Blair at Chilcot will change little: minds will not be altered, nor Iraqi voices heard

Friday, January 29, 2010

     Paul Richards

If you were in student politics in the 1980s you were handed a lot of leaflets. I remember only one. It was given to me by an Iraqi student, who was also a member of the university Labour Club. It was April 1988, and it had a photograph of dead Kurdish women and children lying in the street in Halabja. They were the victims of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. About 5,000 civilians were killed by chemical weapons dropped from Iraqi jets flying repeated sorties over the Kurdish town of Halabja. read>

 

Comments

• Posted by WilliamCobbett on 30 January 2010, 5:02:33 PM Yes, guilty parties include Parliament or at least those MPs who voted to support unprovoked aggression and further to constitute the UK as a threat not currently to neighbours (except the Serbs, but they do not count, being Untermensch, however much their leaders grovel) but to national self-determination throughout the world. This is not inconsistent with the structure of the UN, whose Security council is specifically designed to threaten smaller powers that do not toe the imperial line. Only the Cold War civilized the UN by paralysing its imperial mission. PR leaves undescribed Goldsmith's Odyssey from doubt to certainty: carefully taking advice only from the US and such advocates of torture as John Yoo, and regarding the French simply as an obstacle, shows that he was determined to be sat on and when asked to jump, ask only 'How high'? Child mortality figures based on the 12-year blockade (remember Madeleine Allbright's remark that 500,000 dead children was a price well worth paying for 'containing' a fourth rate military power). Hostile accounts of the Ba'ath dictatorial regime such as Republic of Fear (by KananMakiya aka Samir al Khalil)make it plain that under the Ba'ath public health, education and women's rights advanced ahead of all other Arab countries at the very least ( the First Woman of Iraq was elected to that position in her own right, not as in the slum political cultures of the US and increasingly the UK, by marriage.). So PR's choice of a statistical baseline shows a political and scientific dishonesty worthy of an Andrew Wakefield, and a concern for Iraqi interests worthy of the British 'planners' for occupation or of Paul Bremer. The Iraqis took 40 years to throw off the British political yoke, and it may take therm as long to throw off the American. The very best of luck to them. Fortunately the AngloUS imperialists are being worn down by the stalwart resistance of the Taliban, and their morale and that of their collaborators is steadily falling. They are moreover at risk of over-extending themselves by assisting the Zionists to attack Iran.
• Posted by Dada Samuel on 30 January 2010, 4:33:40 PM I am not in favour of Iraq war and I am still in the same position, but what ever that has been made can be argued. I strongly believe Tony Bliar made the decision he made on moral ground. Yes we must not forget the dead Kurdish women and children lying in the street in Halabja. Yes, they were the victims of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The 5,000 civilians were killed by chemical weapons dropped from Iraqi jets flying repeated sorties over the Kurdish town of Halabja. I am not here to argue the justification for war, because there is no justification for war. • What we should be asking ourselves today is there any other way of getting read of Sadam Hussein? • Can we get read of any leader in the West not doing the wish of the people? • What would David Cameron (The Conservative) have done different if he is in procession of the same information? If we want to test the popularity of Bliar let him contest the election tomorrow, I believe he will win the election. He is a leader not just a follower. He never risks the security of this country over his political popularity. We need such leader. I think we should learn from the mistake and let us move forward
• Posted by Dada Samuel on 30 January 2010, 4:27:06 PM I am not in favour of Iraq war and I am still in the same position, but what ever that has been made can be argued. I strongly believe Tony Bliar made the decision her made on moral ground. Yes we must not forget the dead Kurdish women and children lying in the street in Halabja. Yes, they were the victims of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The 5,000 civilians were killed by chemical weapons dropped from Iraqi jets flying repeated sorties over the Kurdish town of Halabja. I am not here to argue the justification for war, because there is not justification for war. • What we should be asking ourselves today is there any other way of getting read of Sadam Hussein? • Can we get read of any leader in West not doing the wish of the people? • What would David Cameron (The Conservative) would have done different if he is procession of the same information? If we want to test the popularity of Bliar let him contest the election tomorrow, I believe he will win the election. He is a leader not just a follower. He never risk the security of this country over his political popularity. I think we should learn from the mistake and let us move forward
• Posted by Walter Smith on 30 January 2010, 2:47:38 PM I think Paul Richard's assessment of the invasion of Iraq was fair and balanced. It seems to me that the vociferous minority who opposed Tony Blair's determination to remove Saddam Hussien, are the only ones being allowed to publicise their views. I like to remind people that Saddam gassed the Kurds, invaded Kuwait, set fire to their oil wells and sent Scud missiles into Israel. It was good judgment to remove him.
• Posted by Michael Mannion on 30 January 2010, 2:57:31 AM I agree with everything you say, Richard - no amount of navel-gazing on the Iraq invasion will change the minds of people unwilling to engage in rational debate ("there's none so blind as those that will not see"). What is the point, then, of holding yet another inquiry on the matter? Chilcot was eagerly anticipated by opposition parties and the media because they saw it as an opportunity to throw Blair (and the Labour government) to the lions egged on by the baying jeers of the crowd of "public opinion". What they failed to anticipate was the righteous strength of the case for invasion. despite often critical questioning the evidence has demonstrated the moral, strategic and political validity of the cabinet's decision. The only response mounted by the media and crackpot groups like 'Anti-war coalition' is to resort to personal attacks (so much like the Tories) and gutter gossip. Clare (Hecate) Short might try to throw a spanner in the works but I think Gordon will enhance Labour's election prospects providing he avoids the 'apologetic' stance (which will play into the hands of the opposition).
• Posted by Andy Ray on 30 January 2010, 2:36:08 AM When Blair’s friend Bill Clinton, Chirac, Schroeder and even his Cabinet member Cook judged -- probably from the same NATO intelligence reports -- that, despite Saddam’s horrible past (when, unfortunately, we were his backers/suppliers), the No-Fly Zones were effective enough to contain him (and thus avoid bombing innocent civilians, if not creating an opportunity for Shia-backing Iran to fill the gap), but the rest of the cabinet chose to interpret the facts more belligerently, one may wonder whether the latter were fully fit to govern us!
• Posted by Andy Ray on 30 January 2010, 2:13:00 AM 1.Saddam used Dick Cheney-supplied gas to massacre the Kurds, and we kept quiet at that time because he was our friend who’d fight (and again gas) the Iranians. So it’s cruelly hypocritical for us to invoke his Kurd-killing guilt to stir up emotions now! And we still don’t have the moral chutzpah to support a united Kurdistan for fear of antagonising the Turks who also kill their Kurds at will! 2.The only practical fallout of the Chilcot inquiry will probably be to revive those dying anti-Blair/Brown emotions that unnecessarily handed the LibDems some extra votes and also dissuaded some hard-left Labour voters to vote for us in the last General Election. To commission Chilcot, and willingly appearing in it, on this side of the election only shows how politically unsavvy Brown is! Amen.
• Posted by Peter Copping on 29 January 2010, 11:34:18 PM Chilcot consists of oral testimony and the documents.. I expect more from the latter and indeed full publication. The key question is what would have happened if the Government had accepted the US offer from Rumsfield for Britain not to take part. The UK bases will would have been used by the US as was clear from the start in 2002 The UK DOES NOT CONTROL US OPERATIONS FROM US BASES IN THE UK or other on British Sovereign Territory. Imagine the furoury when UK was not supporting the War and US flew in the B52's to bomb Iraq.