"A bad day for Tony Blair" by Willy B

    Tony Blair is a sad pathetic excuse for a human being, Even the New York Times acknowledged, yesterday, something that he still refuses to: Iraqis have suffered, and still suffer, enormously from the 2003 invasion and its continuing aftermath. "Widen the lens more broadly over Iraq, and a panorama of suffering that most Iraqis attribute to bad decisions by the United States and Britain comes into view: more than three million people displaced from their homes because of fighting with the Islamic State; cities in rubble; a barely functional government facing a severe financial crisis; Iranian-controlled militias that seem more powerful than the Iraqi Army," the Times reports. "Some Iraqis took a modicum of satisfaction in seeing Mr. Blair, who made a statement on Wednesday in which he said he took "full responsibility" for any mistakes related to the war, called to account for his decisions."
    More Iraqis died in the Sunday suicide bombing in Baghdad than did British soldiers during the entire war, the Times notes. Haidar Sumeri, an Iraqi analyst who made the comparison on Twitter, wrote in an email, "It highlights the degree of irrelevance of Iraqi suffering in the West." He continued: "People see another bombing in Baghdad, roll their eyes, make a comment about how bad it is there and move on. No one really likes to think about how we got here, how we can change the situation or learn from what happened so it doesn't happen again."
    In this regard, the Telegraph says of Blair, "Tony Blair was sorrowful. But he wasn't sorry." Blair apologized for many things, "But he wouldn't apologise for the invasion of Iraq itself. He still believed it had been "the right thing to do". He still believed he would take the same decision again, in the same circumstances, with the same information. And he still believed – still – that the world was a safer place because of what he, and George W Bush, had done. He wasn't sorry for any of that. No matter how sorry he looked. And he did look sorry: sorry in the sense of wretched, miserable, diminished." And Blair's problem is this: "If people don't believe he was honest in taking the country to war, they won't believe he's honest in anything."
    Reuters characterized Blair's two-hour dramatic performance of yesterday as coming down to one message: "Please stop saying I was lying." According to Reuters, Blair was at times contrite and emotional, and at others clearly angry at the way his actions had been portrayed. "If you disagree with me fine, but please stop saying I was lying or I had some sort of dishonest or underhand motive," he said. "'You lied about the intelligence' - that's what people say the whole time," Blair said. "Actually if people are being fair and read the whole report, that allegation should be put to rest, because it's not true and it never was true."
    The Independent was even less charitable. "The former Prime Minister seemed to be emotionally on edge. His voice sometimes appeared to be almost cracking. He was defending something that is very hard to defend, and presenting a version of the story that did not always fit well with reality, or with the findings of yesterday's report." Deep in its coverage the Independent draws from the Chilcot report that Blair told his cabinet members very little about what his real intentions were with respect to Iraq. The whole business of going to the UN to get an "ultimatum" was, itself, just a cover. Privately, "Blair told the US President that he did not believe that the Iraqi dictator would give up his forbidden weapons – and we now know that he could not, because he did not have any. Saddam Hussein's fate was, therefore, sealed in Crawford."
    Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who always opposed the war, was, on the other hand, very apologetic on behalf of the Labour party. "The decision to go to war in Iraq has been a stain on our party and our country," he said, after a private meeting with families who lost members in the war. said Labour MPs who, unlike him, voted for the war "were misled by a small number of leading figures in the Government who were committed to joining the US invasion of Iraq come what may and were none too scrupulous about how they made their case for war". Corbyn declared: "So I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003. That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed. They have paid the greatest price for the most serious foreign policy calamity of the last 60 years."
    Earlier, in the House of Commons, he called the Iraq war  an "act of military aggression, launched on a false pretext" and the "colonial style occupation" that followed led to the rise of ISIS. The Blairites were reportedly very unhappy with his statement. "It was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext, as the Inquiry accepts, and has long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion," he went on. "It led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of millions of refugees. It devastated Iraq's infrastructure and society. The occupation fostered a lethal sectarianism that turned into a civil war. Instead of protecting security at home or abroad the war fuelled and spread terrorism across the region."
    The one thing he didn't do, and this was a point of disappointment for the families of British military personnel killed in the war, was call for Blair's prosecution.
    David Cameron, however, would not apologize for the war. During a parliamentary debate on the report, Conservative MP John Baron asked: "Will the Prime Minister now do something that no government has done since 2003? "That is, finally and unequivocally, admit that this intervention was both wrong and a mistake." Cameron replied: "I think people should read the report and come to their own conclusion. Clearly the aftermath of this conflict was profoundly disastrous in so many ways. I don't move away from that all."
    Baron, some may recall, played a key role in 2013 in preventing a British attack on Syria, which would've been alongside the one that Obama was contemplating.

    Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney Gang Remains As Deluded As Blair

    GW Bush said, through a spokesman, yesterday, that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. "Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement, reports the Independent. Furthermore, "President Bush believes we must now find the unity and resolve to stay on the offensive and defeat radical extremism wherever it exists."
    Karl Rove, meanwhile, flatly denied that the war and occupation had anything to do with the chaos that followed. Instead, it was the fault of Obama. He defended the invasion, he defended the war, and he defended both Bush and Blair saying that "The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein." In an interview with The Telegraph, he said the idea that Saddam's removal had unleashed the sectarian violence that gave rise to Isil was "twisting it to the extreme." It was Obama who screwed it up by withdrawing US troops at the end of 2011.  
    The Guardian provides a roundup of other reaction from the US side, the indicates the degree of delusion among these guys. Paul Bremer, the least defensive of the gang, admitted that there was a failure of planning for the aftermath of the invasion. Former Bush speech writer David Frum argued the invasion of Iraq actually offered Iraqis a better future. Whatever [the] West's mistakes: sectarian war was a choice Iraqis made for themselves," he claimed, citing Syria as "proof" of his contention.  David Wurmser, who was a Middle East advisor to Cheney, blamed the sectarian warfare and the terrorism on Syria and Iran (the Saudis, of course, get off scot free).

    No word from Cheney, yet. He's probably still looking for those WMDs.

Comments

[michael brenner]

The fundamental truth is that Americans were bent on vengeance - the more destructive the better. We still are. Just follow the media and watch the Republican debates.

[HankP]

The Beaver -

I think I've mentioned it here, there's a great documentary called Heavy Metal in Baghdad - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092007/

The interviews with the Iraqi musicians are fascinating, at one point the bass player (I think) says "Dude, I'm Sunni and my wife is Shia. Nobody cares about that stuff". I don't know how common that belief is, but the documentary was very interesting and very different from what I expected. Highly recommended.

[Willy B]

It's not quite true there was no planning by DOD. Rumsfeld, through Doug Feith, hired retired Army LTG Jay Garner to be the occupation chief in Iraq about a month before the invasion, and then fired him at the beginning of May 2003 in favor of Bremer, supposedly for incompetent planning, even though he wasn't around long enough to do much of any planning.

[Croesus]

vengeance for what?

[Brunswick]

Garner was going to hold early elections, keep the Iraqi economy the same and "reform" the Iraqi Military, Police and Security Forces.

[Barish]

I respect the opinions of both on other matters - both Haidar and al-Khoei are fully aware of what type of foot-soldiers make up the "revolution" over in Iraq's neighbour, Syria. However, reading through al-Khoei's first piece, a couple things come to mind:

One, however cruel and deluded in his own right Saddam may have been in his ventures without and within, the main-part of the ventures without, the 8-year long war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, he was encouraged to launch with varying degrees of support from the Gulf, West and the USSR.

Two, al-Khoei chooses to skim over the impact the economic sanctions imposed after '91 had on Iraq - do recall the figure of 500,000 dead children as a result of those, as acknowledged by Albright.

Three, as a dual-citizen living abroad, it comes as no surprise that al-Khoei may not be too good a representative of popular sentiment in Iraq. Further down, James Loughton mentioned that most Iraqis below age 30 view the US as an enemy, which runs counter to his claim in the first Guardian piece that "foreign invaders" would be cut some slack by Iraqis. Doesn't exclude them disapproving of or outright despising Iraqi political circles as well, but still.

[michael brenner]

9/11 - obviously

[Edward]

I think it was the pentagon that developed the post-war plans but I could be wrong. This was something I read about ten years ago and at this point I don't remember the source.

[Edward]

This is what I read-- that Garner felt there should be elections in Iraq and so was replaced with Bremer.

[JMGavin]

I have served for 25 years in the US Army, and remain on Active duty.

Politically, I am a committed Libertarian. I neither supported nor opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when we started them, as I was more focused on the immediate effect on my family and my unit.

I am a hard man, not given to endless introspection on how I feel about things. I was raised and then trained to understand that some things just are what they are, no matter how I feel about it.

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq may or may not have been justified, and that can and will be debated for a generation or three.

Regardless of why we invaded, the actions and strategy we followed, first through the Bush Presidency, and then through Obama's turn, were not just wrong. It was evil. We have visited a horror upon these people, a horror that continues to grow and metastasize.

I don't care if Tony Blair or George W. Bush agree. President Obama can shift the blame and pretend that he did not play a pivotal role. I know the truth. This truth stains me to the marrow. I did this. I was a part of this. I own this.

Every time a bomb goes off, every new ISIS atrocity, all that blood, spilled in the sand and dirt. I know I own that. I had a part.

If you are a citizen of a country which took part in either war, so do you. Stop blaming Blair and Bush. Look in the mirror. Own what we did. Look upon what we have made.

Every people has the government they deserve, and the foreign policy they tolerate.

DOL

JMG

[turcopolier]

JMGavin
We all have a ruck full of that. I have several rucksacks full. DOL pl

[turcopolier]

Edward

The neocon cabal across the government made the collective decision to destroy the Iraqi state and start again from the "Year Zero." Rumsfeld's OSD was a perfect vehicle since the US armed forces were occupying Iraq. pl

[Cortes]

Dr. Kelly's demise has not been forgotten.

I am a very (deservedly) humble member of The Dr's college in Oxford. Some more illustrious members would like to see Bliar at The Hague.

[robt willmann]

In a citation in the lead article posted above, Karl Rove says that the fault for the mess in Iraq now lies with president Obama, who withdrew the U.S. forces from Iraq in 2012. I have also heard talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity say similarly that Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq and that has been the problem. I think also that Donald Trump has said something like that.

However, Rove, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Trump are either ignorant or lying. Previously, I have linked to the agreement between the U.S. and Iraq done by the George W. Bush (Bush jr.) administration in 2008, signed by Ryan Crocker for the U.S. I have not yet been able to find it today, and the State Department's search function on its website has not been working today (at least not for me). I think that is where I found a signed copy. I thought I had the link somewhere, but I have not located it either.

But here is the press release from Bush jr. in which he and Maliki talk about the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and the Strategic Framework agreement, from December 2008--

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081214-2.html

And this is a paper from the Congressional Research Service about the SOFA and congressional oversight. The paper describes the removal of U.S. forces: "The withdrawal is a two-phase process. The first requires the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities, villages, and localities no later than June 30, 2009; the second requires the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011"--

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40011.pdf

It was Bush jr. and his administration that required that U.S. forces get out by the end of 2011, not Obama.

[Dubhaltach]

All:

In all of the coverage of this there's been very little mention of Rupert Murdoch's role in whipping up support on both sides of the Atlantic for the war.

This article by the Indpendent is (as far as I know) the only recent examination of the topic. Extract below but the whole thing is worth a read:

"Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, summed it up in his evidence to the Leveson inquiry – “I’m not sure that the Blair government – or Tony Blair - would have been able to take the British people to war if it hadn’t been for the implacable support provided by the Murdoch papers. There’s no doubt that came from Mr Murdoch himself.”
Read more

On one side of the Atlantic, the TV channel Fox News, owned by Murdoch, shot up the ratings as they beat the drum for the Iraq war. By the end of March 2003, they had 5.6 million prime-time viewers, compared with CNN’s 4.4 million. On this side of the ocean, his four newspapers performed a similar function; and that’s not counting all the other titles in the News Corp empire, which rallied round with startling unanimity. One analyst estimated that 175 editors around the world all, happily, shared Murdoch’s enthusiasm for the invasion.

Few of those who helped to spread this enthusiasm in the UK get a mention in the Chilcot report, yet their collective influence on events was huge. And many of the key players have continued, happily, to work for Murdoch. "

Read in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/chilcot-inquiry-report-iraq-war-rupert-murdoch-connection-a7125786.html

[Poul]

A side note to Hayder Al-Shakeri's "Trump is wrong" article

One could add the opinion of a Iraqi man whose initiative caused the statue of Saddam Hussein to be toppled in Baghdad, 2003. He had 14 relatives killed by the regime.

Great hopes for the future in 2003. Now, he longs after the stability under Saddam's rule.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36706265

Wonder what Hayder Al-Shakeri would say if he had to live in Iraq with the fallout from the war.

[Peter in Toronto]

So what kind of mechanisms does the US employ to get an entire Labour government in the UK to opt for war, against their own interests? What could they possibly hold above their heads?

Are they promised some lucrative advising position on in the Carlyle Group?

Same question goes for Merkel and her compliance in using the German nation as a sponge to soak up the rot from the Syrian and Libyan wars.

[Lord Curzon]

Not least the Generals in the British Army, who conducted the campaign knowing there had been virtually no planning for Phase 4 ops. My thoughts on our conduct in handing over Basra to the Shi'a militias are unprintable.

[Harry]

Not all.

[David Habakkuk]

Croesus,

Am I missing something, or does what Dearlove told Susskind directly contradict what he told Chilcot?

In both cases, a story about Le Carré-style ‘derring do’ is told. In the first, the suggestion is that it produced information which, if heeded, could have have stopped the invasion; in the second, it is that Blair was misinformed, because Dearlove gave him dubious ‘intelligence’ and did not check or correct it when he should have. These versions are not compatible.

But both Susskind and Chilcot operate on the presumption that Dearlove and others like him are likely to be telling the truth. This is preposterous.

The appropriate way to approach them might be that an experienced detective might use with a bunch of juvenile delinquents with a badly cobbled together cover story!

[Rd.]

"Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country"

The fact that these criminals (Bush, cheney, blair,etal) are walking free is not a reflection of their criminality, rather it is the damnation of western elites and political systems failures.

The only question remaining is, Are the western people willing to sit around till they experience they same fate, if not worse, than that of the germans in 30s and 40s???????

[The Beaver]

@ Barish

One thing to note: al-Khoei is a fellow at Chatham House and I believe , after following his tweets and opinions that he is careful and timid in throwing out accusations because he is a frequent visitor to this side of the pond and he has complained that now he is on the SSSS list whenever he is flying to the US.

I agree with your points and I wanted every SST reader to make their own opinions about those two pieces.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Sir David Amess advocating regime change in Iran

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/07/06/iran-extremism-consequences/#2d25aedb2495

[Ghostship]

I was referring back to immediately after GWB's Gulf War when there were articles that indicated that the author didn't know there different sects of Muslim and not what you, Rakesh, wrote above.

[michael brenner]

This is an example of the collective memory problem. The basic facts are simple. Maliki & Assoc wanted us out. The device they came up with was to demand that the SOFA included a clause that required all Americans (including military) to be subject to Iraqi law - that, in turn, a condition for the accord to be ratified by the Parliament. He knew full well that Washington could not accept this. Therefore: sorry, guys, "Vaya Con Dios!." David Petraeus, Crocker, and the White House never saw this coming - they thought the Iraqis were just bargaining for better terms. The same old story.

Obama had no option but to go.