Some people saying Chilcot not dealing with legality of war others saying he is.

He’s reporting at 11ish I think.

Suing politicians that lie will be an interesting precedent.

Like it or not soldiers sign up to do the government’s bidding, and they do that knowing that many conflicts that they will potentially be involved in will be ill advised, or based on half truths and personal agendas.

It may not be right, but its a fact of life. Can’t see them having a cats in hells chance of success with that one.

Interesting article from John Rentoul:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/john-rentoul-tony-blair-and-chilcot-report-891022149

However, the simple question that has to be asked is why Bush and Blair would invent a pretext for war that would be found out afterwards. If they were dishonest enough to invent the weapons of mass destruction story, surely they would be dishonest enough to plant some in the deserts of Anbar?

Good question…

John Rentoul’s tongue is firmly (and moistly) up Blairs arse

There is always more to the story…

Good question…

Ridiculous question. Planting some WMDs “in the deserts of Anbar” would have simply made to whole lie even more horrendous, never mind passing it off as a mistake.

What was suppose to happen was that the invasion was suppose to be a huge success with throngs of happy cheering people in the streets of Baghdad wildly cerebrating their liberation from tyranny.

Under those circumstances the question of WMDs would have been quietly dropped and forgotten as everyone celebrated. With Bush and Blair hailed as great heroes.

As it turned out the Iraqis weren’t very pleased with a bunch of uninvited foreigners bombing the **** out of their country, slaughtering their compatriots, and grabbing their oil.

So everything went tits-up big time as the country descended into a bloodbath, inter-ethnic rivalry, and basic commodities such as electricity and water disappeared. Leaving tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, dead.

Under those circumstances it’s hardly surprising that people starting asking Blair, “So arsehole, where’s these so-called weapons of mass destruction that you kept banging on about then?”

Whitewash coming in 5….4…..3….

Whitewash coming in 5….4…..3….

I hope everyone has their tissues ready…

Under those circumstances it’s hardly surprising that people starting asking Blair, “So arsehole, where’s these so-called weapons of mass destruction that you kept banging on about then?”

So, again, given the huge conspiracy, why didn’t him and GWB just ‘invent’ some?

They did, that’s the problem 😉

But maybe they actually thought they’d find some? The scariest thing is that these people really believe what they’re doing is right, even now, so they probably expected to find some, and when they didn’t, saw Saddam being toppled as enough of a retrospective reason.

Which is the most believable explanation.

Unfortunately the ‘left’ have so much invested in the ‘conspiracy’ and ‘delibaretle lies’ agenda that it’s going to be impossible for them to accept any conclusions that come to less than a plot to get the oil.

Believing you will find some is still no excuse for lying in order to turn that belief into fact. If they believed Saddam had some, they should have gone to find them, not lied to say they knew 100% he had them.

Chilcot clearly believes we went tomwar without dull and proper consideration

The main expectation that I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavour on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgement being applied to it.

There are many lessons in the report but that probably is the central one for the future.

As I have posted before the whole WMD issue was a massive fraud to pit Chemcial weapons in the same category as nuclear. I never believed the 45 minutes claim either.

What was clear to me was that a responce to Sadams invasion of Kuwait was felt to be unfinihsed business, tnat Sadam was slaughtering Iraqis at will amd of course firing his missiles at Israel.

The Government should have been more honest about that

Guardian Live

@Bongohoohaa – That’s to be determined… I think it will be very interesting what chilcott has to say about the dodgy dossier.

Chilcot speaking now, live on Sky and elsewhere I imagine

Blair’s getting such a kicking.

“Chilcot condemns legal basis, justification and planning of Iraq war which killed at least 150,000.”

Chilcot: “there was no imminent threat from Saddam”

“Blair was warned before invasion of risks: internal strife, Iran meddling, regional instability & AQ activity”

ninfan

Just imagine the screams of horror and derision from the left when they open the report and find that the longwaited words of criticism against Blair are actually rather mild, even non existent, that he acted on advice received (that later proved to be wrong) and that it specifically states no laws, national or international, were broken
Posted 1 month ago

vongassit

It’s gonna be a whitewash , just like all the other “enquiries”

And there’s the rub (I’m not saying anything against vongassit or ninfan per-se) but once the million plus words of it have been digested and surmised for us by the media (slanted to their particular stance) then unless it clearly states that Tony Blair laughed as he accepted the order from his boss in the Whitehouse to send hundreds of ‘our boys’ to their death along with tens of thousands of Iraqis in return for a very profitable post-office tour of the US, knowing full well that the WMDs didn’t exist, then it’ll be called a ‘whitewash’.

Can’t see any Labour MP that voted for the war becoming leader of the party now. There’s just too much evidence that there was insufficient scrutiny and challenge of a decision made at least 9 months before the vote.

Having listened to Chilcot a few thoughts

Report confirms what many of us knew/felt to be true;

Blair made the decsion he would assist Bush “whatever” and used the following months to justify this legally including in Parliament. As a PM he was entitled to do that no matter how much we might disagree.

The Military where overstretched by the double operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, that their desire was to overthrow Sadam and then exit as soon as possible.

The UK government expected (wildly optimistically) that the UN would step in to manage the country

As a PM he was entitled to do that no matter how much we might disagree.

As PM he was given a mandate to use his best judgement in the interests of the UK.

Can’t see any Labour MP that voted for the war becoming leader of the party now. There’s just too much evidence that there was insufficient scrutiny and challenge of a decision made at least 9 months before the vote.

Whilst I agree this is fundamentally wrong imo. An MP has to rely on what they are told and in any case had Blair not relied on the WMD claim he could have made a different case had he chosen to.

Labour have to be very careful this does not split the party irrevocably and lead to its demise as major force in British politics.

As PM he was given a mandate to use his best judgement in the interests of the UK.

Yes I agree and he did so, I don’t agree with him or his public basis for the invasion but I think he made the call in what he believed where the UKs best interests

Well he certainly had big plans.

Any PM talking about a New World Order needs reigning in a bit by their colleagues..

Listening to the coverage, I wish the shouty lefties would knock it on the head. They make the chants of Chelsea fans sound creative and imaginative. There’s little point repeatedly chanting what appears to be TONY BLAAAAIR!!!!!!! MLEHHH MLEEEEH MLEEEH!!!!!

He can’t hear it, and doesn’t care anyway. But its ****ing annoying me!!! 😈

but I think he made the call in what he believed where the UKs best interests

and then sat back and did the worst job ever of planning for a war, and the post conflict arena. If he really did feel that, then it makes the tragic outcome all the worse.

Yes I agree and he did so, I don’t agree with him or his public basis for the invasion but I think he made the call in what he believed where the UKs best interests

He made the call on the basis of his beliefs, and not on the basis of the evidence presented to him. It was a failure of judgement on an epic scale.

Sometimes it’s a real pity the Iraq war STW history disappeared in the great hack.

I was expecting a whitewash and was pleasantly surprised to hear Chilcot cover most of the issues. However, I won’t be happy until Blair stands trial for war crimes.

The Report itself is linked below.

I have downloaded various conclusion sections, it appears to be well laid out and relatively easy to locate the important findings. As such we can make our own minds up rather than rely solely on journalists or campaigners viewpoints.

The Report

However, I won’t be happy until Blair stands trial for war crimes.

Well you are not going to be happy as that will never happen. Nothing in the report suggests there are the grounds for such a trial and in any case the report / inquiry has no legal basis to make such a recommendation. Blair gave Bush his assurance and then set out to make a case, that’s his prerogative as PM

As such we can make our own minds up

Well we can all pick out sections that support the point of view we had prior to publication, anyway 😉

Nothing in the report suggests there are the grounds for such a trial and in any case the report / inquiry has no legal basis to make such a recommendation.

Number of (competent) legal people on twitter are suggesting that Chilcott does indicate a desire for some of the evidence to be presented to a competent court.

Blair gave Bush his assurance and then set out to make a case, that’s his prerogative as PM

It was not his prerogative to exaggerate the threat, or fail to plan for the foreseeable consequences of his decisions.

This whole affair is a massive stain on the UK’s ever-deteriorating reputation in the world. Shame on all of them, Blair, the government, the opposition…with a few notable exceptions: Kennedy, Cook, Short.

I think when I travel abroad now I’m going to have to pretend to be Australian, such is the deep disappointment and embarrassment I feel not just with our current ‘rulers’ but for just over half of the population. Some might say that makes me less patriotic, but I believe quite the opposite. I desperately want to be proud of our country, but at the moment all I want to do his hang my head and shed a tear.

150,000 civilians dead… 250 dead this week alone from an under-reported suicide attack…

The reported highlights so far seem to be pretty damming overall while there being no knock out punch delivered.

Blair gave Bush his assurance and then set out to make a case, that’s his prerogative as PM

Some might suggest that his prerogative as PM was to best represent the interests of the UK, and its citizens, rather than those of a US president on a crusade

Direct quotes from Chilcot (my bold):

“We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.

The judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – WMD – were presented with a certainty that was not justified.

Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.

The government failed to achieve its stated objectives.

Mr Blair and Mr Straw blamed France for the “impasse” in the UN and claimed that the UK Government was acting on behalf of the international community “to uphold the authority of the Security Council”.

In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Council’s authority.

The Inquiry has not expressed a view on whether military action was legal. That could, of course, only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognised Court.

We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory.

The Joint Intelligence Committee should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established “beyond doubt” either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued.

The House of Commons on 18 March 2003, Mr Blair stated that he judged the possibility of terrorist groups in possession of WMD was “a real and present danger to Britain and its national security” – and that the threat from Saddam Hussein’s arsenal could not be contained and posed a clear danger to British citizens.

Mr Blair had been warned, however, that military action would increase the threat from Al Qaida to the UK and to UK interests. He had also been warned that an invasion might lead to Iraq’s weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists.

Mr Blair told the Inquiry that the difficulties encountered in Iraq after the invasion could not have been known in advance.

We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and Al Qaida activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion.

Some are the management of relations with allies, especially the US. Mr Blair overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq. The UK’s relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgements differ.

So essentially according to this enquiry; we went into an unnecessary and reckless war based on unfounded evidence and ill thought through legal advice.

that sounds like a pretty serious accusation to me, and about as far from whitewash as you can get, without it saying that there’s possible legal responsibility. Although there are commentators saying that it shouldn’t be ruled out.

When all the build up to Iraq was going on I distinctly remember thinking that it seemed pre-ordained and had very little to do with a supposed ‘war on terror’. Afghanistan was at least logical. A failed state with essentially a terrorist government. But Iraq? If there was one thing characters like Saddam cracked down on it was threats to their own hold on the country. An officially sanctioned attack on the west was pretty much unthinkable. A rogue element attack from within Iraq would most likely have brought down internal repression as Saddam tried to avoid being ousted. He was a bad man. A very bad man. But in a distasteful way, his goals were probably quite aligned with the west in terms of terrorist groups.

The whole Iraq episode smacked of unfinished business for the Bush family. George Senior had the position and mandate to roll down the road to Baghdad back in 1991, but pulled back and stitched up the Kurds and Marsh Arabs in the process. I wouldn’t mind betting that George Jnr was just itching for any excuse to sort out what his old man shrunk from – something that probably gnawed at George Snr all the time.

The US was bound to go into Afghanistan the minute after 9/11, I don’t think the same could be said for Iraq.