Guardian UK: Painful reluctance to speak out about UK role in (Iraq) conflict

[marmar]

Painful reluctance to speak out about UK role in conflict


Julian Glover
Wednesday February 21, 2007
The Guardian


The war in Iraq has been the most divisive issue of Tony Blair's tenure in Downing Street. Yet a strange lack of passion seems to have overtaken the debate about Britain's involvement in the conflict. A question that put huge strains on the loyalty of Labour MPs in 2002 and 2003, which caused the resignation of ministers including Robin Cook and which saw a million people march through London, has somehow fallen from the heart of political debate, at a time when it is raging in America.

It is as if opponents and supporters of the war have both agreed that it was a disaster, but found themselves reluctant to explore how that disaster came about.

Today the Guardian has asked contenders for Labour's deputy leadership contest - and those who may aspire to be leader - whether their views have changed over the last four years. Their replies - from those who had the time and inclination to do so - appear here in full. They show that the political dilemma that Iraq poses is still acute.

For MPs who backed the invasion in March 2003 - Conservative ones as well as Labour - the consequences of their vote are obvious and painful. They think nothing can be gained from discussing whether it was right. Many believe that they were misled by promises that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. .......(more)

The complete editorial is at: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2017792,00.html

[Erika]

1. We all want to forget quickly about horrible nightmares

But the families of our fallen troops and Iraq's can't forget.

Bush and Blair should be charged as war criminals but that would require looking back at the nightmare.

[TheBaldyMan]

2. there is an twist to this from the Libby trial.

It seems that the blame for the war can be laid firmly at the feet of Tony Blair himself.

In a UK magazine Private Eye, issue #1178, 16th Feb 2007 has this to say about the start of the Iraq war and Bush's 16-word gaffe in the SOTU speech.From Private Eye's In The Back section

WMD intelligence on trial
More evidence of the British weapons of mass deception comes from the trial of US Vice-President Dick Cheney's former chief-of-staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby.<snip>(the article describes Libby's charges then continues thus)...
<snip>
So far so American, but the Niger uranium claim was central to Blair's WMD spin, and ,ore details of British involvement appeared in the trial. The trial papers include a CIA document called a "Senior Publish When Ready" paper - a phrase used to describe finished intelligence. The document, from June 2003, states:"A centerpiece of the British White Paper last fall was U.K. concern over Iraqi interest in foreign uranium. Given the fragmentary nature of the reporting, CIA had recommended that the UK not use this information in their paper."

So, the CIA had told Blair not to include claims about African uranium in his dossier on Saddam - understandable as the claim was untrue and related to badly forged documents. But somehow, when the Butler committee looked into ]the same Niger uranium claims in 2004, the CIA's warning had been magically transformed. While the Butler Review admitted the CIA had concerns, it said the agency had OK'd Blair's approach:"In preparing the dossier, the UK had consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium in Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought."

While CIA warnings persuaded some US leaders to drop the phony uranium claim in the run-up to war, the fact that Blair had put the story in the British dossier meant Bush could put the Niger claim in his own high profile 2003 "State of the Union" address, a speech that acted as a rallying cry for war.

Far from being a brake on Bush, Blair effectively helped the President go beyond his own spooks in making false claims about Iraq and WMD.

Either there was collusion between the two in order to bypass normal intelligence channels or Blair is the stupidest lawyer in the world.

I can't believe he had the opportunity to moderate Bush's actions and screwed this up so badly.