The Syria Vote

MPs will vote at around 22:00GMT tonight about whether Britain should bomb ISIS in Syria.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, we can be sure that the decision made won't be the right one; as until ISIS is stopped by all means available (cut off oil and other revenues, boots on the ground, stabilisation of the Middle East and an ending to the West's need for Middle Eastern oil) it will continue to function in one shape or form or other locations.

Final Pullout

The last contingent of British troops finally left Iraq this weekend, more than eight years after the invasion.

Was this all worth it?

Libya - Iraq II?

The enthusiasm for regime change in Libya displayed by the USA, UK and UN may well sound very "noble" when esposed by skilled political oratators.

However, if the UN succeeds in throwing Gaddafi out, who exactly is lined up to replace him and how long will troops be expected to be stationed there whilst "democracy" and a political infrastruture is installed?

Have we learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Britain Has Regrets

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, will tell the UN today that Britain has regrets about the Iraq war.

He will say:

"In recent years we have learned – in some cases the hard way – that democracy cannot be created by diktat.

Freedom cannot be commanded into existence."

Quite!

I have said many times before that democracy cannot be imposed via the barrel of a gun, and that shouting "Yee Hah!" is not an effective tool of foreign policy.

Clueless

Colonel Tim Collins, of the Royal Irish Regiment, has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the UK government and military leaders had "absolutely no idea" what to do in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

He was quoted by the Press Association:

"I don't think anybody had any idea why it was we were going to do this.

I rather thought that there would be some sort of plan and the Government had thought this through and I was clearly wrong.

When I gave my now notorious talk to the Royal Irish, I was trying to rationalise for those young men what was going on from my standpoint. As it turned out, it had a wider appeal because nobody had any idea why this was happening.

It became very apparent to me shortly after crossing the border that the Government and many of my superiors had no idea what they were doing.

There was no preparation. They had absolutely no idea what to do. We turned up, took away a country's infrastructure and its law and order with absolutely nothing to put in its place."

An excellent analysis of the failings of the Iraq misadventure!

The Iraq High

Dr Hans Blix, former UN weapons inspector, has told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that the US and UK didn't feel that they needed "a permission slip" from the security council:

"The US in 2002...I think they were high on military at the time. They said 'we can do it'

They thought they could get away with it so they decided to do it."

The lesson here is don't start wars when "high".

Exaggeration

Sir Richard Dalton, Britain's ambassador in Tehran from 2003-06, has told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that both the UK and US misread the intentions of Iran in the run up to the war.

Blair and Bush pushed the line that Iran would be hostile to the Iraq venture, when in fact Iran wanted the venture to succeed in order for a stable government to be formed and to ensure that US troops did not remain too long in the area.

Sir Richard said that Blair made "a series of very bad decisions" about the legality of the 2003 invasion.

Blair told Chilcot in January:

"What happened in the end was that they did because they both had a common interest in destabilising the country, and for Iran I think the reason they were interested in destabilising Iraq was because they worried about having a functioning majority Shia country with a democracy on their doorstep."

Sir Richard contradicted this:

"From what I saw of his evidence, I thought he very much exaggerated this factor."

Smeargate

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador in the US, has given Tony Blair a very publicy drubbing in an interview with The Independent.

Sir Christopher says that Blair, and his closest advisers, have used their evidence to the Iraq inquiry to smear those criticising the decision to taken Britain to war.

He noted that "turning on opposition was the modus operandi of the Blair administration".

"You turn on dissent, you distort the argument, you claim the other person has said something they never said, and then you seek to discredit it.

It's not only me that has had some of this.

It is their modus operandi.

Smear and smokescreen."

Sir Christopher was also not impressed with Blair's obsession with invading Iran:

"Blair's strategic approach to his evidence seemed to be a kind of double or quits.

In other words, it was to say no regrets, I'd do it again, and by the way if I was Prime Minister I'd do Iran also.

It's nonsense about Iran.

The strategic beneficiary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq has been Iran. It has enhanced the position of Iran in the region, there is no doubt about it at all.”

The fact that Blair has entrenched the idea that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were cut from the same cloth was extraordinary.

We've always known that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't like al-Qaeda."

Sir Christopher uses the polite phrase "sub-contracted" wrt Blair allowing Bush to make the decision about war, ie he is saying that Blair had in effect become a poodle of Bush.

It is a pity that all the now so very vocal critics of the war, who were in positions of power during the run up to war, did not speak up and come forward at the time.

Blair's Fanaticism

Tony Blair has started to give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war.

What is striking, to me at least, is that he displays the same degree of fanaticism as the terrorists he sought to fight.

"..Those of us who dealt with terrorism by the IRA [knew] their terrorism was directed towards political purposes, it was within a framework you could understand. That completely changed from that moment – Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq ... All of this had to be brought to an end..."

It seems to me that had the Iraq invasion been a "success", then the US and UK would have happily wandered the globe regime changing (and starting wars) at will.

I well recall Blair giving a speech a few years ago in which he said that Afghanistan had become a "crucible" in the fight against terror.

All very well, but did the people who live in that country ask for it to be turned into a crucible?

Sadly fanaticism occurs in "democracies", not just dictatorships.

The Unmagic Wand

Iraqi authorities are more than a little "peeved" at finding out that they may well have been sold a British sourced bomb detector that in fact doesn't detect bombs.

The Iraqi government has formed a commission to investigate the ADE651, known as the "magic wand".

Iraq has spent $85M on the "magic wand".

Britain banned the export of the device (manufactured by the British-based ATSC Company) last week, after tests showed that it was not suitable for bomb detection.

The British police also arrested ATSC Director Jim McCormick, on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation.

US Slowed British Troop Withdrawal

Simon McDonald, Gordon Brown's foreign affairs adviser, has told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that the US pressured the UK to withdraw its troops a "bit more slowly" from Iraq.

Brown originally announced he wanted to cut the British force from more than 4,000 to 2,500 during 2008.

However, this was adjusted following discussions with the US over an Iraqi attempt to take control of Basra from militia groups.

Darth Vader

Sir John Sawers, now head of MI6 but once a close adviser to Tony Blair, told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that foolish decisions to disband the Iraqi army and dismiss thousands of members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party were taken by the US alone without taking into account British advice.

These decisions, as predicted at the time by those with some understanding of Iraq, proved to be disastrous and significantly contributed to the chaos that followed the ousting of Saddam.

Sawers said that the decisions were taken by Paul Bremer, US head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, on the basis of "pre-agreed Washington policy".

Sawers was also less than complimentary about the attire of US soldiers, which he believed caused a lack of rapport with the locals:

"the posture of the US army in their tanks, in their Darth Vader kit with the wraparound sunglasses and helmets and flak jackets and everything else. There was no real rapport between the US army and the ordinary citizens."

However, whilst it may satisfy Labour party politics to blame the US, the UK had the choice not to become involved in this folly; Labour only have themselves to blame for this mess.

Planning Banned

The Chilcot Iraq Inquiry continues to reveal the true extent of lies and misrepresentations made to the public during the build up to the Iraq invasion, by the Labour administration.

Admiral Lord Boyce, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, told the inquiry that Geoff Hoon (the defence secretary at the time) blocked him from ordering equipment and mobilising troops for months, in order to keep the plans secret from the public.

Ministers also told him to always err on the side of optimism when giving appraisals as to what could be achieved.

Lord Boyce was not impressed with the preparations made by the US either. It seems that those in charge of US policy were of the naive and dangerous view that US forces would be greeted as liberators, and that flowers would placed in their rifles!

It saddens me to see how a country as powerful as the US never fails to misunderstand how others will react to their policies (both diplomatic and military). This lack of understanding stems from both naivety and arrogance; a very dangerous combination, that has led to countless unnecessary deaths.

When will the US learn that not everyone in the world wants to live the "American Dream", and that democracy cannot be imposed with the barrel of a gun?

Yee Hah!

The Chilcot Iraq Inquiry has heard testimony from Lord Boyce (former defence chief), who stated that the US believed the UK would take part in the Iraq invasion even if there were no efforts to solve the crisis via the UN.

In fact, the US saw no need for UN approval. Given that Bush's "ambassador" (never to be formally approved) to the UN at the time was John Bolton, a man who happily stated that the top floors of the UN could be removed without any difference in function, this attitude towards the UN is hardly surprising.

Lord Boyce is quoted by the BBC:

"There was a huge reluctance by the US throughout, from July 2002 through to March 17 2003 to believe that we were not going to commit our forces unless we had been fully through the UN process and through Parliament as well.

No matter how many times you said to senior US officers... there was a complete reluctance to believe that."

The US has learned from the failure in Iraq and Afghanistan that "yee hah!" is not an effective foreign policy tool.

Invading Iraq Was Illegal

Lord Steyn, a crossbench peer and former Law Lord, is quoted in the FT:

"The invasion of Iraq has had, and will continue to have, grave consequences for the peace and security of the region and the world. It weakened international institutions.

It fractured the international rule of law.

It encouraged disrespect for the law by authoritarian regimes who copied the words and examples of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Torture became ever more widespread. Rendition, a fancy word for kidnapping, became institutionalised as a form of torture by proxy in odious regimes."

Meanwhile the Iraq Inquiry was told by Sir David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser, on Monday that Blair promised George Bush at a meeting in Texas, 11 months before the Iraq invasion, that he would be prepared to join the US in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The trouble with Blair's promise is that it was illegal.

Blair was warned by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, and other legal advisers that going to war with regime change as the objective was unlawful and breached the UN charter.

QED: The war was illegal!

The Iraq Inquiry

The Iraq Inquiry, currently being held in London, is gradually peeling back the layers of obfuscation (much like an onion) put up by politicians and civil servants.

Seemingly the newly elected Bush administration was looking at plans to enforce regime change sometime before 9/11.

Additionally, some 10 days before the war started, Blair was told that Iraq had no WMD.

As the inquiry goes on it will become increasingly clear that the US and UK public were conned by their governments into this unnecessary war.

Sanctions Breached

Mabey & Johnson, a British bridge construction company, has admitted that it may have made corrupt payments to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq to win an export order.

Mabey & Johnson have been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for more than a year.

In its recent annual results Mabey said that in April this year, it "disclosed to the SFO evidence that had come to light suggesting that in 2002 the company may have indirectly made two payments to the Iraqi regime in breach of UN sanctions".

Mabey added that it "has recently been notified of allegations that certain historical contracts may have been procured through corrupt acts".

The company has called in a firm of City lawyers, Herbert Smith, to carry out its own inquiry into all the corruption allegations. New managers have been installed at the firm.

The UN report in sanctions busting alleges that Mabey paid a $202K kickback between 2001 and 2003, and was given a $3.6M contract by the Iraqis.

Secrets Begat Secrets and Lies

It seems that the release earlier this week of the first draft of the "dodgy dossier", which was used by Blair to take Britain to war in Iraq, was not quite as full and frank as some may have believed.

The Guardian reports that the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel in the release this week. The Foreign Office succeeded before a tribunal in having a handwritten mention of Israel kept secret.

What was on that handwritten note?

A reference to Israel's nuclear arsenal, and an inference that Israel had flouted the United Nations' authority in a manner similar to that of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Unfortunately for the Foreign Office, their meddling has been made public and their attempt to suppress the note has failed.

The question now arises as to what else is being withheld from the British public?

The Dodgy Dossier - First Draft

After many years of ministerial obfuscation and evasion, the British people have been finally allowed to read the text of the first draft of the so called "dodgy dossier" that took them war in Iraq on a false premise - namely that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD.

The first draft made a series of claims about the extent and danger of the Iraqi president's weapons arsenal. However, by the time the final version (the basis for war) was released in September 2002, those had been "sexed up".

In other words, in order to justify the war, Blair and his acolytes adjusted the facts.

The first draft was written by John Williams, the former director of communications at the Foreign Office (ie a spin doctor, not a security expert). He warned that Saddam had come to power by "torture, rape and execution" and concluded that Iraq presented a "uniquely dangerous threat to the world".

There was no mention of Saddam's capability (now disproved) of launching WMD in 45 minutes.

The final dossier, allegedly written by John Scarlett, who was then the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, stated:

"Iraq's military forces are able to use chemical and biological weapons, with command, control and logistical arrangements in place. The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so."

Last night, Mr Williams told BBC Radio 4's PM programme:

"The 45-minutes claim was absolutely nothing whatever to do with me. It was news to me."

Opposition parties have renewed their calls for a public inquiry into the build-up to the war.

I doubt that Tony Blair cares much one way or another, given that in a supreme twist of sick irony he is now the so called Middle East peace envoy.

No Plan No Peace

BBC 4 re ran the BBC 1 documentary "No Plan No Peace" last night, which described the criminal lack of planning that went into the post invasion occupation of Iraq by the US and UK.

In short, there was no plan!