'Going to war on an assumption'

Worried

Problem is, Blair and his awful money grabbing duplicitous other half (they are as bad as each other), has tarnished his reputation by being bought. He is not a nice man and has profited from the oil companies embedding themselves in Iraq discrediting himself and the war.

Michael

er, that was not the case for war Melanie, not the case we, as the public, were presented with.

John

Melanie. We didn't go to war on a lie. But we did go to war on a sofa. There were plenty of people within the FCO, SIS and DIS who voiced doubts about whether Saddam had WMD before military action began. So did Blix, of course. And though your point about the non-compliance with UN resolutions being the formal cause is strictly correct, the assumption that Saddam had WMD set the context under which enforcement of those UN Resolutions under Chapter VII became imperative. The problem with Blair and the people around him was not that they lied but that they didn't listen. They may have been shocked and surprised by the absence of WMD but, as I say, many at working level were not. A style of government in which more voices were heard may have come to the same conclusions about the necessity to disarm/remove Saddam Hussein. But it would be in a better position now to defend itself.

jonnyjackhammer

A totally reasonable case well made. You would expect all rational people to say yes - and move on. However, we are dealing with serious "ideologists" who will never be convinced that Tony Blair and George Bush took a difficult and perfectly reasonable decision, given what the world knew at the time. But then remember that many of these same puerile visionaries consider that all the problems of the world are the result of Thatcher and Bush and the industrial military complex and neo Cons and Israelis and Grammar schools and elitism and the “right wing” in general. Infantile ideology and infantile politics methinks.

Augustus

Regarding the military intervention in Iraq in 2003, it
should have been imperative to ask, not whether any war was legal, but whether any inability
of the Security Council to act was a justifiable reason
to allow Saddam to continue as he had been doing. And it was not time to be asking if military intervention was, or was not, covered by the numerous existing resolutions, or if any undiscovered containers of WMDs had, or hadn't been destroyed, moved, or hidden in bunkers etc. International peace and security were at risk,
and President Bush had the foresight to secure freedom for the Iraqi people. In fact the Green Revolution in Iran owes itself in part to the success of the Iraq war because the people have seen that self rule is possible. There was no definite proof before the event that Saddam had destroyed all his weapons, so going to war on a lie doesn't even come in to it. If doubt existed about the existence of WMDs, however small, that they were still in the hands of Saddam Hussein, a potential humanitarian disaster was still a real possibility.
When dealing with evil always assume the worst. Both Bush and Blair acted honourably and had just cause to act as they did. And If Saddam had been left alone he would without doubt have used his oil-export riches to start another nuclear programme, with all the consequences that that would have entailed.

Neil Craig

Powell says "if he was getting rid of them, he would make something of it, he would tell us and allow the inspectors to prove that fact, and he wasn't prepared to do so."

But this is simply a lie. Saddam was prepared to have inspectors in his country, indeed he had them there when we decided on war. It was Britain & America who weren't prepared to let inspectors inspect.

Also when he says "So it would have taken something pretty dramatic to persuade us that he had got rid of those weapons" I think we may reasonably take it that he means there are no circumstances whatsoever, certainly no inspectors finding nothing, which would ever have "persuaded" them there were no WMDs. An unspecific negative can never, by definition, be disproven & such are a staple for anybody in politics wanting to sell something dodgy.

Thus, for example it could be said that Blair is a war criminal who should be hung unless he can prove in some pretty dramatic way, that he had never killed anybody illegally. I would go with the normal trial practice & require prosecutors to make their case, which they clearly could.

blue_&_white_avenger

Well put Melanie
I read reports, a while ago, that there were indeed WMD around at the time the decision to go to war was made.
And that there was so much publicity & pointing up the likelihood of armed intervention that the KGB & associates went & cleaned up the place & drove it off to Syria - with the explicit aim of embarrassing the UK/US governments.
Seems quite plausible to me - we know that Syria holds chemical & biological stuff & has made amateurish attempts to start up nuclear

Edward McLaughlin

Very well argued as usual.

On a more prosaic level, I would like to know what qualifies as a WMD?

To my way of thinking, a weapon which is capable of killing large numbers of people in one action would fit the bill.

Was it hundreds or thousands of civilians who died - were destroyed - at Halabja? 'Masses' certainly. Was this as a result of the use of a weapon? Yes.
Whose weapon was this? Saddam's.

This was one action of many, so he must have had stockpiles and the means of further production.

I think we should be telling ourselves we did a good job.

Gareth

Melanie,
I seem to remember you interviewed a senior Iraqi air force officer who said several planeloads of material were transferred to Syria just before the invasion. Do you still have a record of that? How about passing it on to the Chilcott inquiry?

davod

Melanie: You are quite correct. The die is cast. Blair and Bush will, at the least be maligned, and at the worst find themselves in fear of every hack judge in the world.

John Birch

So the WMDs went to Syria? And the Iraqi scientists and the Iraqi leadership, including Saddam, who were in American custody covered this up? And the head of Iraqi intelligence who cut a deal with the Americans and ended up somewhere with a new identity also covered this up?

David Raynes

MR JONATHAN POWELL: I have difficulty with this notion of hard
intelligence as opposed to soft intelligence.
********************************************
When Powell says this he is being disingenuous. The reason I have
difficulty with your view Melanie is that you have failed to recognise that soft
intelligence, very soft, almost non existent it turns out, was
deliberately misrepresented as hard, very hard, to get doubters, parliament and
people on board. We the people and parliament were deliberately mislead.

Everyone who has ever dealt with secret intelligence knows that there IS
a difference between hard and soft intelligence. Powell because of his
access must also know that. Why then, does he pretend to difficulty? One can only conclude these people do not learn.

wonderer

Gareth you mean, "http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001665.html" in 2006. As Melanie commented, it's difficult to verify, all being hearsay. There are other accounts of how the WMD might have been removed, eg per b&w avenger by the KGB, meaning perhaps the FSB. All or none or a combination of these may be true.

Lynne T

Gareth:

The Iraqi you refer to was the 2nd highest ranking officer in the Iraqi air force and I believe he published a book detailing the operation, carried out by special forces from Russia and the medal received by the officer who oversaw the operation. The Iraqi general's name was something like Michel George (he was an Iraqi Christian and greatly hated by Saddam, but held his place in the air force due to merit. Ultimately, he left Iraq some time between Gulf War I and Gulf War II.)

Tim Howard

What Jonathon Powell said about the reasons to believe he was dangerous is what I always thought. I never understood the need to supplement it with Intelligence which, as he says, can never be considered as evidence. If there wasn't any supplementary intelligence, most people would still have believed it. As Hilary Clinton said when she appeared on German TV "If he hasn't got WMD's then it is his own fault because he behaves as if he does". I'll bet that's what most of the MP's thought as well when they voted.

wonderer

Lynne T and Gareth, the Iraqi general was Georges Sada, wasn't he? I haven't read his book but nothing in Melanie's interview with him (see the link in my previous post) suggests that he was hated by Saddam. If he is right, it's disappointing that nothing has been heard that I'm aware of about the investigation mentioned towards the end of the interview.

Jonathan Karmi

I think people are too hung up on the legality question. For me the moral case for overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime was overwhelming. I don't give a monkeys whether it was about regime change or WMD. It was just the right thing to do. Read up about Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay and you'll understand why.

Mailman

Neil,

Saddam was only prepared to allow the weapons inspectors to see what he wanted them to see...and he played this game for 10 years.

Mailman

Jack

I would have thought that if the 'mad man' Saddam had WMD's, instead of secretly moving them, he would have threatened to use them and held the world hostage. And what about the 'ready to deploy them in 45 minutes' claim? If thats not scaremongering I don't know what is.

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