Tony Blair

Shoot Your Friends First: The Cheney Doctrine

dlindorff — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:28:17 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Some people are expressing consternation and disbelief at a report
by journalist Seymour Hersh that Vice President Dick Cheney had
discussed the idea in his office of having some Navy Seals dress up as
Iranians, and then putting them in faked Iranian speedboats to make a fake
attack on US ships in the Persian Gulf. The ensuing faked battle, with
fake Iranians shooting at US ships and US ships firing back, he
suggested, could be used to spark a war between the US and Iran.

` I don’t know why people would find it hard to believe that this
vice president would think up an idea like having Americans shoot at
other Americans in the interest of his own warped view of national
security.

After all, this is a guy who shoots his own friends.

Besides, Cheney is in good company in this kind of thinking. We know
from reports of the meeting filed by British intelligence that
President Bush engaged in the same kind of thing when he was having
trouble getting the country and the rest of the civilized world behind
his and Cheney’s plan to attack Iraq. It was disclosed years later that
in early 2003, Bush suggested to Prime Minister Tony Blair that the US
could paint a U-2 spy plane in UN colors and fly it over sensitive
parts of Iraqi airspace, so that Saddam Hussein would order it show
down. That, he argued, would anger enough UN member states to win a
security resolution to support a war on Iraq, and failing that, would
give the US an excuse to go in on its own. Blair was reportedly
horrified at this kind of kamikaze thinking—but not horrified enough to
expose the president as a nutcase.

So that’s where we are today folks. A president and a vice president
who both think that it’s a great idea to either send some of your own
troops under false flags into harm’s way to get shot at so you can
start a war, or, even worse, to dress up some of your soldiers as the
enemy you want to go after, and have them open fire on your own guys so
that you can claim you were attacked, and then go to war.

Who gets tricked by all these mad schemes?

Not the Iranians, or in the earlier instance, the Iraqis. They know
they aren’t attacking American forces. No. It’s us, the American
people, who are being tricked. Cheney knows that most Americans think
the idea of attacking Iran—especially when we’re five years into an
interminable war in Iraq and seven years into another war in
Afghanistan, neither of which has an end in sight—is really, really
stupid. So they’re trying to think up a way to trick us into supporting
doing such a stupid thing. And the only thing they can come up with to
overcome our reticence is making us think that our guys are being
attacked.

Now let me say that I’ve been a skeptic about people who claim the
9-11 attacks were an “inside job”—that the US government actually
organized those attacks. I know all the arguments and evidence, but it
always seemed to me that it was over the top to think that our leaders
would try to deliberately kill Americans in order to achieve some
policy goal. And yet, here we have Dick Cheney, the real brains (such
as they are) behind the Bush administration, discussing a plan, using
American forces, to fake an attack on other American forces.

It makes me wonder whether maybe Cheney deliberately shot his friend
Harry Whittington, either to flush those damned elusive quail he was
after, or so that he could generate public sympathy for the embattled
President Bush. And it even makes me wonder whether crazy Dick actually
did have a hand in bringing down those Twin Towers. He may be too
stupid to pull something like that off, but he has made it clear that
it isn’t moral scruples that would prevent him from doing such a
monstrous thing.

As ludicrous, pathetic and outrageous as this administration is, we
need to take this latest Hersh report seriously. It seems clear that
Cheney has a predilection for using fratricide to achieve his nefarious
ends.

It’s one thing when he does it with his own rifle, though. It’s
another when he does it with the world’s most mighty military machine.
______________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is
“The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available
in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Let Your Phone Calls Be A Show Of FORCE Against Attacking Iran

thepen — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:28:04 -0400

TELL THE SENATE TO RALLY BEHIND THE WEBB AMENDMENT TO PRECLUDE ATTACKING IRAN

Call your members of Congress now toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803.

Don't let anyone ever tell us again our voices are not heard. Today the Senate REJECTED an attempt to strip the Iraq withdrawal time line from the current supplemental, just as you called for them to do. And in the remaining days of the week, before Congress takes a spring recess, there is one more urgent call we must make, to tell the Senate to pass an amendment being offered by new Senator James Webb to head off a NEW war with Iran without express congressional approval.

This amendment would not have been proposed if there were not a real, present and palpable danger that Bush will try to use the recess of Congress to open up a whole new barrel of war horrors. We are hearing more and more stories of preparations consistent with plans for an imminent major assault. Russian intelligence is reporting a continuation of the buildup of our forces on Iran's borders. And even as we speak the Navy is flexing their testosterone in a yet another show of "force" in the Persian gulf.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.millionphonemarch.com/webb_iran_amendment.php

And to what end? To provoke some Gulf of Tonkin incident to be Bush's latest unjustified causa belli? The sheer clumsiness of the British wandering into DISPUTED waters and getting 15 of their people seized demonstrates how close we are to the situation blowing completely out of control. And we hear Blair warning about a "different phase", which can only mean descent into an even deeper circle of hell. One of their own former ambassadors has pointed out that the border between Iraq and Iran has NEVER been fixed on land, let alone at sea. And those are the waters our would be cowboy president is fishing for more trouble in.

The one thing we know for sure is that bombing Iran is the certain route to only one result, an even larger military confrontation we cannot win, with the added enormous peril of inflaming the situation in Iraq even more than it is now. The lunatic concept being pushed through the Pentagon by still unrepentant neocon hotshot theorists is that all we have to do is launch a bunch of cruise missiles and the Iranians will just fold up their tents. And our current president is just stupid, arrogant and desperate enough to buy it again, especially as the rest of his mid-East debacle comes crashing down around his ears and ours, and six years of despicable, deliberate lies finally start floating to the surface like a bumper crop of flotsam.

We are talking about people who are so utterly divorced from reality on the ground that they see good news in every new truck bombing. This very day on the Senate floor McCain argued that things really are getting better in Iraq, that the surge is working, and that there are neighborhoods in Baghdad outside of concrete fortifications where an American can just go for a leisurely stroll and window shop. But actual on the scene CNN British correspondent Michael Ware, who lives in mortal peril there every day to report what's really going on, says our own military commanders there find such statements laughably ludicrous.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.millionphonemarch.com/webb_iran_amendment.php

Only by sending a very strong message to the Senate right now, and pressuring them to make a public showing of opposition to Bush's insane, and not so secret, plans can we possibly constrain him from pulling an even bigger trigger, with consequences he has not bothered to consider. We're talking about the Plan A with no Plan B crowd. When asked what they would do if their surge did not work, like all previous identical surges in past, their only response was that is had to work.

Take heart that your many phone calls ARE working. They are the only reason we are finally getting some action out of our Congress, the first awakening of real backbone from our representatives. And it's all your doing. We have to not only keep it up, but magnify our efforts to get everyone who opposes Bush's wrong headed war policies to be their own personal citizen advocate, to lobby Congress with a phone AND a follow up email message right now. Please forward this message to everyone you know. And let it be so.

The Poodle Punts

CactusPat — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 16:32:14 -0500

Ah yes, the Poodle Punts whilst the Chimpsters escalate. And yet the Smirkites say it's a good thang... yeah right! Bullshit ALERT. Denmark's also pulling out... that makes it the Coalition of the Leaving! Guess the bribe money's runnin' out...

Blair announces Iraq troops cut
Some 1,600 British troops will return from Iraq within the next few months, Prime Minister Tony Blair has told MPs. He said the 7,100 serving troops would be cut to 5,500 soon, with hopes that 500 more will leave by late summer. Remaining troops will stay into 2008, to give back-up if necessary and secure borders, but the Iraqis would "write the next chapter" in Basra's history... (more w/videoes)

The announcement follows a five-month security operation to quell violence in British-controlled Basra. Mr Blair said Operation Sinbad, aimed at allowing Iraqis to take the lead in frontline security in the city, had been successful.

COALITION FORCES
US -132,000 UK - 7,100 South Korea - 2,300 Poland - 900 Georgia - 800 Australia - 900 Romania - 600 Denmark - 460 El Salvador - 380 Bulgaria - 150
Sources: Brookings Institution; Globalsecurity.org; media reports

He acknowledged that Basra was still "difficult and sometimes dangerous", but he said levels of murder and kidnappings had dropped and reconstruction was under way.

"The UK military presence will continue into 2008, for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do... Increasingly our role will support and training, and our numbers will be able to reduce accordingly," Mr Blair said. "What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be. But it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by Iraqis".

He said that it was important to show the Iraqis that Britain - and the other multinational force members - did not intend their forces to stay longer than necessary. Later Defence Security Des Browne said he expected the government to look again at the numbers of troops being withdrawn at the end of the summer.

"I am absolutely confident that by the end of the year we will be able to reach the prediction I made which was by the end of this year we will have reduced our troop level by thousands," he said... (full article)

Olbermann's report on the Poodle Puntin'...

Great Britain Withdrawing from Iraq - Young Turks radio coverage... The Young Turks: Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz, and Jill Pike talk about Dick Cheney's comment on withdrawing troops from Iraq. Watch live from 6-9AM ET on www.theyoungturks.com. Listen from 6-9AM ET on Air America Radio.

British Announce Iraq Troop Drawdown - Center for American Progress Analysis - Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Brian Katulis sorts through what to make of the recent announcement that British troops will begin to return home from southern Iraq.

Despite the rosy scenarios portrayed by the Brits and Smirksters, this developement doesn't bode well, according to Juan Cole -

The British Retreat from Iraq Brings Peril for US Troops

Vice President Cheney says the British are leaving southern Iraq because things are going so well. In the real world, Basra is a mess.

Tony Blair's announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. "What I see," said Cheney, "is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well."

Blair says he'll withdraw his troops from Iraq because things are going so well -- is the opposite the case?

In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether -- and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country.

The British helped provide the security that allowed private supply convoys bearing fuel, food and ammunition to travel from Kuwait up through Shiite-held territory to the U.S. military's forward operating bases in and around Baghdad and in Anbar province. Col. Pat Lang, a retired senior officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, has pointed out that if Shiite militias began attacking those trucks, American troops in the center-north of the country would become sitting ducks for the Sunni Arab guerrillas... (full article - h/t CLG)

As The Anti-War Protestors March On Washington, All Hell Breaks Loose In Iraq

Chris Elliott — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:34:52 -0500

In scenes reminiscent of the 6th Armies assault on Stalingrad, president Bush’s “surge” appears to be a last ditch, all or nothing attempt to bring a military victory in Baghdad that it cannot realistically achieve.

Battle for Baghdad: City braces itself for US surge
Urban fighting amid the ruins
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 28 January 2007

Lina Massufi, a 32-year-old Iraqi laboratory assistant with two children, is a widow - her husband was killed by US troops when he accidentally drove down a closed road in 2003. In the past three months she has seen her house raided and her furniture smashed 12 times.

"Every time they raid my house, they break down the door," she told a UN official. When she asked them why they did not ring the bell "they laughed at me and called me an idiot". Her brother Fae'ek, a pharmacy student, was arrested and held in prison for a week. "He returned with signs of torture on his body, and was crying like a baby because of the pain."

Her story shows why the odds are against what may be President George Bush's final gamble in Iraq: the attempt by US troops, now receiving 17,500 reinforcements, to regain control of Baghdad. The plan is for US forces, along with Iraqi army and police, to enter Sunni and Shia districts in the capital, cleanse them of insurgents and militia and then stay put, preventing their return. In his State of the Union speech last week Mr Bush told Congress: "With Iraqis in the lead, our forces will help secure the city by chasing down the terrorists, insurgents, and the roaming death squads."

But the failings of this strategy become more obvious the further one gets from Washington and the closer to Baghdad. The insurgents and militiamen, both Sunni and Shia, usually have more credibility in their districts than Iraqi government forces. As for the heavily Shia police commandos, they are seen by Sunni in Baghdad as licensed death squads.

In recent days 3 helicopters have been shot down by anti-aircraft missiles proving that superiority in the air is now not so certain. Crew from one of the helicopters were all found dead, some reports claim they had been ‘executed’ with bullet holes in the back of their heads.

Carnage on Sunday in Iraq

Sunday: 373 Iraqis, 5 GIs Killed; 166 Iraqis Injured; US Helicopter Shot Down

US Embassy in Baghdad Green Zone hit by mortar/rocket fire

Hundreds killed in Iraq battle

US and Iraqi forces claim to have killed more than 250 armed men in a battle involving tanks and helicopters on the outskirts of the Shia holy city of Najaf.

The US military said a helicopter has been shot down in the fighting, resulting in the death of two troops on board. An Iraqi military commander said the day-long battle was continuing.

Assad Abu Gilel, the governor of Najaf province, said US and Iraqi troops fought a day-long battle with up to 1000 fighters, including foreign fighters, holed up in orchards on the northern outskirts of the city.
According to one Iraqi political source, hundreds of fighters drawn from both Sunni and Shia communities were still fighting.

A Reuters reporter at the scene, 160km south of Baghdad, saw US tanks and heard blasts after dark and an Iraqi officer said F-16 jets were bombing the area.

Details of the day's fighting were sketchy. An Iraqi army source said some of the dead wore headbands declaring themselves a "Soldier of Heaven".

Continues

In another videotape, the Jaish al-Mujahideen group said that it has destroyed a US military vehicle in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra.

With sanctions now imposed against Iran and open talk of war coming from Washington and Tel Aviv there is a distinct risk that the ground war could spill over the borders and the US forces in the Baghdad “green zone” find themselves besieged by the Iranian\Syrian army as well as the Iraqi resistance.

Turkey could complicate the situation further by seizing territory in the northern region of Iraq.

Turkey mulls 'invading' Iraq
By Jonathan Gorvett in Istanbul

Turkey's parliament went into secret session this week to debate sending troops to invade and occupy northern Iraq for security purposes.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in the confrontation between the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish army – about 400 last year alone, according to Turkey's Human Rights Association.

Onur Oymen, the deputy chairman of the Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said: "Northern Iraq is the only place in the world where a terrorist group can operate without being pursued."

"If the Iraqis and the US are not prepared to take action over this, then we must."

In Britain, Tony Blair is fighting for his political life as arrests of his aides in bribery, corruption and tampering with evidence charges, set against the backdrop of two failing wars and an army under manned and under equipped is putting huge pressure on the government to withdraw the armed forces.

US plea to Britain: 'Don't abandon main Iraq base'
By Raymond Whitaker
Published: 28 January 2007
The US is urging Britain to reconsider plans to close its main base in southern Iraq.

Since the 2003 invasion, the largest part of Britain's 7,100-strong force has been stationed at the Shaibah logistics base, in the desert south of Basra. The base is due to be closed within weeks as Britain prepares to slim down its Iraq commitment, with the main centre of operations bring transferred to Basra air station, on the outskirts of the city.

The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said last week that Britain would be in a position to hand over security in Basra, the last province where it retains formal control, to the Iraqis "at some point this spring". This heightened expectations that Britain would cut its forces by up to 3,000 before the summer.

To make matters even worse, Israeli war rhetoric has reached fever pitch and Lebanon is once again being subjected to airstrikes by Israeli warplanes.

Israeli warplanes intrude on Beirut airspace
Jewish state claims to have uncovered, destroyed hizbullah bunkers

Israel planes dump "suspicious green balloons" on southern Lebanon

World War III has already begun, says Israeli spy chief

Robert Fisk On Dictator Bush and the Swingin' Corpse of the Dictator We Created

CactusPat — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:53:54 -0500

update - 11:05PM Iraqi TV Says Saddam Hussein Executed
It's likely that as I'm typing this Saddam is swigin' from a rope. But Robert Fisk brings forth an analysis of the situation far more eloquent than anything conjerred up by myself...

"...In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created...."

Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America
Published: 30 December 2006
Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world... (more)

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.

Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.

"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth. His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.

I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.

But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.

But we will have got away with it.

Josh Marshall chimes in with some salient thought as well...

It's a hornet's nest. But I'm game. So why not jump in.

"Bush administration officials" are telling CNN that Saddam Hussein will be hanged this weekend. Convention dictates that we precede any discussion of this execution with the obligatory nod to Saddam's treachery, bloodthirsty rule and tyranny. But enough of the cowardly chatter. This thing is a sham, of a piece with the whole corrupt, disastrous sham that the war and occupation have been. Bush administration officials are the ones who leak the news about the time of the execution. One key reason we know Saddam's about to be executed is that he's about to be transferred from US to Iraqi custody, which tells you a lot. And, of course, the verdict in his trial gets timed to coincide with the US elections.

This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.... (read the whole post)

Diplomat's Suppressed Document Lays Bare the Lies Behind Iraq War

CactusPat — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:32:49 -0500

It's the equivalent of another Downing Street Memo... Huge news!, but I've found only ONE MSM news report of it in this country, "Ex-British expert on Iraq says intel overstated". And Google News returns ZERO matches for that one news report! Imagine that.....

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war
The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act... (more)

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

He claims "inertia" in the Foreign Office and the "inattention of key ministers" combined to stop the UK carrying out any co-ordinated and sustained attempt to address sanction-busting by Iraq, an approach which could have provided an alternative to war.

Mr Ross delivered the evidence to the Butler inquiry which investigated intelligence blunders in the run-up to the conflict.

The Foreign Office had attempted to prevent the evidence being made public, but it has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

It shows Mr Ross told the inquiry, chaired by Lord Butler, "there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material" held by the Iraqi dictator before the invasion. "There was, moreover, no intelligence or assessment during my time in the job that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or the US," he added.

Mr Ross's evidence directly challenges the assertions by the Prime Minster that the war was legally justified because Saddam possessed WMDs which could be "activated" within 45 minutes and posed a threat to British interests. These claims were also made in two dossiers, subsequently discredited, in spite of the advice by Mr Ross.

His hitherto secret evidence threatens to reopen the row over the legality of the conflict, under which Mr Blair has sought to draw a line as the internecine bloodshed in Iraq has worsened.

Mr Ross says he questioned colleagues at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence working on Iraq and none said that any new evidence had emerged to change their assessment.

"What had changed was the Government's determination to present available evidence in a different light," he added.

Mr Ross said in late 2002 that he "discussed this at some length with David Kelly", the weapons expert who a year later committed suicide when he was named as the source of a BBC report saying Downing Street had "sexed up" the WMD claims in a dossier. The Butler inquiry cleared Mr Blair and Downing Street of "sexing up" the dossier, but the publication of the Carne Ross evidence will cast fresh doubts on its findings.

Mr Ross, 40, was a highly rated diplomat but he resigned because of his misgivings about the legality of the war. He still fears the threat of action under the Official Secrets Act.

"Mr Ross hasn't had any approach to tell him that he is still not liable to be prosecuted," said one ally. But he has told friends that he is "glad it is out in the open" and he told MPs it had been "on my conscience for years".

One member of the Foreign Affairs committee said: "There was blood on the carpet over this. I think it's pretty clear the Foreign Office used the Official Secrets Act to suppress this evidence, by hanging it like a Sword of Damacles over Mr Ross, but we have called their bluff."

Yesterday, Jack Straw, the Leader of the Commons who was Foreign Secretary during the war - Mr Ross's boss - announced the Commons will have a debate on the possible change of strategy heralded by the Iraqi Study Group report in the new year.

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

By Colin Brown and Andy McSmith
Published: 15 December 2006

Be sure to snag a personal copy of the full transcript of evidence given to the Butler inquiry....

Did Bush contemplate violating int'l law, to provoke Iraq to violate int'l law?

Kagro X — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:27:50 -0500

By now you've doubtless heard about the New York Times coverage of still more memos from high up in the British government that blow the doors off the "we got bad intelligence" garbage we've been fed from the beginning.

It's no news to us, of course, that Bush was warned that the alumninum tubes Iraq had procured were for conventional weapons, not uranium refining. And we already know that Bush knew he wouldn't find WMD in Iraq, either.

But here's a new twist:

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

So, blogosphere-based experts and Google monkeys, what's the deal with this? Doesn't it strike you as likely that this would represent some sort of enormous and glaring violation of international law and/or the U.N. Charter? To bait another sovereign nation into war by deliberately violating its airspace, with military aircraft repainted in U.N. colors?

Thoughts? References? Citations to authority?

Will Blair Be the Carlyle Group's Poodle Boy?

Ted Kahl — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:18:18 -0400

Welliwelliwelliwell...it has long been speculated that Tony's reward would be a sweet sinecure at one of the World's top war profiteers...

(The Sunday Mirror) Tony Blair is expected to join one of the most exclusive groups of businessmen in the world after he leaves Downing Street.

The PM is being lined up for a highly lucrative position with the Carlyle Group - an American-based investment giant with strong links to the White House and the defence industry.

The firm has been nicknamed "The Ex-Presidents Club" because it has had a host of former world leaders on its books including George Bush Senior, his former secretary of state James Baker and former British PM John Major. There a also a large number of former US Army top brass.

Mr Blair has been keeping quiet about his plans after his departure from Number 10 - which could be as early as 2007 according to some Labour insiders.

But sources in the City have revealed that he is "seriously considering" a high-profile role with Carlyle - which manages $30billion (£20million) of investments worldwide.

The job could net Mr Blair up to £500,000 a year for only a few days work a month giving speeches and making "networking" trips on behalf of the company.

Meanwhile a group of MP's are working on a motion to impeach Blair.

The secret Downing Street memo

CactusPat — Fri, 13 May 2005 05:34:43 -0400

The corporate newspaper cartels have as yet to publish the secret UK war memo in any major US paper or online. Thought we here at democrats.com ought to have a copy of our very own... before the UK London Times yanks it.

May 01, 2005

The secret Downing Street memo

::nobreak::SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)