labour carbon-copy in a nutshell.

An ancient and long-suffering nation rises up fro freedom, and the President of the USA gives them 'Whatever.'

I the Democratic-party USA leaves the Iranian democrats to die, I'd advise the State of Israel to mark the funeral appropriately, because Uncle Sam will just have became Ayatollah Uncle Tom.

Laura

There were so many journalists hell bent on the war On Saddam failing that they will spend the rest of their miserable lives trying to work out how to present it as a failure.

For example, without war on Saddam being a 'failure' - what career does Andrew Gilligan have? None.

He is not alone, of course, but he is deeply symptomatic of a culture of journalism that struggles with the truth.

Dixon

I am reminded of the years of lefty whingeing we had to endure over demands for inquiries into the sinking of the General Belgrano. An incident pretty much totally forgotten now.

In fact, I see the former as a curious metaphor for the invasion of Iraq. WMD aside, Saddam was a threat to our oil supplies ( and himself sitting on vast reserves that weould give him power over us in the years ahead ). The General Belgrano was outside the Exclusion Zone but steaming about in the vicinity. Neither was an imminent danger. Both were potentially immense threats. Only an idiot would decline the opportunity to take each out at a time of our convenience and choosing.

Maybe the public were lied to about the reasons for invading Iraq. It may simply be a sad necessity in the hysterical self-hating climate of the West today to lie to the public.In reality, only a certain "elite" section of the public, most of whom were and remain fervently in support of our using the military as a tool of foreign policy.

It may be that the aftermath was poorly conducted, but the invasion itself was a fine piece of work. To go halfway round the world and defeat forces twice as large that had been preparing for this for decades, in a space of two weeks was a beautiful achievement.

The lesson of both Iraq and Afghanistan is to invade to remove a regime when necessary, to utterly lay waste to the adversary,...metaphorically busting both their legs so they can pose no future threat, then withdraw and leave them to stew in their own chaos. Have fortified bases remain from which punitive and tactical
raids can be launched on the locals if they try to stand up. But rely essentially on aerial interdiction to slaughter anyone who tries to pose any future threat to us.

Funny really, because I was advocating this policy towards our then nascent enemies as far back as 1981. I remember arguing with a friend who could not understand the proposition of invasion without occupation and the principle of simply crippling an opponent and rendering them permanently incapable of ever standing again.

Of course, to really do a thorough job of this we would need to introduce biological and chemical weapons into the mix. Plus defoliation of any crops capable of sustaining life in the areas suppressed.

Essentially, we must divide the world into two types of region. Those which we or our puppets can control, and those which are rendered uninhabitable.

This would entail killing large numbers of "civilians", but we need to rediscover a realisation in the West that total strangers in far-away lands are NOT our friends and deserve no consideration in our scheme of things.

I cannot help it that noone...at the present time...thinks like this but me, but it is true to the way I feel.

Miranda Rose Smith

I suspect that most of the Iranian protesters share Ahmadinajad's hatred of Israel. That doesn't make them any less brave and that doesn't mean they deserve to be shot at. They should be permitted to elect an anti-Israel, anti-West, Holocaust denying nut job in a free and fair and untampered with election.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Pot Head: Saddam Hussein definately had weapons of mass destruction. He used them against the Kurds and the Iranians. Do you think Bush should have sat around waiting for 1000% proof that Iraq had weapons it wss planning to use against the West? By that time, there could very easily have been smoking holes where London and New York City once stood.

David

"An ancient and long-suffering nation rises up fro freedom, and the President of the USA gives them 'Whatever.'"

You don't really know what's going on in Iran do you. What do you think the effect would be if the US proclaimed it supported Mousavi? If you want the reformists to succeed, how useful to you think being allied to the US would be? Eh?

Tommy

Quote..."an opposition leader who is just as much of a threat to the west"...Unquote
Agreed-- and more cunning than the present incumbent

David

"Dear Pot Head: Saddam Hussein definately had weapons of mass destruction. He used them against the Kurds and the Iranians."

Yes-those particular ones were sold to him by the US.
But move forward several years, and we were told he had more. Despite all the real evidence to the contrary, we were told to rely on what was to be revealed as falsified evidence. That's the lie. It was clearly known to be a lie when it was told. Yet Mel says it wasn't. So she should share her proof with the rest of the world.

George

Pot Head,

Bush gave Saddam Hussein plenty of warning that he was going to war. Do you really think that Hussein would have left all his WMD where US forces could find them??

Mladen Andrijasevic

To Pot Head
Question: Where are the WMD then?
Answer: In Syria

Symposium: Saddam’s Files
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=09F9FC90-1752-4965-8D02-D2EFD4FB112B

"Moreover, at the time people like Dave Gaubatz and John Shaw were putting their statements on the record about how the WMD ended up in Syria, they did not know that we would get circumstantial corroboration from Saddam's own files. Statistically, this is beyond the realm of possibility of fabrication"

Alex

"Dear Pot Head: Saddam Hussein definately had weapons of mass destruction. He used them against the Kurds and the Iranians."

And he definitely got rid of them, which we know (a) because his son-in-law gave us details of when and where they were destroyed, (b) becuase none were ever found and (c) no credible evidence has ever been supplied for their existence prior to the war even after 6 years of occupation.

Or are you telling us that prior ownership of destroyed WMD gives carte blanvhe for the international community to invade? We had better hang on to Trident then.

Of course we were taken to war on a lie. Forget interviewing Blair, Campbell and John Scarlett.

Get Spedding and Dearlove (MI5 & MI6) and ask them what they thought the position was before the war. They won't have any issues about saying there was n evidence of WMD, bcause that doesn't give much away, so that can be heard in public.

Juan Spain

The WMDS went to Syria

Paul Freeman

David:

What is your evidence for stating, "It was clearly known to be a lie when it was told"?

David Skinner

I certainly believe that Tony Blair should be hauled back to stand on trial- not for his involvement in Iraq, but for his corruption and demoralisatin of the British Nation. It is he and his marxist friends who have declared war on the family, marriage, our children and 200,000 unborn babies every year.

John Cooke was the chief prosecutor of King Charles 1 who drafted the following indictment at his trial in 1649. It is these words that we need to invoke:

. ‘… that no chief officer or magistrate may hereafter presume traitorously or maliciously to imagine or contrive the enslaving or destroying of the English nation, and expect impunity for so doing …’

Tony E

We were lied to, that is beyond doubt. It's what we were lied to about that worries me. Were there WMD? If there were, where are they now. Syria maybe?

And that is the real problem. Government was so concerned with finding a supporting argument for America's war that they lost all notion of strategic priorities.

We tied up huge amounts of troops and equipment chasing shadows in Iraq, when we could have poured those resources into Afghanistan and still contained any threat from Saddam.

If we needed confirmation that a lie was told, it was the assertion after the war that the 'removal of Saddam' was fair justification for our actions.

EC

Dixon: "I am reminded of the years of lefty whingeing we had to endure over demands for inquiries into the sinking of the General Belgrano. An incident pretty much totally forgotten now."

Yes, that's all water under the bridge.

Augustus

Was the war in Iraq necessary, and was it justifiable? These questions are 90% motivated by party politics, and possibly the remaining 10% as well, although that percentage is also motivated by a pacifist tinge, and in that they are right: War is terrible. However, war is, unfortunately part of human existence, and the justification for it is really what that particular war strives to change, or improve.

It's interesting to contemplate how General Eisenhower must have felt when he gave the go ahead for Operation Overlord, knowing, as he must have done when he signed, that he was signing away the deaths of many tens of thousands of young men, both on the Allied side, as well as the German side. The question is: Should he rather have not done so?

In Iraq, life under Saddam Hussein was not a bed of roses, brothers and fathers and sons mistrusted each other, you could be arrested day or night whether you were guilty or innocent. That's all changed, there's been a regime change, thanks to Bush. Whatever a panel of 'experts' conclude today, or next year, is really not the issue. But what the international community concludes in 20 years time as to whether the invasion of Iraq heralded the beginning of the dismantlement of negative forces in the Middle East will be much more significant as to the justification for the war.

steve

Re: the WMDs. The U.S. captured Saddam's leading scientists, senior officials of his regime including Saddam, and the head of Iraqi intelligence defected to the U.S. What reason would these individuals have to continue be silent on the location of the WMDs if they existed?

boxermk

Bush and Blair were wrong about WMDs, but it is political revisionism to state that was the sole or even primary reason for the war. Bush had a whole list of reasons for going to war.

People are obsessed with the WMDs because they couldn't find any it was a huge embarrassment, but it's dishonest to portray the invasion in Iraq as being solely motivated by the idea that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. It's simply not the case.

People seem to forget that history happenned before Bush ever came to power. It's a bizarre worldview.

Bush and Blair are evil for taking down Hussein, but the French are so compassionate because they propped up and supported Hussein!

Where are all the leftists protesting in the streets of Europe about the people in Iran, woman and young students, being beaten and shot at and murdered and tortured?

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

"What reason would these individuals have to continue be silent on the location of the WMDs if they existed?"

steve, this is not a film. It actually happened/is happening. One or two people above are in the loop.

Those who can spell 'Syria'.

self outcasted ronin

Greetings.

Preemptive wars. No more, no less.
In a nutshell :
Militaristic Islamist countries with youth bulge and freshwater starvation-scarcity.
Brainwashed children with SMGs/Bombs/... are far more dangereous than adults...

Mind you, most governements were already warned since the 80s.
Mind you, no wars are "approved" by bureaucrats on a 'possible upcoming occurrence'.
Mind you, common people aren't concerned with the fate of children living in oppressive countries, since most of them aren't even concerned about the children in their own country !

Feel free to correct, if you feel something is wrong.

Best Regards.

Frank P

As usual Melanie, not a word wasted and all true.

More diversionary tactics from an administration that is dead-in-the-water plus the usual cant from the conservatives and utter bolox from the non-existent 'third party', because they can claim whatever they like as they a never going to win a general election. The LibDems are just there for the beer and whatever else the exes will stretch to: probably less in the future than the past, until of course they work our another way of scamming the taxpayer, enjoying the limelight and doing absolutely bugger all for their constituuents other than deceiving them over a myriad of liberal schemes, dreaming up mendacious bogeymen while wallowing in their ridiculous ideology and idleness. It amazes me how anyone could believe that Vince Cable could sort out Gordon Brown's books. Cable reminds me of the kind warder in Porrige, Mr Barrowclough, played by the admirable Brian Wilde. And just as gullible.

Cable's only real claim to fame imo was the Mr Bean comment, but that actually did more good than harm for the baleful Brownjob. People quite liked Rowan Atkinson. Boris Karloff would have been a better ringer.

Wandered off topic there a bit, but it is father's day!

Like Bloody Sunday, another multi-million pounds of wasted time and bunce for the shysters.
Ye Gods!

Frank P

And speaking of conservative cant; Clegg is one of they too, except he is a LibDem version.

Paul

Further to Mladen Andrijasevic's post

Just after the Iraq war, I saw an interview on CSPAN with non other than the BBCs John Simpson.

On being asked where the WMD was, he confidently explained that it had been moved to Syria.

I never heard if Simpson has since repeated this information. I can't find reference to it either.

I suspect that when it became apparent to lefties how much the lack of WMD would damage Bush, such people buried their knowledge - much in the same way that they kept quiet about Obamas very damaging history prior to his election.

David A

As I recall, the wider intelligence community believed in the existence of WMD and the need to seek them out. If it were a myth of western creation the UN wasted a lot of resources searching for them.

Nonetheless, weapons were found that exceeded the range, laid down under UN sanctions, for for the bona fide defence of Iraq, and his 'previous' in these respects should never have engendered trust.

The real tragedy and error of the enterprise was to underestimate the nature of the internecine loathing in the population and the readiness of Shia and Sunni to wreak abominable violence on each other, women and children and all.

Mel is right, as to the nature of the preoccupation with an enquiry. I suppose if you can't run a corner shop yourself, why not kick lumps out of Tesco?

Derek

Some of us have a deep yearning for freedom in Great Britain which is also deeply embarrassing for the progressive classes whose project is to deliver us bound and gagged into the mercies of the unaccountable European Union. Pactio Olisipiensis censenda est!

Disorganised1

I think the family of Dr David Kelly would like to hear how his name was given to the newspapers and about the events that led to his death.

david skinner

Frank P I could not agree more, this is just another piece of diversion, like the economic downturn, handed to Gordon Brown on a plate. They must have others in the deep freeze, just waiting to be heated, anything, just as long as it takes our minds off the fact that British society is terminally sick, demoralised and sinking fast.

Derek BLADES

Pothead zeroed in on the key sentence from Ms Phillips’ blog. "I do not believe we were ’taken to war on a lie’."

I agree with Ms Phillips on this. For it to count as a “lie” the principal instigators - Bush and Blair - would have to have known that what they were saying about WMD was untrue. Despite Hans Blitz’s failure to locate anything that looked like a WMD, it is nevertheless possible that both Bush and Blair continued to believe in them. After all both men have strong religious faiths so they must have the knack of closing their minds to empirical evidence.

Bush and Blair are certainly foolish but they may not be mendacious.

Ronnie

Actually, EC, it's water over the bridge.

steve

Paul: What reason would the Bush administration have for keeping quiet about WMDs being moved to Syria? It tried everything it could to prove their existence.

fellow traveller

We can argue about the geographical location of the WMD for ever, but if the questions of

whether we put in sufficient plans for what we would do in Iraq after the invasion,

whether we had a strategy to protect innocent Iraqis from the the effects of the civil war that followed,

whether our troops were properly equipped and trained to fight this war, and

whether the government had thought through the implications for global security and done enough to counter the resulting rise of fundamentalism by non-military means

have been sufficiently answered elsewhere in such a way that the mistakes can't be made again, I'd like to know where that is. Whether you think the war was justified or not, there's a lot we can learn for the future that doesn't involve the WMD debate.

These lessons would save thousands of lives in a way that saying, "this was the right decision, let's move on" would not.

Paul

Steve dude. If Bush announces that the WMD had been taken to Syria, would you believe him?

Why don't you ask your question to people like John Simpson who had their ear to the ground at the time.

barackobama

President Bush said in one of his final interviews that the most disappointing element of his eight years was the "intelligence failure" about Iraq's WMD. The reason why people who supported the 2003 war should be in favour of a proper inquiry is to discover why President Bush believes there was an "intelligence failure".
Because if US (and British) intelligence failed here, it could fail again, with disastrous consequences for the people of the UK and the US. We need to know what went wrong.
One theory is that the source of the bad intelligence were agents of the Islamic republic of Iran, helped by the Russians. Both have done very well out of the coalition invasion of 2003.
Isn't it worth trying to prove that possibility is out of the question?
Whether it's done any good for the US and the UK is another matter entirely and will never be proved or disproved.

King Prawn

Tony E states that Saddam could be contained. Sorry, but that is not true.

The UN system of containing Saddam was breaking down. The French and the Russians, for example, were actively trading with Saddam.

And let's not forget the Oil-For-Food scandal.

The one calculation that Blair had to take into account is what would have happened if Saddam wasn't deposed in 2003.

Would Saddam have become a benovalent leader or would he have seen it as weakness and took the opportunity to fully re-arm.

Anyone with half a brain should know the answer to that. Just think what the atrocities that Saddam would have done to the Shias and Kurds.

Alistair Smallwood

I agree there is no need for further investigation into the lead-up to the conflict.
However there is an urgent need for an enquiry into the conduct of military operations after the defeat of Saddam upto the final British withdrawl a few months ago.
It is clear that these were badly mishandled and made the security situation in southern Iraq far worse than it should have been.
This sorry story reflects very badly on the UK government and also sadly, our armed forces.
The full scale of this debacle has been hidden thanks to spin from the MOD and typically sloppy reporting by the British media.
There is an urgent need for a public inquiry to concentrate on this, so lessons can be learnt for the continuing struggle in Afghanistan and other future military operations.

steve

Paul: So the Bush administration (including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) had evidence that WMDs were moved to Syria and they kept quiet on this even though it would have supported their case for invading Iraq in the first place? And John Simpson would have better intelligence on this than the Bush administration?

Original Tony

Iran is a threat to world peace. Forget about WMDs they may be building. Their support of terrorists worldwide is enough reason to bring them down.

For that reason alone, I feel Obama needs to curry favour with dinnermejacket in public while pumping a lot of money and other non-lethal equipment, via third parties, into the opposition's hands.

Two results will be achieved by doing this a) If dinnermejacket stays in power then the yanks will look like good guys for 'reaching out with an open hand' and if he gets booted out the opposition will cosy up to the yanks as 'friends who helped us in our hour of need'. Either way, it's a good chance to divide and conquer but I fear this is all lost on Obama

Jerry

Pot Head wrote, "Where are the WMD then?" Here is a link:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=28938

The right question to ask is, "Who profited from not uncovering Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction?"

Silliness like "Where are the WMD then" comes to end the search, end the debate, leaving many stones unturned. Look under the Euphrates for the empty bunkers that still have traces of WMD, then continue the seach in Syria and the Beka'a valley. You will find them.

Whose backside would be burned if the WMD would have been discovered? Elements of intelligence agencies would have been pulverized for allowing such WMD to go be overlooked. Important heads would have rolled.

Read "The Secret War Against the Jews" by John Loftus.

fellow traveller

Alistair: "It is clear that these were badly mishandled and made the security situation in southern Iraq far worse... The full scale of this debacle has been hidden thanks to spin from the MOD and typically sloppy reporting by the British media."

Dead right.

For this reason ,with the greatest respect to my fellow commenters, I hope the inquiry (public or private) doesn't end up sounding like this comments thread.

Bruce

Let's hope they call on Richard Butler, the Australian leftist (former secretary to Gough Whitlam!) former *UNSCOM chief Iraq weapons inspector* who was one of the main public sources for belief that Iraq had a vast WMD cache:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Butler_(diplomat)

I mean you cannot tell an Aussie like me who grew up through the Whitlam era and, partly out of national pride, closely followed all of Butler's many appearances in the media in the 1990's, mostly on American PBS, that this was some 'Neocon' 'plot'.

Butler a 'neocon'? Haha. Yeah right mate, and Paul Keating is a Royalist, hoho.

Simon Stephenson

No posting of my yesterday's comment, I see. Get people thinking about the wrong things, will it?

Neil Craig

Be fair Melanie - the people wanting the enquiry know that the 45 minutes promise, on which the war was started in no way whatsoever approaced the truth & it is not unreasonable to assume it was a lie. I am quite certain that those who don't want an enquiry, or don't want a public one, hold exactly the same opinion.

What is disgraceful is that those who express disgust at a possibly criminal war against arabs say not a single word for an enquiry into an undeniably criminal war against slavs. We know the legal advice on the iraq war - that it was dodgy. But not one single newspaper will mention that the legal advice on the Yugoslav war - which must have been that it was very much worse than merely dodgy - is still Top Secret. There can be no security reason for that - milosevic is not about to attack Britain - it is simply to protect the guilty.

he guilty includes many, like Clare short, who now claim a halo for opposing the later war on what appears to be racial grounds.

Consul-At-Arms

I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms2.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-who-needs-evidence-when-we-already.html