Tony Blair

Also see Iraq Inquiry timetable of hearings, who and when

Comment at end

3oth November, 2009

Iraq Inquiry: 3rd day of public hearings with Meyer

By Julie

This post, like the previous – 1st Day and 2nd Day - comes with my grateful thanks to Julie here

These are the most significant quotes from the third session of the Iraq Inquiry

————————————

3^rd day of public hearings

26^th November 2009: Morning session: Evidence by

Sir Christopher Meyer (former UK ambassador to the US, from 1997-2003)

Meyer

“It is a bit like, you know, people say, “Well, Tony Blair was so close to Bill Clinton, how on earth could he get close to George Bush?” Well, Robin Cook had been very close to Madeleine Albright, and he didn’t find it difficult to strike up a good working relationship with Colin Powell.”

“Sometimes people say to me, “It was the nutters in the administration, the right wingers, the neocons, who invented regime change”. Absolutely wrong. This was inherited from a Democrat administration, as were a number of other policies as well.”

(On the option of regime change) “That was the outer fringe, the extreme fringe, of the belligerence movement, but that, as a policy between, say, January, Inauguration Day, and 9/11, I don’t think ever got into the mainstream of the US administration debate, which continued to be focused on, as I say, narrowing and deepening sanctions and, “What can we do with Ahmed Chalabi and his people?”

“In those few weeks after 9/11, Tony Blair’s reputation in the United States of America was sealed. It continues to this day. The man above all other Europeans who came first out of the slips and who expressed his sympathy for, support for the United States of America in its hour of need with unparalleled eloquence.”

“I’m not sure if this is to your point, but I will say it anyway it had already become plain that there was a potential problem between Colin Powell, on the one side, and the Vice President Dick Cheney and the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the other. This became, on Iraq policy, and indeed on Arab/Israel policy, the fault line that ran through the administration, a fault line which was never covered and which opened ever wider as the months went by.”

“I wouldn’t say that it was as extremely poodle-ish as that. I don’t think that’s a fair comment. One of the things you have to remember is that Tony Blair was a true believer about the wickedness of Saddam Hussein and his realisation of that predates by a very long time the arrival of George Bush in the White House.”

“This is a speech Tony Blair made in January 1998, which is, again, context, and I quote 1998, which is early, he hadn’t even been Prime Minister for a year: “We have a clear responsibility in the interests of long-term peace in the world to stop Saddam Hussein from defying the judgment of the world’s community. He must be either persuaded by diplomacy or made by force to yield up his long cherished ambition to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; weapons which threaten not only his immediate neighbours in the Middle East, but pose a direct and fundamental challenge to world peace. All our experience of him teaches us that it is sometimes hard to succeed with him via diplomacy, but one thing is for sure: diplomacy stands no chance of success at all unless he knows that if he fails to listen to reason, we have the force to back it up.” Now, I never saw any evidence over all the years that I was in Washington that that fundamental view ever changed, and I think you can see things, hear things, said by Tony Blair, years later, that reflect that exactly.”

“What we need to do is to refresh the old Security Council Resolutions God knows how many there are, 15, 16, 17 particularly Resolutions 678 and 687. We can only do that if we can create some kind of consensus within the UN and get a Security Council Resolution that actually provides us with what we need”. Then you no longer have to worry about the legality or otherwise of regime change, because you have provided Saddam, through this Security Council Resolution with a set of things that he has to do, which, if he doesn’t do, you wrong foot him and then you can take action. Actually, that is precisely what 1441 did. Unanimously, thanks to an astonishing skill of Jeremy Greenstock in New York, and others, we got a unanimous resolution that put even Syria voted for it, for Pete’s sake, which puts all the onus on Saddam to prove his innocence.”

“Now, the British, as you mentioned this, I think played some role in influencing George Bush down this path against the wishes of his Vice President, very vociferously expressed, Tony Blair’s pressure, Jack Straw’s pressure all played their own part and I think pressure from David Manning and myself. We did play a part. I suspect, though, that the greater part was played by a combination, in this case, of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, who, in a very private supper with the President on 5 August, made the case for taking the international UN route,”

(On President Bush) “In his head and he had a very strong sense of realpolitik, he realised he couldn’t just do that and he submitted to the recommendations of his national security adviser and Secretary of State with a chorus of Europeans and an Australian, of whom Tony Blair was the most significant, that he would give the UN route a throw.”

“If you add up all the people who went to Iraq, it actually comes up to quite a respectable number. I think it was 30 or 40 nations were there.”

“I was in favour of moving Saddam Hussein, let me can I declare an interest here, Chairman? I thought just so you can understand where I’m coming from on this that you didn’t even need 9/11; you didn’t even need weapons of mass destruction as a clear and present danger. There was a very strong argument, there was a very strong view in Parliament for confronting Saddam Hussein, (a) because he had not lived up to the commitments in Resolution 687, which was the one which enshrined the ceasefire of the 1991 war. He had chucked out the inspectors effectively, UNSCOM, at the end of 1998, and we knew, and we still do know, because you have got this from the Iraq Survey Group, that he had the means and the will to concoct weapons of mass destruction at a later date, even if he didn’t have them at the time. I think, putting all this together, there is a British interest in confronting him through the UN, and we should have done it in 1999, and we couldn’t do it because, apart from anything else, the French and the Russians wouldn’t allow the Security Council to do it. So that’s where I was coming from.”

“I am not somebody who believes that an operational decision was taken in April 2002 or September of 2002. And then I began to hear in October of 2002, suitably at the Trafalgar Night dinner in the embassy, when masses of American military turn up I began to hear that January doesn’t work because we are not ready and we’ve got this problem with the Turks. So the thing started to go back February and in the end it turned out to be March.”

“This argument about were there or weren’t there weapons of mass destruction will go backwards and forwards, I suspect, until the end of time, but American and British troops wouldn’t have been equipped with antichemical weapons defences if there hadn’t been a very strong fear, however ill-founded, that Saddam could respond with these weapons.”

“I just think I would like to go back to something which I asked if I could say, which is to remind people that on the matter of Iraq, on the whole question of unilateralism versus multilateralism, which is the sort of philosophical discussion one has about the British/American relationship sometimes or the Americans’ role in the world, there is more of a continuum here with previous administrations before George W than maybe the Democratic Party and the Republican Party would be willing to admit. There was a lot of continuity with some of the stuff that Clinton did. Clinton and Bush, very, very different, but I just think that it would be wrong to see the Bush administration simply as an unusual and atypical aberration that suddenly appeared on the scene. It is not like that.”

——————————

Important exchanges:

SIR RODERIC: “In his State of the Union address in January 2002, the Axis of Evil speech I mean, you say in your book, effectively containment was dead, the President’s belief was that Iraq was too dangerous to be left to containment and he had decided at this point that, “The officially mandated policy of regime change” I’m quoting from your book “should be actively pursued”. Now, at this stage, what was the British Government’s policy?”

MEYER: “The British Government’s policy was one of profound legal objection to a regime change and a belief that it wasn’t realistic to seek to overthrow Saddam Hussein.”

LYNE:” So at what point between October 2001 and Crawford in April 2002 did your instructions change from you should be advocating containment to the British Government supported regime change?”

MEYER: “I got a chunky set of instructions in March of 2002.”

LYNE: “Instructions from?”

MEYER: “From … very good question. I got the instructions David Manning”

LYNE: “That’s Number 10 Downing Street?”

MEYER: “Number 10 Downing Street. By that time, the Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser, because he had taken over from John Sawers in the previous year. In fact, he was in Washington the very night before 9/11 to meet Condoleezza Rice and others to break himself in as the Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser. So David Manning came over in March of 2002 with a set of instructions to prepare the way for the Prime Minister’s visit at Crawford, which would take place on what was it, April 6, 7 and 8 of that year? One of the main things that he was seeking to do and this was new, and I, if you like, borrowed his instructions to do my side of things was to say to the Americans, “Look, if you want to do regime change, and if this is going to require military action, you guys are powerful enough to do it all on your own. You can do it on your own, you have got the power to do it, but if you are going to do this and you want your friends and partners to join you, far better than that you should do it inside an alliance, preferably taking the UN route”. That, I think, was the single most important message which was delivered to the US administration at that time.”

Tags:1441, Ambassador US, Chilcot, Colin Powell, Condi Riche, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Iraq inquiry, Sir Christopher Meyer, Tony Blair
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, Iraq, Iraq inquiry | 6 Comments »

Iraq Inquiry: Second day of Public Hearings with Ehrman and Dowse, 25th November 2009

November 29, 2009

Also see Iraq Inquiry timetable of hearings, who and when

Comment at end

3oth November, 2009

Iraq Inquiry: 2nd day of public hearings with Ehrman and Dowse

By Julie

This post, like the previous – 1st Day - comes with my grateful thanks to Julie here

These are the most significant quotes from the second session of the Iraq Inquiry

————————–

2^nd day of public hearings

25^th November 2009: Morning session: Evidence by

Sir William Ehrman (Director International Security in the Foreign Office from 2000 to October 2002; Director General Defence and Intelligence in the Foreign Office from October 2002 until the end of July 2004; Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee from September 2004 to July 2005)

Tim Dowse (head of Non proliferation Department in the Foreign Office January from 2001 until November 2003)

Dowse

“Perhaps I should just define “weapons of mass destruction”. It is a term that in general is taken to refer to nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons.”

“In the case of Iraq there was a very specific definition of WMD, which was set out in Security Council Resolution 687, which referred not only to the weapons, but to weapons used for material components, subsystems, manufacturing facilities of that sort.”

“I think the position we were in by 2001 was that these various international regimes had clearly delayed and obstructed proliferation, but we were extremely concerned that in some specific cases determine proliferators were making progress. We were concerned about Iran, we were concerned about Libya, we were concerned about Iraq. We had the cases of North Korea which had been caught cheating in 1993, and we had also begun to get information of the activities of AQ Khan in Pakistan who were offering nuclear assistance for weapons programmes covertly to a number of countries, notably Libya.”

“When we looked at the motivations behind WMD proliferation, we would say most proliferators were looking for a deterrent. They feared for their own security. In the case of Iraq, we thought that might be the exception. Saddam’s history of aggression against his neighbours, against his own people, meant that it was extremely difficult, I think, to make a firm calculation that he, when equipped with WMD, would not again attack within the region.”

“The 45 minutes report speaking personally, when I saw the 45 minutes report, I did not give it particular significance because it didn’t seem out of line with what we generally assessed to be Iraq’s intentions and capabilities with regard to chemical weapons.”

“I think that in a democratic country governments are always going to have an obligation to try to explain to the electorate, and to Parliament, why they feel it necessary to take action, particularly if it is going to involve military action, to remove threats, and if those threats are threats that develop in secret, as terrorism and proliferation often do, then inevitably one is going to have to draw on intelligence material.”

“We didn’t have a high expectations of this because so much of what the inspectors were going to do to achieve their objective depended on Iraqi cooperation. And really this was the test: would Iraq cooperate? We didn’t have a high confidence that they would but the possibility was always there.”

(On the weapon’s inspector’s job)“Diplomatically, politically, it would perhaps have been of benefit to have for them to have had more time, but in substance I share Sir William’s view that it wouldn’t have made a difference without Iraqi cooperation and we didn’t see that we were getting Iraqi cooperation”

Ehrman

“I think there is one other thing that you need to recall about Iraq, which was different in a sense from some of the other countries.

First of all, they were in breach of a great many Security Council Resolutions.

Secondly, as Tim Dowse has mentioned, Iraq had used chemical weapons both internally against its own people and externally against Iran.

Thirdly, it had started a war against Iran and it had invaded Kuwait and it had also fired missiles to Iran, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia. So in that sense in terms of use and in terms of ignoring great many Security Council Resolutions, Iraq was unique.”

“I think the first thing to say is that nobody really challenged the picture that we presented right the way up to March 2003.

The Russians said, “Well, show us the proof”, but they didn’t actually say, “We fundamentally disbelieve you”.

The Germans made no particular comment.

The Prime Minister of Spain said publicly, “We all know Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”

The Chinese didn’t express a view publicly but nor did they challenge the picture that we were presenting to them I think some of the things the French said are quite interesting.

The French Foreign Minister in the debate in New York on 5 February 2003 spoke about presumptions about VX, mustard gas, anthrax and botulinum toxin. President Chirac, in February, said to the press, “Are there nuclear arms in Iraq? I don’t think so. Are there other WMD? That’s probable. We have to find and destroy them.” In March, he was asked by the press whether he thought there were still prohibited weapons in Iraq and he said, “There are undoubtedly some. We are in the process of destroying the missiles which have an excessive range and there are probably other weapons.”

So I think the short answer is we were not being challenged by other countries.”

“I think one of the things that came out very clearly in the case of Iraq was that, whilst Saddam Hussein remained in power, unless he changed his mind very fundamentally and he was given a last chance to do so through 1441, but if he didn’t, it was very hard to see a way of removing the threat without military action.”

“So he met neither of the two tests which were set him in 1441 and, of course, 1441 determined that he was in breach and he had to he was black, in other words, and he had to prove himself white, and he did not do so.”

“He was in material breach unless he met the two tests in 1441. So he was already judged by 1441 to be in material breach. Did he meet the two tests in 1441? We say he didn’t.”

Important exchanges:

LYNE: “You said more than once that if the sanctions regime had gone, there was concern that Saddam would rebuild his WMD capabilities and could develop a nuclear capability within about five years, but that, despite the leakages in sanctions, the fact that the regime wasn’t working very well, it was at this time continuing to curtail his capabilities. So does it follow from that that if the sanction regime had been maintained, either in its existing form or in some improved form, smarter sanctions, that that would have continued to contain the threat of WMD from Iraq?”

DOWSE: “The nuclear threat. I think that certainly was our view, that if the sanctions regime had been maintained, that the nuclear threat would have been contained and there would have been constraints on his other activities, although we believed he was making progress with missiles, with chemical and biological weapons, despite the constraints. The problem was, we had with, I think we did not have high confidence that the sanctions regime would be maintained. Our general experience of sanctions, going back to Rhodesia, was that they tend to be a diminishing asset. Over time, the countries subject to sanctions find ways around them, and that was certainly the experience we were beginning to see with Iraq, as you were discussing with the witnesses yesterday. The international support for a robust sanctions regime, we felt was diminishing. So the trend line seemed to us to be bad.”

CHAIRMAN: “I would like us to turn to the September 2002 dossier. Just to start with, can I ask each of you what your understanding of the essential purpose of the dossier was and then of its general effect? Sir William, would you like to start?”

EHRMAN: “I think the purpose of the dossier, as I saw it, was to produce information to show why Iraq should be action should be taken to bring Iraq into compliance with its obligations under Security Council Resolutions.”

DOWSE: “Rather similarly, I was regarding it as material to help support the government’s case that the situation with respect to Iraq and WMD could not be simply allowed to drift on, as it was, that action needed to be taken. The action, as far as I was concerned at the time, was to try and get the inspectors back.”

LYNE: “I just think it is important that we are very clear about this question of time, because it is an important one in the public mind. Do you believe that the inspectors were actually given enough time to do thoroughly the job that they had been asked to do?”

EHRMAN: “My own response to that would be there could never be enough time absent cooperation.”

——————————–

25^th November 2009: Afternoon session: Evidence by

Sir William Ehrman (Director International Security in the Foreign Office from 2000 to October 2002; Director General Defence and Intelligence in the Foreign Office from

Tim Dowse (head of Non proliferation Department in the Foreign Office January from 2001 until November 2003)

Ehrman

“So it was not impossible that there could have been a peaceful solution to the issue of removing the threat of Saddam’s WMD but with noncooperation, it is very hard to see how that would have been done.”

“Obviously, we did think: how do you explain all of this? I would give two reasons to explain it. One, a great deal of intelligence, particularly, which underpinned our assessments on the production of chemical and biological weapons was withdrawn. So that changes, of course, the picture quite a bit.

The other was something that we touched on this morning, which was Saddam’s current strategic intent which we simply did not know at the time and also the fact that he had not wanted to show himself quite so weak vis a vis Iran. So I would put those as two particular reasons. “

Dowse:

“Dr Blix himself, I think, he had a rather good phrase. He said, “Inspections aren’t a game of hide and seek.” What we were looking for was for the Iraqis to be open to produce to provide the data which the inspectors could then go and verify, and that was not what we were getting. Again, it is this difference between passive cooperation and active cooperation.”

“I think we always thought that, in addition to weapons, there would be evidence in the form of documentation of components of and in terms of scientists that we had interviewed. One of the things we were quite concerned about was that Iraqi WMD experts would escape out of the country and go and sell their services to other countries.”

“In the south we were getting, as I recall, Iraqis coming to our military and saying, “We know where there is some WMD”, and certainly from the Foreign Office and we were encouraging the Ministry of Defence, and through them the forces in theatre, to pursue these leads because obviously we were very anxious to both secure the evidence, because we did still think it was a possibility that remnants of the Ba’ath Party or Saddam’s regime would still be trying to destroy some of the evidence, but we also wanted to recover it, for, as I say, exposure to the world.”

“There was a network of secret laboratories, although the eventual conclusion was that they were for the Iraqi intelligence services to work on assassination methods, but it is still not certain what that was for. We hadn’t known about those previously. We did, of course, discover some trailers and that occupied a lot of attention because they looked very, very similar to the trailers, the biological weapons trailers that Colin Powell had described to the Security Council and we thought that that was really a very significant find. There was then quite a lengthy discussion between experts. I remember some of our MoD BW experts went and looked at trailers and said, “Yes, we can’t see that these would be used for anything else other than BW“. Americans, or American experts, took the same view, but the other experts took a different view.”

“The Prime Minister was making a statement with his level of confidence. As I say, I also believed for a long time that we would find them, because I, at that stage, found it hard to believe that there would have been so much reporting from before the war without there being some fire behind that smoke.”

Important exchanges:

FREEDMAN: “The difficulty they still had is that, when they said there wasn’t anything there, they were actually correct.”

DOWSE: “Well, as we now know, but at the time that was not our view.”

FREEDMAN: Absolutely not. All I’m asking is whether there was an alternative hypothesis that couldn’t be supported by the evidence and, given that in these various sites that we sent them to, of which only half had been looked at, stocks had not been found, but in other areas presumably, you had equal confidence in the intelligence something had been found, there was reason to at least warn Ministers that an alternative hypothesis might just be correct, that contrary to what the Prime Minister said on the eve of war, it wasn’t patently absurd.

EHRMAN: I think Sir Lawrence, 4 out of 10 as a strike rate is pretty good.

FREEDMAN: Not when you are going to war.

EHRMAN: On the basis of intelligence, 4 out of is not a bad strike rate.

DOWSE: I wouldn’t put it quite in percentage terms but really the same point in a slightly broader way. As I said before, we were getting through this period in January, February, a fairly steady stream of low level reports saying, “This piece of equipment has been removed. The Iraqis are intending to hide or bury this. They have taken something out by night and taken it around”, so the background music, if you like, that we were working against all tended to reinforce our view that they were not playing straight, that they were concealing, they were still hiding things from the inspectors. So you are right, it was possible to come to a hypothesis that the inspectors were not finding some things because they weren’t there, but against the background of that sort of reporting, against the fact that they were finding some things, it tended to actually reinforce our view that that alternative hypothesis was not the correct one. In fact, our longstanding assessment that the particularly the chemical and biological agent, weapons, existed, was correct. So I think we could have briefed Ministers, perhaps we were wrong, but we didn’t actually think we were wrong. The evidence seemed to us in that period to be rather confirming it.

CHAIRMAN: By January 2004 or a little after, is it now generally accepted in Whitehall by Ministers and officials that nothing will be found, nothing of significance?

EHRMAN: Well, increasingly, as time passed it was thought less likely that things would be found.

DOWSE: I sometimes think I was the last official in Whitehall to think that we still might find something. It clearly became less likely as time went on.

CHAIRMAN: Just to interrupt you, I’m sorry, ballistic missiles with a range well beyond 150 kilometers?

EHRMAN: Yes. On that, they found evidence that they were working on ballistic missiles with a range considerably beyond 150.

DOWSE: Up to 1,000 kilometers, I think, yes.

CHAIRMAN: Yes.

DOWSE: Of course, they had had the advantage, by the time of their final report, of interviewing Saddam Hussein himself, which helped. So one could say that that added credibility, I would say, to their final conclusions. The fundamental conclusions they reached were that the nuclear programme would have been revived once sanctions were lifted, more or less what we had assessed before the war.

On missiles, again, in general terms, they pretty well confirmed our assessment. Where, of course, they reached a fundamentally different conclusion was that we had been wrong about the production of chemical and biological agents in 2002 and the intelligence that arrived at that time, and that was subsequently withdrawn, had led to us a wrong conclusion, although, again, on chemical in terms of strategic intent, he thought Saddam the ISG concluded that Saddam would have tried to reconstitute the programme.

ADDENDUM, 5th December 2009

Following the Daily Maul … Mail’s recent interview with Hans Blix, I feel it is worth adding these quotes:

DOWSE:I think we recognised that Dr Blix and we shouldn’t forget Dr ElBaradei as well, because the IAEA were also part of this that they were in a very difficult situation. They were, I think, acutely conscious of the fact that what they reported to the Security Council might make the difference between military action or no military action, and, in fact, it was an awkward position to be in. So one recognised that, but, as William says, they didn’t specifically come to us and say, “Give us another month or another six months and it will be done”. We were tending to hear that sort of message from some other countries on the Security Council, notably the French.

DOWSE: I think it does all go to give you the general picture that we were getting some hits, but and Dr Blix himself, I think, he had a rather good phrase. He said, “Inspections aren’t a game of hide and seek.” What we were looking for was for the Iraqis to be open to produce to provide the data which the inspectors could then go and verify, and that was not what we were getting. Again, it is this difference between passive cooperation and active cooperation.

FREEDMAN: Was Dr Blix, both in his report and in his more private conversations with you, puzzled himself by the fact that they weren’t coming up with more? He stated publicly that he expected to find more than he did.

EHRMAN: I think he was quite in his discussions with us quite carefully neutral.

FREEDMAN: Although Dr Blix, I think, compared favourably our support to the support they were given by the Americans.

EHRMAN: We can’t comment on the support the Americans gave, but they were giving support.

DOWSE: He described our support as the benchmark for assistance. Quite a lot of benchmarks.

CHAIRMAN: Is there more to be said about that or is that just it, in effect? There remained, of course, a very large number of issues of noncompliance as declared in Hans Blix’ final report before the invasion. Is that correct?

EHRMAN: Yes.

Tags:1441, 25th November 2009, Chilcot, Hans Blix, Iraq inquiry, Iraq Inquiry: 2nd day of public hearings with Ehrman and Dowse, Tim Dowse, Tony Blair, William Ehrman, WMDs
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, Iraq, Iraq inquiry | 7 Comments »

Iraq Inquiry: First Day of Public Hearings with Ricketts, Patey and Webb, 24th November 2009

November 29, 2009

Also see Iraq Inquiry timetable of hearings, who and when

Comment at end

3oth November, 2009

Iraq Inquiry: 1st day of public hearings with Ricketts, Patey and Webb

By Julie

This post comes with my grateful thanks to Julie here

These are the most significant quotes from the first session of the Iraq Inquiry

—————————————–

1^st day of public hearings

24^th November 2009: Sir John Chilcot Opening Statement

“As I have said before, we are not a court of law, nor are we an inquest, or, indeed, a statutory inquiry and our processes reflect that. No one is on trial here. We cannot determine guilt or innocence, only a court can do that.”

————-

24^th November 2009: Morning session: Evidence by

Sir Peter Ricketts (Director General Political in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2001)

Sir William Patey (head of the Foreign Office’s Middle East Department)

Simon Webb (Policy Director in the Ministry of Defence)

Ricketts:

“Iraq had been a major foreign and defence policy issue for the UK throughout the 1990s ever since the Gulf War”

“I think the simple summary of our view at that time was that we had been pursuing a policy of containment, containment, most important, of Saddam Hussein’s ambitions to redevelop weapons of mass destruction but also containment of the threat which Iraq had posed to the region, but, by 2001, that containment policy was failing and the rate of failure was accelerating. There were three standards, I would say, to the containment policy.

One was sanctions, of which perhaps the most effective was an arms embargo, but there were also sanctions on Iraqi oil exports and revenues from them, handled through this complex machinery of the Oil For Food programme the UN ran.

The second strand was an incentive strand. Resolution 1284 of the Security Council passed in 1999, had offered the Iraqis a deal, the incentive of suspension of sanctions 120 days after the Iraqis had accepted to return the weapons inspectors to Iraq.

The third strand was a deterrent strand; it was the No Fly Zones in the north and in the south. Now, our review at the beginning of 2001 has suggested that each of those strands of policy were in trouble.

The sanctions strand was subject to increasing smuggling of oil through a new pipeline in Syria and then leakages of oil round the region, of abuse of the Oil For Food programme providing substantial revenues to Saddam Hussein and the regime, and, as I say, the arms embargo perhaps the most effective part of it, but also with problems.

The incentive strand had not been implemented because Saddam Hussein had not accepted the return of the weapons inspectors to Iraq, so that was on hold, and the No Fly Zone strand was thought to be risky, for reasons which we will come on to explore, but also very unpopular. We were very aware, in 2001 that international support for this structure of sanctions and deterrents was eroding, both in the region and in the Security Council.

The net effect of that was that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was feeling pretty comfortable. He had substantial legal revenues from which he could pursue patronage inside Iraq and continue the efforts to procure materials for his weapons of mass destruction programme.”

“I don’t think it led to an immediate shift in American policy because I remember, as 9/11 happened, we and the Americans were still working on further pushes with the Russians to see whether we could get a goods review list resolution through in the autumn”

(Period before 9/11)“I was certainly never aware of anyone in the British Government at that point promoting or supporting active measures to achieve regime change”

“In the year 2001 we saw an acceleration of work on missile programme and I think our reports were specific that there was an acceleration there. We saw increased Iraqi efforts to procure material for nuclear programme, we saw continuing interest in CW research and development and I think we suspected that the increased availability of money from the increasing revenues diverted from smuggling and OFF were allowing that acceleration of work, certainly in the missiles and the nuclear area.”

“The other person who was reasonably comfortable under the sanctions regime was Saddam Hussein, because it wasn’t actually doing him any harm at all. So I mean there are many dilemmas in international policy when it comes to sanctions”

(On 9/11)” What it did, first and foremost, and obviously, is push counter-terrorism right to the top of the agenda, and that was true from the moment it happened, but it also was the starkest indication we had had that this new breed of terrorists were intent on mass casualties, but they were innovative in finding unconventional ways of achieving that, that they didn’t mind at all dying in the process and that this was all a new dimension, really, of the terrorist threat.”

(In late 2001)“It may have been that there were some in Washington who felt that the Afghanistan mission had gone extremely well, relatively few US casualties, and, you know, that therefore other military operations would be the same. I don’t recall that as a feeling around in London at the time.”

“I don’t remember “War on Terrorism” ever being our phrase. Indeed, I remember British Ministers being fairly — you know, not very impressed with it as a phrase.”

———————————–

Patey:

“The policy was designed to prevent him from developing his weapons of mass destruction, designed to get rid of whatever weapons of mass destruction he had and prevent him from threatening his neighbours. Those policy aims looked increasingly vulnerable”

(On why Russia blocked smart sanctions) “I think the Russian foreign minister had run out of arguments and said, “Yes, I accept all of that, but actually we have got a lot of commercial interests at stake and it is very difficult domestically”. The Russians had $8 billion of debt owed to them by the Iraqis, which they were hopeful of getting repaid”

“It was a dilemma for us. It was our way of saying, “We are not going to do anything to deliver regime change, but actually our point of view is it would be very good for Iraq.“ So it was a way of signalling to the Iraqi people that because we don’t have a policy of regime change, it doesn’t mean to say we’re happy with Saddam Hussein, and there is a life after Saddam with Iraq being reintegrated into the international community.”

“I was certainly not aware, right up to March 2002, when I left, of any increased appetite by UK Ministers for military action in Iraq.”

—————————–

Webb

(About beginning of 2001): “I think the important point was to say that — the question of regime overthrow was, I recall, mentioned but it was quite clear that there was no proposition being put in our direction on that, and, indeed, we got propositions — and we can talk about the detail of those — on the No Fly Zones, but we did not get the proposition about regime change.”

(On US Foreign and Security Policy after 9/11) “So it shifted from something which is, in a way, often part of the American feeling that, “We are a big country who have everything within our boundaries and we will wait for things to happen”, into a much more proactive sense that they needed to deal with security threats before they arrived.”

—————————-

Important exchanges:

(On the American containment approach in 2001)

LYNE: Did you feel that that view was shared by the dominant force in American policy-making at the time?

RICKETTS: Yes, as I said, Colin Powell explicitly did support the approach of a strengthened, narrowed, focused sanctions regime.

LYNE: When Mr Webb went to talk to his opposite numbers in the Pentagon, did you get the same sense that this was American policy?

WEBB: I did. I did. Yes.

LYNE: As I understand it, broadly speaking, the assessment that Saddam was trying to do this, that he had certain capabilities, which he was trying to develop further, was not disputed by other countries, by other members, permanent members of the Security Council, broadly shared by countries in the region. So there wasn’t a major difference of opinion — correct me if I am wrong — between us and France, or Germany, or Russia, on this basic assumption. But at the same time the United Kingdom and the United States, working off this database, saw Iraq clearly as a major threat that had to be contained or more serious, and all of these other countries came to a very different conclusion. Now, why did they look at the same information but not regard it as threatening, whereas we did?

RICKETTS: Well, first of all, I don’t think there was any disagreement, as you say, that Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction. After all, they had used them. IAEA inspectors had found and largely dismantled a nuclear programme after the Gulf War. So the fact that the country had capabilities and had shown they were willing to use them was not disputed.”

———————————-

24^th November 2009: Afternoon session: Evidence by

Sir Peter Ricketts (Director General Political in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2001)

Sir William Patey (head of the Foreign Office’s Middle East Department)

Simon Webb (Policy Director in the Ministry of Defence)

Sir Michael Wood (legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1999 to 2006)

Wood:

“I think it is very important at the outset to make it clear that there is a distinct legal basis,a separate legal basis for the No Fly Zones. The legal basis for the No Fly Zones has nothing whatsoever to do with the legal basis for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The legal basis for the No Fly Zones was based upon an exceptional right to take action to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, whereas the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq was Security Council authorisation.

Perhaps it would help if very briefly I just set out the law, the international law on the use of force. It consists firstly of a prohibition of the use of force in international relations, set out in Article 2(4) of the charter. The charter then has two express exceptions. The first of these is self-defence, recognised in Article 51 of the charter, and the second of these is authorisation by the Security Council acting under chapter 7. Now, in the case of extreme humanitarian catastrophe, the need to advert an extreme humanitarian catastrophe, this is not referred to in the charter. It is regarded by the British Government as being derived from customary international law, and the essence of it, I think, is that if something like the Holocaust were happening today, if the Security Council were blocked, you couldn’t get an authorisation from it, then it simply cannot be the law that states cannot take action to intervene in that kind of a situation, an emergency of that scale.”

Tags:1st day of public hearings, 24th November 2009, Iraq inquiry, Simon Webb, Sir John Chilcot, Sir Michael Wood, Sir Peter Ricketts, Sir William Patey
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, Iraq, Iraq inquiry, Major Political Issues, Britain & World | 7 Comments »

Tony Blair, transcript: Middle East & Goldsmith on Iraq war legality

November 29, 2009

Comment at end

29th November, 2009

KING: There’s an inquiry into the run-off, the political decisions, the military decisions in the run-up to the Iraq war. And your name, and your credibility have been called into question … Lord Goldsmith, who was your attorney general back in those days, says that he warned you that this was a breach of international law, but that he was bullied into being quiet and convinced not to resign from the government. Is that an accurate portrayal?

BLAIR: No, it’s not, but I think the best thing with this inquiry is actually to let us all give our evidence to the inquiry. And you know, I’ve been through these issues many, many times over the past few years and I’m very happy to go through them again. But I think probably the appropriate place to do that is in front of the inquiry.

Aired November 29, 2009 – 09:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KING: After months of stalemate, perhaps a bit of movement in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a 10-month freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. But Palestinian officials say the moratorium doesn’t go far enough, because it doesn’t include a halt in construction in East Jerusalem.

So is there an opening for progress or just more finger-pointing and frustration? Our next guest has unique insight. Tony Blair is the former British prime minister and now special envoy to the Middle East for the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations.

Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for joining us. Let’s start with the basic question, will the Israelis and the Palestinians sit down or will they continue just to talk about sitting down? BLAIR: Well, I hope they sit down because it’s absolutely essential that we get a political negotiation under way and get it under way as quickly as possible. Because there are things, positive things happening on the ground right at the moment on the West Bank.

The Palestinian economy is growing. There are check points being opened or removed. There’s a lot of bustle and activity on the West Bank. In Gaza, let us hope we get the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier and then start to get some opening up of Gaza to the outside world.

So there are positive things that are happening, but it needs an overarching political negotiation in order to succeed.

KING: Some positive things, as you know, but what is missing, and you know this all too well, is trust. Prime Minister Netanyahu is not trusted by the Palestinians, and even after this concession on his part, which caused him a bit of grief in his own political support, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has made this concession, but the Palestinian prime minister, Mr. Fayyad, says it’s not enough.

He says, what has changed to make something that was not acceptable a week or 10 days ago acceptable now? The exclusion of Jerusalem is a very serious problem for us.

Should the Palestinians, in your view, sit down, even though it’s not perfect? Is it time to sit down and just say, look, you’re not going to get everything you want entering negotiations? Just sit down and negotiate?

BLAIR: Well, I’ve just spent some time with the Israeli prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, and I think he is genuine and serious in wanting the negotiation to start. I think from the Palestinian point of view, they need to know that this negotiation is going to be credible. In other words, it’s not just going to be sitting down and talking, but it is genuinely going to lead us towards the two-state solution that everyone wants to see.

So the debate at the moment is, how do we create the context in which people think this negotiation is serious, that it will lead to a viable Palestinian state, one that is a secure neighbor for Israel, but also a Palestinian state in which the Palestinians have the freedom to run their own territory?

KING: Assess the politics of the moment. Some would look at these two governments and say Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot afford to give up much or he’ll lose his coalition. President Abbas has said, enough, I’m frustrated with this, I’m not going to stay in power much longer. So you see two weak governments, some would say, there is no way they could get anything done, and others would say, that’s the perfect opportunity. How do you see it?

BLAIR: Because I’m more naturally optimistic, I see it as an opportunity. I also think both of them have got one great source of strength that’s not to be underestimated here. I mean, I spend a lot of time in Israel and in the Palestinian territory. There is no doubt in my mind at all that a majority of people, both Israelis and Palestinians, want to see a two-state solution.

Their doubt over the past years has been whether it’s possible to have it, but their commitment in principle to getting it has not diminished. So our task, if you like, is to set the context in which they think this can be done. Now I’ve spent time talking to the leadership of both sides.

Whatever doubts they have about each other’s good faith from time to time, I mean, I don’t doubt the good faith of either. I think they genuinely want to find a way through, but they come at it from completely opposite sides. Israel wants to know that its security is going to be protected, while on the West Bank the Palestinian Authority have made real strides forward in security.

I mean, I can go to cities on the West Bank now, Jenin and Nablus and Hebron and Qalqilya and Jericho, places that two years ago would have had quite a different security setting, now with security greatly improved. So there are things that the Palestinians are doing, actually, to help meet that Israeli concern.

On the other side, for the Palestinians, what they need to know is that if they sit down and talk so the Israelis, it will lead, genuinely, to an independent Palestinian state. And what is it that they want to know? They want to know that the weight of occupation will be lifted.

But there again, actually, there have been some things that have happened on the West Bank: check points opened, some of the restrictions lifted, Israeli-Arabs coming into the Palestinian territory, an increase in economic growth. As a result, the West Bank economy is probably growing maybe in double digits, actually, at the moment.

BLAIR: So there is real potential and hope, but the next month, I think, will be completely critical, fundamental to this, because if we can’t get negotiations going that are credible, then the vacuum that is created will suit no one but the extremists.

KING: Let me follow up on that point. You mentioned the next month is critical. One of the questions being asked back here in the United States is where is the U.S. leadership? I want to read you a bit from a “New York Times” editorial this Saturday. “Nine months later, the president’s promising peace initiative has unraveled. The Israelis have refused to stop all. The Palestinians say that they won’t talk to the Israelis until they do. President Mahmoud Abbas is so despondent, he has threatened to quit. Arab states are refusing to do anything. Mr. Obama’s own credibility is so diminished, his own approval rating in Israel is 4 percent, that serious negotiations may be farther off than ever. Peacemaking takes strategic skill, but we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board.”

That’s a pretty sober, pretty negative assessment of the American diplomatic involvement. Do you share it?

BLAIR: I don’t, actually. I mean, it won’t surprise you to know. I think that, first of all, let me tell you that I worked with Senator George Mitchell of the Northern Ireland peace negotiations. We work together very closely. He is, in my view, one of the most skilled and strategic negotiators I’ve ever come across.

Secondly, I think President Obama, Secretary Clinton are completely committed to doing this. But third and perhaps most important of all, I went through situations in times in the Northern Ireland process where people were convinced the thing was going to fail. Where even at times, I found it difficult to see a way through. But you know, the thing is, there is a way through here because in fact, both parties want to achieve a two-state solution.

Actually, the Palestinians have made significant progress on security. In fact, the Israelis are prepared, in my view, to change significantly their posture on the West Bank. And if we can get Corporal Shalit released, then a major change in the way that we view Gaza. It’s not without hope.

And here’s the thing, John. There is no alternative but to keep trying. The alternative to a two-state solution is a one-state solution and that will be, I assure you, be a hell of a fight. So I think when we look at the various strands of negativity there are around at the moment and there always are in these negotiations, there are, nonetheless, positives.

We’ve got to seize on them, work on them, and make sure that we bring about a situation in which the central strategic objective of President Obama, which is right at the outset of his administration, to make this process count and work is achieved. And I do emphasize that as well. The president said this at this beginning. This is, to my mind, the big difference of what has come before.

At the very beginning of this administration, he set that as a core strategic objective. I have absolutely no doubt he holds to that and whatever the difficulties and the obstacles, we have to find a way through. And personally, although as I say I am optimist by nature, I believe we will.

KING: Let me shift subjects. I want to get your thoughts about an inquiry back in your home country. There’s an inquiry into the run-off, the political decisions, the military decisions in the run-up to the Iraq war. And your name, and your credibility have been called into question, your good name has been called into question in this inquiry.

Lord Goldsmith, who was your attorney general back in those days, says that he warned you that this was a breach of international law, but that he was bullied into being quiet and convinced not to resign from the government. Is that an accurate portrayal?

BLAIR: No, it’s not, but I think the best thing with this inquiry is actually to let us all give our evidence to the inquiry. And you know, I’ve been through these issues many, many times over the past few years and I’m very happy to go through them again. But I think probably the appropriate place to do that is in front of the inquiry.

KING: Well, let me try one more on you. This is your former ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, talking about your meeting with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, a meeting I covered some years ago. He says, “I know what the cabinet office says were the results of the meeting, but to this day, I’m not entirely clear what degree of convergence was if you like signed in blood at the Crawford ranch in Texas.”

Your former ambassador saying essentially you came to visit President Bush and you came back and then within days were talking about the need for regime change in Iraq. Again, this is your reputation, your credibility being called into question. Is that an accurate portrayal?

BLAIR: John, it’s been called into question many times over these past years about exactly these issues, all of which, as I say, have been gone over many times before.

But I feel, because I’ll be giving evidence in the new year in front of the inquiry that it really is best rather that I respond to each and every news report or allegation, the best thing is to go in front of the inquiry, answer their questions, and I’m very, very happy to do so. I’ve always been happy to do so. You know, this is a situation where over the years, I’ve answered questions time and time again on it. And I’m happy to do so again. It’s an important decision. It was a very momentous decision in terms of your country and in terms of mine. But I think the appropriate place to look at all these issues is the inquiry itself.

KING: Well let me then try and lastly this way. I’ll leave the specifics for when you testify to the inquiry, but if you pick up media accounts in your country, friends of yours are saying that you feel betrayed, that you feel your reputation is being damaged by men you bestowed high offices to in the government. Do you feel betrayed? Are you angry at how this is being done?

BLAIR: Absolutely not. One of the things you learn as a leader in a country is you have the responsibility to take decisions. Some of those decisions are difficult decisions and some of them are very controversial. And what happens, your time in leadership goes on, and I spent 10 years as UK prime minister, is that these controversies, sometimes they can be very bitter, very difficult.

That’s part of being a leader. And I think it was one of your presidents that once said if you can’t stand the heat, don’t come into the kitchen. And that’s my view of politics. So I take decisions, I stand by them, and as I say, these are all questions I’ve answered many times before. I’m happy to go through it again.

KING: The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now special envoy to the Middle East. Mr. Prime Minister, thanks so much for your time today.

BLAIR: Thanks, John.

RELATED

John Rentoul: “Blair is happy to go through it all again”
The Mail, in its usual way of leaking about/with leaks first broke with this Goldsmith letter story. Whether we can believe its interpretation of the “letter” from to Blair is another matter. Whether in itself it MEANS anything more than just putting down thoughts for consideration is yet another matter. Of course, even here the Tory supporting < Iraq war supporting Mail gets into its usual conspiracy theory mode. Titchy -too … we got you!
See also this note of caution by Paul Waugh at The Evening Standard.
And just in case you were taking a breath in between the next Blair lambasting – hang on a minute! Peter McKay at The Mail leaks that David Manning tomorrow afternoon at the Iraq Inquiry might excite the tappers and scribblers even more. McKay asks “Will Tony Blair ever go on trial after the Chilcot Inquiry?” His answer, “No, cos it was the Tories wot helped him.” Oh my. Honesty from the Mail. Whatever next?

Tags:Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Goldsmith on Iraq legality, interview transcript, Iraq war inquiry, John King CNN, lord goldsmith, Middle East, Paul Waugh, Peter McKAy, state of the union, Tony Blair
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, BBC, Broadcast Outlets & Press, Iraq, Iraq inquiry, Major Political Issues, Britain & World | Leave a Comment »

Diane Abbott on Blair & Iraq. Which part of “poppycock” does she not understand?

November 29, 2009

More here at The Guardian

Comment at end

29th November, 2009

Abbott, Guardian: “I knew at the time that it was an illegal and misconceived war and was proud to vote against it. Everything that is coming out of the Chilcot inquiry confirms that view.”

Oh really? You KNEW, Ms Abbott? How clever of you. And will you KNOW that you were wrong if and when the Inquiry finally (yes, it’s not finished yet!) concludes that the legality/ illegality is not clear.

Will you apologise to Mr Blair for traducing him over much of the last 8 years at least?

She also says:

“In the end, it was all about Blair.”

As opposed to this article being all about Abbott?

Diane Abbott is an MP I cannot take to. Probably because she cannot take to Tony Blair. Yes, I admit this prejudice. I have this peculiar disregard for Labour MPs who fail to recognise that it is largely if not ONLY because of his leadership that they have been in their jobs for the last 12 years plus.

My comment: (just in case it’s removed)

“Well said NorthernLight.

Cifers on the whole are unbalanced. Sorry if that sounds insulting but it just happens to be true. They are unbalanced to the Left in the same way that Daily Mail commenters are unbalanced to the right.

Its all b*l****s.

Which way do you dress , Sir? Suits you.

Anyway Abott’s rant here is riduculous but par for the course. Like plenty of other small political minds she thinks Blair can be bullied into a court in chains to be handed over to the ICC and then locked in a cell for the rest of his natural.

What poppycock.

The woman’s article is that variety of poppy too.

I have written about her thoughts on bullying at my blog in the past, as you can see here:

http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/diane-abbott-mp-and-bully-denial/

She’d best lay off Blair. He’s seen off bigger bullies than her before.”

RELATED

Diane Abbott MP and Bully Denial

Tags:bully denial, Diane Abbott MP, illegal, iraq war, legal, Tony Blair
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, BBC, Broadcast Outlets & Press, Brown (Gordon Brown & his Labour Government, from June 2007), Iraq, Iraq inquiry, Major Political Issues, Britain & World, Press - Truth & Lies, The Independent - Daily Mail - Guardian - British "feral" Press | 2 Comments »

Tony, if you’re a ‘dead man walking’, challenge the treacherous bastards to CHARGE you

November 29, 2009

Current Latest Page

All Links to ‘The Trial of Tony Blair’ posts

Sign the Ban Blair-Baiting petition here. “He’s not a war criminal. He’s not evil. He didn’t lie. He didn’t sell out Britain or commit treason. He wasn’t Bush’s poodle. He hasn’t got blood on his hands. The anti-war nutters must not be allowed to damage Blair’s reputation further. He was a great PM, a great statesman and a great leader.”

Comment at end

Ban Blair-Baiting

You may also be interested in this – “I was a witness (more or less) to the TRIAL of Tony Blair, aka the Iraq Inquiry”

29th November, 2009

The Independent: “The former prime minister has been appalled by high-profile evidence given by the mandarins who have appeared before the Chilcot Inquiry since the first round of public hearings began last Tuesday, close friends have revealed.”

Reports that Tony Blair is “furious” over the mandarins’ evidence at his trial … the Iraq Inquiry, here and here come as no surprise to me. He must be spitting blood.

But the mandarins are not the only ones salami slicing and then shredding his reputation while he is in no position to respond to them.

Tony Blair is suffering under a two-pronged attack.

First, witnesses speak. Then the press reports interprets.

The press only reports interprets the juicy bits that serve their cause. After reporting interpreting, the prongs add to their number, seemingly organically.

Now the attack has become three-pronged.

Having devoured the press’s morsels, juicy bits spiced up for their greater enjoyment, the public joins in like gladiators relishing the taste of blood.

Civil servants know and understand all this. That’s what makes their capitulation to the press’s agenda so shameful and frankly so disturbing.

They KNOW that the press are hanging on their every word and even every pause, which also goes reported opined.

It is contemptible behaviour to feed this ravenous feral beast. It is unfitting for anyone who considers himself an honourable servant of the crown.

But after only one week of the year-long Iraq Inquiry a pattern has emerged. These witnesses are free in this oft-derided “dictatorship” of ours to utter their often shoddy, part-remembered, usually partisan and part-informed views in a way which makes them able to be interpreted as the press wills.

And it will, and it does.

TREACHERY

I wonder if these people would be so indiscreet if they had heard the Queen in some talks or agreements with a foreign head of state? Would they risk being charged with treason?

This would never happen, of course, because the Queen is above politics. But I ask the question because today when monarchs do not hold political power but are merely figureheads and are yet protected under treason laws, I think we may need to re-think this position.

We also owe allegiance to the country’s prime minister and/or former prime minister, especially in times such as these. The prime minister was one of us. An elected representative, fated to make tough political decisions.

To hang him out to dry in this way is contemptible and degrades the meaning of loyalty. Loyalty, if it means anything at all, is NOT just to the crown, but also to the monarch’s chief representative, the main decision-maker. And for ten years that was Mr Blair.

He cannot answer for himself or whisper a word of disagreement except when he provides his evidence which is due in a couple of months. After that the year-long inquiry will continue, and the press will continue to rouse the gladiators.

Civil servants, sworn to secrecy, but highly unlikely to be charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act (as that would be interpreted as Blair’s/Brown’s revenge on poor honest justice seekers) can insinuate all they like with impunity, regardless that much of their innuendo is hearsay and worse, often only their opinion.

But Blair’s intervention today will make little difference to future “evidence” or how it is delivered. These Sir Humphreys, experts at obfuscation and double-speak seem to have one aim in mind. To use the “get out of jail … it wasn’t me, Guv” card, just in case Blair is eventually charged.

Civil servants care not if they throw Blair onto a fire already stoked by such as The Daily Mail. In their mandarinese they may even be quietly and as subtly as possible competing to see which of their evidence actually fires the gun pointed at Blair’s head. The cinch will be that in this cacophony of sound-bites no-one, not even the press, will be able to work out which of them actually pulled the trigger.

Scandalous is far too weak a word for this behaviour.

If nothing can be done to stop this opining which leaves so much space for inference and interpretation, AND if nothing can be done to stop such as The Daily Mail leaking and PROVING daily that Mr Blair “lied” to us in their Viewspaper, Mr Blair may have no other choice.

STOP THE INQUIRY SIR JOHN CHILCOT

Mr Blair may be forced to ask the government to suggest that the Inquiry be STOPPED or at least PAUSED dead in its tracks. He can then challenge his many opponents to put up a legal case against him. This Inquiry has never been accepted as “to learn lessons”. Chilcot’s words – “no-one is on trial” has fallen on deaf ears.

We ALL know (as the know-alls are fond of saying on other matters) … we all know who exactly is on trial here.

A challenge to put up or shut up may well prove a challenge too far.

It is clear, as I have been arguing here for some time, that unless these people get Blair into a court of law to defend his position over Iraq, this Inquiry will not satisfy them anyway.

And my fear is that if in the end they are unsatisfied one of the detestable madmen will take it upon himself to mete out summary justice on behalf of all – mandarins, press and Joe Public.

That’s you and me.

Well, NOT in MY name they don’t.

Sign the Ban Blair-Baiting petition here

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Tags:ban blair baiting petition, civil servants, Iraq inquiry, reputation shredded by mandarins, Sir John Chilcot, Tony Blair
Posted in 1. Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, Iraq, Iraq inquiry | 2 Comments »

Sarko’s reward from Angie for helping her “kill off” Tony AND Britain

November 29, 2009