When a senior civil servant , a member of the Senior Management Structure of the Foreign Office and First Secretary in the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York from December 1997 until June 2002 disputes all that the Prime Minister claimed for justifications for the Iraq War people should listen . In fact , people should know , yet this evidence until now was kept secret . The Independent carries his statement which has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs .
Carne Ross, one of Britain's key negotiators at the UN , alleges it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq :
That any potential military threat from Saddam Hussein's had been "effectively contained". Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited. There were approx 12 or so at the time unaccounted-for Scud missiles; Iraq's airforce was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness; its army was but a pale shadow of its earlier might; there was no evidence of any connection between Iraq and any terrorist organisation that might have planned an attack using Iraqi WMD. No intelligence that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or US .With the exception of Israel , none of Iraq's neighbours expressed any concern that they might be attacked .
That the UK warned the USA of "regime-change" and bringing down the Iraqi dictator which would lead to the chaos of Iraq collapsing which the world has since witnessed.
That "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 , and that the existing sanction system was having a damaging humanitarian effect.
That the clearest evidence of the illegality of the war is the fact that Britain had sought an authorising resolution from the United Nations Security Council and failed to get it.
That Hans Blix at no time stated unequivocally that Iraq was not cooperating with the inspectors. The Security Council reached no such judgement either.
That even when Blix and UNMOVIC were still inside Iraq carrying out the inspections , the UK and USA were conducting pre-invasion softening-up air attacks against Iraqi installations .
Blair , Bush - War Criminals . But it is Capitalism that must be condemned .
No War Between Peoples - No Peace Between Classes
The Only War Worth Fighting is the Class War
It is not only "Blair's Legacy" but the "Labour Party's legacy" .War mongering ,and also Merchants of death,Masters of War,reading the Saudi arms scandal.
ReplyDeleteRobin Cook didn't aquit himself all that well previous to this but was about the only one,who did so in the lead up to this debacle .It could be said,"opportunistically", as he had a reasonable expectation of support which could and did, have had him in a prime position in the following elctoral term.Silly arguments though, about if the war was legal.His boozy,sectarian football supporting successor,a good trade union official,has had his vocal chords mangled in elocution lessons after taking his seat and sounds dafter than he used to.