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Thursday 9 February 2012

Iraq War Inquiry Derangement Syndrome (ctd)

Tuesday, 19th January 2010

As Iraq War Derangement is ramped up daily to fresh pitches of irrationality and hysteria in the media coverage of the Chilcot inquiry, Nick Cohen’s article in the Observer is a must read. His conclusion, watching the latest attempt to nail Tony Blair for the crime of ‘taking us to war on a lie’ of which the appeasement crowd have known for a certainty that he is guilty since before Saddam’s Baghdad statue fell and that Blair, not Saddam, is the real war criminal, is spot on:

The fifth disappointment in a row will drive them closer to the edge. Sir Oliver Miles, former ambassador to Libya, has already predicted that the inquiry will be open to accusations of ‘whitewash’ because two members of the Chilcot panel are Jews. He's not alone. I have had an allegedly left-wing journalist say the same to me. Once, he would never have allowed Jew obsessions to infect his thinking. Now, his battered mind was wide open to racial fantasies.

The mental deformations appeasement brings should not be underestimated. People don't just placate their enemies, but become them by adopting their ideological mannerisms and foibles. For years, we've had the notion that democracies are the "root cause" of every Islamist atrocity accepted in polite society. You must now prepare yourself for the return of the Jewish conspiracy theory to supposedly honourable discourse. Indeed, if you look around, you will find it is already there.

It has been obvious from the start that, all too often, if you scratch the surface of a ‘Blair lied people died’ merchant you very quickly find the certainty that the real problem in the world is Israel and that the war in Iraq was all cooked up by the Jews and their proxies. The barmy ‘Israel and the Jews are the real problem’ trope was in fact on show as early as 9/11 itself.

Nevertheless, the irrationality currently on daily display in the reporting of the Iraq war inquiry headed by Sir John Chilcot is simply astounding. Material which has been round the block several times already is being breathlessly reported as yet another nail in Blair’s political coffin. In the Sunday Times, we had yet again Jack Straw’s advice to Blair, just before Blair met George W Bush at Crawford in April 2002, that war in Iraq had legal 'elephant traps' and that he wouldn’t get it through Parliament. The Sunday Times misleadingly claimed that this memo said war in Iraq would be of

dubious legality

whereas what it in fact laid out was Straw's advice on what was needed to meet the test of legality.

Moreover, as I noted here in my previous observations on the inquiry:

The legality of the eventual war in Iraq rested however on a series of UN resolutions, the last of which -- Resolution 1441 which reactivated the earlier ones – was not passed until November 2002. So the fact that regime change may have been deemed ‘illegal’ in the spring of 2002 is totally irrelevant.

The claim that at Crawford Blair secretly pledged Britain to a war that he denied to Britain at the time had been decided upon has been repeated over and over again in the reporting and comment on Chilcot – as here, here, here, (more confusedly) here, and most luridly, here:

It is a constitutional outrage, a case of ‘sofa government’ gone mad, that Blair, Campbell and Straw should have put the Armed Forces of this country secretly at the disposal of a foreign power.

But this is all utterly misleading and absurd. It is just not true to say Blair committed Britain to war at Crawford, because there was no decision to go to war. It was always a last resort; and if diplomatic pressure had worked and forced Saddam to comply with the UN resolutions ordering him to show he had disarmed, there would have been no war.

What Blair actually said to Bush was that he would support a war as a last resort if it came to it, but he thought the diplomatic route had to be exhausted first. There was no contradiction there. Are people really saying that neither Britain nor America should have discussed contingency planning for war if the diplomatic route were to break down? Are people really saying that no Prime Minister can ever offer his support to another country on any issue before he puts it to Parliament?

And in any event he did put it to Parliament as he always knew he had to do. Without Parliamentary approval, Britain would not have gone to war in Iraq.

Now look at the way the evidence given yesterday by Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell is reported in the Guardian:

The government had been ‘wrong’ to believe that Saddam possessed a WMD programme and had been ‘wrong’ in its estimate of how many troops would be needed in post-invasion Iraq

• Blair put Whitehall on a war footing for a second time a few years after the invasion after being warned by two of his most senior advisers that Britain and the US were ‘near to strategic failure’ in Iraq

• Dick Cheney, then the US vice-president, told Blair in person a year before the invasion that British military support was not necessary

• Downing Street made clear to the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, shortly before the invasion that he would have to give a definitive view on the legality of military action.

Now look at what the inquiry transcript reveals Powell also said:

...the whole point was that Saddam had cheated, was caught out when his son-in-law defected. Had to confess to the biological programme. The inspectors went back in to try dismantle that, and the inspectors at that time had concluded that there was still a large amount of material that hadn't been decommissioned. I note, for example, on 6 September 2002, when Blix came to see the Prime Minister, he said that Saddam had not met his obligations for full and frank disarmament. There was no evidence he had destroyed his biological weapons. 10,000litres was still unaccounted for of anthrax, and there could be much more. So there were reasons to believe he still had weapons of mass destruction.

...SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN: But in terms of the point that was made regularly in speeches and so on, how much was this about a country that was in violation of Security Council Resolutions which might have been on quite modest matters, and how much was it about the fact that this was a potential direct threat in terms of being prepared to use these weapons?

MR JONATHAN POWELL: It was both. He was a potential threat and he was in breach of the Security Council resolutions, so we could do something about it.... The danger of Saddam was not that he was going to strike us tomorrow, but that, if we left him unchecked, if the UN gave up on him, he would then be able to hit us.

... Because our argument was that he was a threat in the longer term, that we had to this ties in with my point about no imminent threat. In other words, he wasn't about to send a missile to Cyprus, but, if we left him alone, he would be able to develop these weapons and use them.

... I'm saying that he was a threat, that we had to deal with him. He was in breach of the UN Resolutions. We had finally got the inspectors back in and we now had to make sure that they really disarmed him and demonstrated that they had disarmed him. That was the urgency, not the urgency of 45 minutes and the rest of it.

Powell also told the inquiry that as early as 2001 containment of Saddam was ‘dying’; sanctions weren’t working. The meeting at Crawford, however, was designed to persuade the Americans away from taking unilateral action against Iraq and to go down the UN route, an aim in which Blair was successful. But as for the claim -- made by Sir Christopher Meyer -- that Blair had given an unconditional commitment there that Britain would support a war in Iraq regardless, Powell said:

Yes, that’s a misunderstanding that I noticed had been put to this committee a short while ago. I was at Crawford, David Manning was at Crawford, Christopher Meyer was not at Crawford. He was at Waco, about 30 miles away... There was no undertaking in blood to go into war on Iraq. There was no firm decision to go on war. In fact, if the record which was sent to Christopher Meyer of that meeting says Bush acknowledged the possibility that Saddam would allow inspectors in and let them go about that business. If that happened, we would have to adjust our approach accordingly. So it was absolutely clear we were not signing up for a war on this, we were signing up for going down the UN route and giving Saddam a chance to comply.

BARONESS USHA PRASHAR: But military options were discussed?

MR JONATHAN POWELL: I don't recall them getting into any sort of discussion of military options. We agreed that a cell could go to CentCom and discuss the planning that was going on there, but I don't think we talked about military options. I think the Prime Minister's message to the President was: if you are going to do this, you have got to do it in the most intelligent manner possible, like after Afghanistan, like after 9/11. You have got to put this on a political track. You have got to build support. You have got to go down the UN route. You have got to exhaust that UN route and you have got to give Saddam a chance to comply. That was his message again and again at Crawford.

... But being with the Americans didn't necessarily mean going to war. The Prime Minister said repeatedly to President Bush that if Saddam complied with the UN Resolutions, then there would not be any invasion and President Bush agreed with him on that. I noted down three particular occasions in April 2002 at the meeting in Crawford sorry, April 2002 at Crawford, at Camp David on 7 September of that year and a phone call in October, and, again, as late as 19 February 2003. So the Prime Minister was saying, ‘We are with you. We need to go down the UN route, but that does not necessarily mean war. It may well be that Saddam could comply well short of war’.

But of course, none of this alters the fact that as we all know beyond a shadow of a doubt, Blair secretly committed Britain to an illegal war on which he lied to the British public – and unless the inquiry concludes as such, its members will be consigned along with him to the first circle of hell.

Verdict first, evidence nowhere.

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Frank P

January 19th, 2010 2:47am

How can Nick Cohen be so shrewd and analytical about the necessity for the Iraq liberation and yet swallow the AGW scam?

mark

January 19th, 2010 9:18am

I'm interested in your view of events leading up to the war. However I don't see how your arguments can be enhanced by the use of words such as derangement to describe the opinions who disagree with you can be at all persuasive. The Telegraph quotes Powell directly: "We were wrong, the intelligence was wrong" . Are their journalists as deranged as the Guardian crew?
If the intelligence was wrong as Blair's top aid apparently said, then we went to war on the basis of mistakes made by intelligence services.

If on the other hand the intelligence services provided reports that did not establish the existence of WMD beyond doubt,that left room for doubt or contained caveats then Tony Blair misled us and should be held accountable.
If someone can dissuade me from this view or point out alternative theories without questioning my sanity then this blog is as good a place as any.

Charlene Hale

January 19th, 2010 10:20am

It never ceases to amaze me how our troops our coming back in body bags or horribly maimed for life, and yet to watch Question Time beggars belief. The amount of anti war rants etc on tv are astounding. I am sure a young child could join the dots and see that Britain and her media and liberal MP's etc are playing into the hands of the Islamic Calliphate in waiting, how the madman in Teheran must watch with glee and be emboldened. Such stupidity and lack of loyalty to Britain is beyond the pale. It is very disturbing, how long before we all have to wear the burkha?

Charles

January 19th, 2010 10:30am

Mark,

I won't dispute what you are saying. Just add that I (and probably many others) await with keen interest Blair's explanation as to why he thought he knew more than British intelligence services? He's probably the first prime minister ever to take this view, so it will be interesting to hear him justify it (ha ha ha, as if).

Dave1001

January 19th, 2010 11:07am

The invasion of Iraq was carried out on the basis of a range of reasons and motives. The British government, with its lack of faith in the British public ability to correctly comprehend the complexity of the situation particularly with the prevailing liberal attitudes toward the Muslim World, the anti US feeling and the natural suspicion of the motives of the West when taking military action in the Middle East, had to come up with an excuse that overcame all these sensibilities. Thus they chose the WMD scenario. I don’t believe this was entirely based on a pack of lies but they promoted this cause without enough evidence and based on poor intelligence. It simply however was the most suitable narrative to use.
The reasons for Iraq’s invasion are complex. In brief, following 2001 the world had to change, The Middles East had to change. The World had to engage with this process closely. If you know the Middle East then you will know this process had to start in Iraq.
While secure oil is one of these motives, it is silly that some people think of this as the West’s desire to put its hands on Iraq’s wealth. The West will need probably to benefit form 100% of Iraq’s oil production for the next 10 -20 years before it breaks even and make up for the huge expense of this invasion and the occupation that followed.

I supported the Invasion of Iraq and I feel any liberal, peace loving human should have done. However, unfortunately as frequently has happened in history, the West made grave mistakes in this campaign.

Instead of establishing control, instating an authority that advocates secularisation and modernity and feeds incremental measures of freedom to the population which had been deprived from it for centuries, the West Naively thought that Iraqi people will be grateful for their liberation and that a measure of democracy will cure all their ills. The Western governments also had to hastily demonstrate their liberating credentials to reassure their liberal societies and fend off the accusations of old style Imperialism etc. The result was the rise of the Islamists with all the grim consequences that go with this.

Elise

January 19th, 2010 12:34pm

Acceptable Nazis-like antisemitism. When did England become home to such mental illness or was it always there, but now its once again acceptable? I don't know which is worse, sad for the world even sadder for Britain's future.

Augustus

January 19th, 2010 1:50pm

Not only should any right-minded
interrogator ask: "What do you mean by an illegal war?" They should also ask: "Do you really know who Saddam Hussein was?" He
was responsible for the deaths of more than a million people in
Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait. He unleashed two wars; against Iran
and Kuwait. And he did build an
advanced nuclear weapons programme, a project that Israel
eventually destroyed, saving no doubt millions of innocent Iranians in the process. Is there any proof that Saddam was prepared to use weapons of mass destruction against defenceless civilians or armed forces of another country? Yes, there's plenty of evidence. He used chemical weapons against his own
people, the Kurds. After that he
bombarded Iranians with chemical weapons. And then there were all those mass executions (after the end of the first gulf war he executed 100,000 shiites. Iraq was a one-
man thugocracy, led by a man who
waged war twice without warning,
and a man who used WMS against
various peoples. Precautionary measures are often required against such regimes if nuclear and other WMDs are involved, as nobody can say for sure how great the risks really are. Didn't this man want to get his hands on nuclear weapons, something he had tried to do before? Wouldn't this man have used them against another country? The pride of Arab nationialism was a common mass
murderer.

Gil

January 19th, 2010 2:28pm

Nick Cohen says that the journalist who made the antisemitic comment to him is 'allegedly' left wing. Actually, it doesn't suprise me that he/she is left wing. The Left is infested with antisemtism.

Frank P

January 19th, 2010 2:57pm

Augustus

Great post. Keep reminding the naysayers of the cold hard facts, buddy.

To use this Chilcot charade for party political purposes, election looming or not, is odious.

Have you 'Bush/Blair conspiracy' haters/baiters wondered what would happen if Chilcot agreed that it was an 'illegal' war and that the Allied Command committed War Crimes? Do you rally think it is likely to happen? Perhaps those of you who wish to burden Britain and America with further ignominy and debt would like to consider where the money would come from to discharge the tsunami of claims from the enemy governments and individual 'victims'. War is war. It is the breakdown of law and order; stop playing Cleudo and feckin' grow up. The war is still raging and we're metaphorically kicking our troops in the nuts from our own shores. The 'great and the good' are putting on a show for the liberal MSM. It is a c-h-a-r-a-d-e! Just pray that it won't turn into another ploy in Brown's scorched earth strategy. The enemies are already holding their sides and pissing themselves at the Weakness of the West. What a legacy for the Cameroons to pick up.

Nobody on the face of this planet despises Blair and his Scouse biddy with the Mersey Tunnel mouth, his buddies and his puppeteers more than me, but there are other ways to deal with them, than handing our country to its enemies to spite them. Just vote them out in the forthcoming election by voting for anybody other than Labour and stop whining like babies. Useful idiots all!

As you're watching these pink faced effete pricks going through the motions just think how much it's costing you. And every time you see that petrol price increase as you pass a garage - think of Brown and his bastard band of extortionists.
I note my last reference for G Brown Esq was removed from the earlier post about the divided cabinet by F Nelson. Our Great Leader intervened did he Fraser?
Not that he would have recognised himself in my assessment: I'm sure he's impervious to even his own cabinet's suggestions, let alone my end of term report.

Or perhaps, as Austin Barry suggested, DC is having it made into a poster for the election campaign?

wonderer

January 19th, 2010 3:48pm

Will it be within Chilcot's remit and resources to consider whether WMD might have been shipped out of Iraq secretly, eg to Syria, before the invasion began?

Ian C

January 19th, 2010 5:47pm

The problem has always been the sexed-up dossier. If he had kept that to the sort of wording that should have been used there would be no argument. Alastair campbell droped Blair in the brown stuff and Blair should have been wiser.

Saddam had to be removed. The ineptness of the jsutification is what has led to the eternal controversy.

Michael

January 19th, 2010 7:07pm

Cheers for that Augustus. So America, the UK, the allies and those involved in the first Gulf War thought that Saddam was so dangerous they let him sit in power for a few more years in order to...in order to.....what exactly? To give him more time to get his dastardly hands on WMD? To give his state agents more time to disseminate the goods?

We did half a job the first time about and so here we are, nearly 7 years on, having had to do the whole thing over again, and your justification is that Saddam was a loony. Wow, great stuff.

Don't peddle the some patronising righteousness angle on this for this was no war fought in the name of good and evil.

Stephen Fox

January 19th, 2010 10:43pm

When the US and Britain ignored Saddam, we were 'in cahoots' with an evil dictator. Contrary to popular belief the French and the Russians supplied the vast bulk of his arms, not the Americans.
When we forced the UN to apply sanctions, which were largely ineffective we were wrong for causing the people of Iraq to suffer through lack of food and medicines.
When enforcing the no fly zone to stop Saddam killing Marsh Arabs and Kurds, we were wrong for 'bombing Iraqi babies'.
Then we 'went to war on a lie'.
It amuses me to wonder what response to Saddam would have passed muster with the so-called liberal elite of our decaying culture. Truth is, there ain't one.

Frank P

January 20th, 2010 2:13am

Stephen Fox

What a succinct and brilliant summary. Dix points.

John of Canberra

January 20th, 2010 4:11am

Thanks to Augustus for laying it out in easily understood terms the war crimes of Saddam and why it was legitimate for the UK and the US and their allies to overthrow him and destroy his armed forces.
As for UN resolutions: they are nice fig leaves but since when did sovereign nations hand over their right to declare war to this corrupt and useless body, filled with anti-semites? Blair for once did the right thing in backing the US and this inquiry is a shameful attack on the right of a democratic government to make decisions on security and defence policy.

Clive Hill

January 27th, 2010 11:22am

The biggest casualty of the Iraq War has been BBC News and Current Affairs. Its coverage of things Iraq since the Hutton report - and arguably back to Rod Liddle's recruitment of Andrew Gilligan to 'go after the government' on Iraq - has been characterised by disingenousness to the point of lying. I recently watched their Chilcot reporter manifesting dismay at talk of regime change among Americans before the Iraq War. He is either ill-informed or disingenuous since regime change was the policy of the Clinton administration.
There is also the 'scientific' issue. Johns Hopkins produced the '100,000' report and later the '655,000' report. It has become clear since those reports that the less 'clusters' of actual deaths you use, the worse the extraplolation. The '100,000' report was based on about 21 actual deaths. There were originally 70+ but they had to exclude data from Fallujah (how did Fallujah come to be chosen as a cluster anyway ?) because the extrapolation from it would have concluded that 200,000 people died in that town - a conurbation with a pre-war population of approx. 285,000.
This runs on to the 'science as politics' problem which infests climate change debate.
The anti-Iraq-War movement has changed the world in some very bad ways, not least that it has given licence to people like President Bashir of Sudan to do as he wills without threat of consequence. That threat - and its extension into diplomacy - has been eliminated by the anti-Iraq-War people with terrible consequences for Darfur and south Sudan.
How much different it could have been. The Iraq War could have been a message to apprentice dictators everywhere that they would be overthrown and tried. Instead the anti-Iraq-War people have created the opposite climate.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.

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