20 May 2007
I wrote this for my three children - they wanted to know about the Iraq War - it's not perfect but it's not bad either - trying to distil everything I knew into such a short space was difficult and took me two hours. Inevitably, there are important omissions, but there are few, if any, inaccuracies, and it is the truth, the whole truth (well not quite), and nothing but the truth, as far as I can judge. Here it is:
THE IRAQ WAR
Iraq is a country in the Middle East, approximately three quarters the size of France, with an area of 437,072 sq km, and a population of approximately 25 million. It is bordered by Iran, the Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, and is consequently of immense strategic importance. It is widely accepted that Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia) is “the cradle of civilisation”, and was home to the first two civilisations known to Man, namely the Sumerians and the Babylonians. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia).
On 20 March 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark and Poland invaded Iraq on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and that those weapons constituted a “clear and immediate threat” to Western interests. Thus the purported justification for war, especially in the United Kingdom, was self defence. In the United States, there was an apparently deliberate blurring of the reasons for going to war, including the claim that Iraq had links with Al Qaeda (not true), and that it was an opportunity to remove an odious dictator from power and introduce democracy (“regime change”), in addition to the WMD reason. Many thought at the time that the real reason for going to war with Iraq was to gain control of its oil supplies.
It was judged eventually to be impossible to obtain United Nations approval for the long-planned war because France through Chirac announced 10 March 2003, shortly after Russia, that they too would use their veto to block the new resolution, at that time being considered by the UN Security Council. Further, France crucially, according to Blair, went further than Russia by saying that France would veto a new resolution “no matter what the circumstances”, but that proved to be a Blair embellishment seemingly intended to discredit France; Chirac duly protested but the damage was done. Germany, though not possessing a veto like France and Russia, had previously (January 2003) said that it would oppose a new resolution. In addition, it was thought that China would follow Russia and France in using its veto powers.
This did not deter Bush et al., who gained the necessary US approval to wage war. The Geneva Conventions (which resulted from the Nuremberg Trials following the Second World War) clearly state that aggressive war on a sovereign state (“regime change”) is the “supreme war crime”. It was judged therefore by the British that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, must provide legal advice to the British Government which allowed the UK to go to war. Goldsmith’s written legal advice of 7 March 2003 (which had already been changed once, and which led eventually to the resignation of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the second most senior lawyer at the Foreign Office) was judged not to suffice and an unminuted meeting took place at 10 Downing Street on 13 March 2003 between Goldsmith and Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, when Goldsmith passed on his “verbally expressed view” to Falconer and Morgan. At the Butler Inquiry, Goldsmith said that that verbal view was later transformed into the Parliamentary Answer of 17 March 2003, and it was that (devoid of all caveats), rather than a summary of the 7 March 2003 written legal advice (as claimed), which was shown to Cabinet. It was not even certain that Goldsmith had written the Parliamentary Answer, though he later - 2005 - claimed that he had. Thus Goldsmith changed his legal advice not once but twice. Blair was required by Bush et al. to legitimise America's war on Iraq in the eyes of the American people. Blair could not have done what was required of him without Goldsmith's legal advice, and others in the British Government (and Opposition, and mainstream media) were complicit in differing degrees. However, Goldsmith's legal advice was the single most important enabling factor in allowing America to wage aggressive war.
In addition, there was controversy over the existence or otherwise of WMD, and it only recently (a few days ago) became clear that the September 2002 dossier was not written by John Scarlett, Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as had been claimed,. There were later claims that 10 Downing Street orchestrated attempts to “sex up” the Intelligence, and the world expert on biological and chemical weapons, Dr David Kelly paid with his life for the storm that ensued. Kelly’s “suicide” was never proved (beyond reasonable doubt), as required by law, and neither was Kelly’s suspicious death investigated by a proper inquest (also required by English and European law). Lord Hutton lacked the powers necessary to achieve such a high level of proof. He could not, and did not, hear evidence under oath, for example.
No WMD were ever found. In addition, there have been 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the 2003 invasion (The Lancet, several months ago). Some believe that that figure has now reached 1,000,000.
I wrote this for my three children - they wanted to know about the Iraq War - it's not perfect but it's not bad either - trying to distil everything I knew into such a short space was difficult and took me two hours. Inevitably, there are important omissions, but there are few, if any, inaccuracies, and it is the truth, the whole truth (well not quite), and nothing but the truth, as far as I can judge. Here it is:
THE IRAQ WAR
Iraq is a country in the Middle East, approximately three quarters the size of France, with an area of 437,072 sq km, and a population of approximately 25 million. It is bordered by Iran, the Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, and is consequently of immense strategic importance. It is widely accepted that Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia) is “the cradle of civilisation”, and was home to the first two civilisations known to Man, namely the Sumerians and the Babylonians. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia).
On 20 March 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark and Poland invaded Iraq on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and that those weapons constituted a “clear and immediate threat” to Western interests. Thus the purported justification for war, especially in the United Kingdom, was self defence. In the United States, there was an apparently deliberate blurring of the reasons for going to war, including the claim that Iraq had links with Al Qaeda (not true), and that it was an opportunity to remove an odious dictator from power and introduce democracy (“regime change”), in addition to the WMD reason. Many thought at the time that the real reason for going to war with Iraq was to gain control of its oil supplies.
It was judged eventually to be impossible to obtain United Nations approval for the long-planned war because France through Chirac announced 10 March 2003, shortly after Russia, that they too would use their veto to block the new resolution, at that time being considered by the UN Security Council. Further, France crucially, according to Blair, went further than Russia by saying that France would veto a new resolution “no matter what the circumstances”, but that proved to be a Blair embellishment seemingly intended to discredit France; Chirac duly protested but the damage was done. Germany, though not possessing a veto like France and Russia, had previously (January 2003) said that it would oppose a new resolution. In addition, it was thought that China would follow Russia and France in using its veto powers.
This did not deter Bush et al., who gained the necessary US approval to wage war. The Geneva Conventions (which resulted from the Nuremberg Trials following the Second World War) clearly state that aggressive war on a sovereign state (“regime change”) is the “supreme war crime”. It was judged therefore by the British that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, must provide legal advice to the British Government which allowed the UK to go to war. Goldsmith’s written legal advice of 7 March 2003 (which had already been changed once, and which led eventually to the resignation of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the second most senior lawyer at the Foreign Office) was judged not to suffice and an unminuted meeting took place at 10 Downing Street on 13 March 2003 between Goldsmith and Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, when Goldsmith passed on his “verbally expressed view” to Falconer and Morgan. At the Butler Inquiry, Goldsmith said that that verbal view was later transformed into the Parliamentary Answer of 17 March 2003, and it was that (devoid of all caveats), rather than a summary of the 7 March 2003 written legal advice (as claimed), which was shown to Cabinet. It was not even certain that Goldsmith had written the Parliamentary Answer, though he later - 2005 - claimed that he had. Thus Goldsmith changed his legal advice not once but twice. Blair was required by Bush et al. to legitimise America's war on Iraq in the eyes of the American people. Blair could not have done what was required of him without Goldsmith's legal advice, and others in the British Government (and Opposition, and mainstream media) were complicit in differing degrees. However, Goldsmith's legal advice was the single most important enabling factor in allowing America to wage aggressive war.
In addition, there was controversy over the existence or otherwise of WMD, and it only recently (a few days ago) became clear that the September 2002 dossier was not written by John Scarlett, Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as had been claimed,. There were later claims that 10 Downing Street orchestrated attempts to “sex up” the Intelligence, and the world expert on biological and chemical weapons, Dr David Kelly paid with his life for the storm that ensued. Kelly’s “suicide” was never proved (beyond reasonable doubt), as required by law, and neither was Kelly’s suspicious death investigated by a proper inquest (also required by English and European law). Lord Hutton lacked the powers necessary to achieve such a high level of proof. He could not, and did not, hear evidence under oath, for example.
No WMD were ever found. In addition, there have been 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the 2003 invasion (The Lancet, several months ago). Some believe that that figure has now reached 1,000,000.
It's a very good summary of events leading up to the illegal war in Iraq. It ought to include something about the millions who marched against the impending war who were ignored by Blair. And something about the economics of oil, and how the west is guilty of grand larceny since nearly all the oilfields in Iraq (before the war a nationalised concern) are now owned by western companies.
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