Blackwater Fined

The BBC reports that the private defence company Blackwater has been fined $42M for violating US export and arms traffic laws.

The nearly 300 breaches include the export of illegal weapons to Afghanistan and the unauthorised training of foreign nationals.

The settlement means that Blackwater, now known as XE Services, will be able to bid for government contracts.

"XE has not commented on the settlement of this case. But its directors have recently stressed that XE is a different company to Blackwater, having implemented a number of management and procedural changes."

So that's alright then!

Last Combat Troops Leave

The last US combat troops have left Iraq, seven-and-a-half years after the US led invasion.

At the end of August there will be 50,000 US troops serving in Iraq, as Iraqi security forces take responsibility for securing their country.

As to what happens then, we shall see.

Penance?

Some debate has been stirred up over the "morality" of the British Legion accepting the biggest donation in its history from Tony Blair, who has promised to donate all the proceeds, including the £4.6M advance, from his memoirs.

There is also speculation as to the rationale for Blair's gift; guilt, penance?

However, one thing is clear, his financial circumstances must now be very solid for him to be able to contemplate giving away such a large sum of money.

He will of course receive tax relief on this donation (estimated by the media at being around £2M on the advance fee alone).

Leaving Iraq To The Wolves

Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's former deputy, has accused the US president of "leaving Iraq to the wolves" as a resulkt of the decision to withdraw combat troops during a period of increasing violence.

Aziz told The Guardian that the United States should stay in Iraq, in order to correct the mistakes it had made since the 2003 invasion.

"We are all victims of America and Britain.

They killed our country in many ways. When you make a mistake you need to correct a mistake, not leave Iraq to its death."

He went on to say:

"For 30 years Saddam built Iraq and now it is destroyed. There are more sick than before, more hungry.

The people don't have services. People are being killed every day in the tens, if not hundreds.

I was encouraged when [US President Barack Obama] was elected president, because I thought he was going to correct some of the mistakes of Bush. But Obama is a hypocrite. He is leaving Iraq to the wolves."

Aziz was jailed for 15 years in 2009 for murder, and given a seven-year term in August 2009 for his role in expelling Kurds from Iraq's north.

Mission Not Accomplished

President Barack Obama has confirmed that he will honour his pledge to end all combat operations in Iraq by 31 August.

However, he has stated that 50,000 of 65,000 US troops currently in Iraq will remain until the end of 2011, as "advisers" and protect US interests.

Wisely, given that Iraq is still in turmoil, President Obama did not claim that this was "Mission Accomplished!".

However, whilst troops may be being pulled out of Iraq, more troops (some 30,000 extra) are being sent to Afghanistan.

Army Almost Seized Up

General Sir Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that Tony Blair's decision to send troops to Helmand at the same time as they were in Iraq almost caused the army to seize up.

He said:

"I think we were getting quite close to a seizing-up moment in 2006."

The politicians let the troops down by placing them in an almost impossible position during this period, the consequences of this negligence are still being felt today.

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".

Low Standards

Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the United Nations from 1997 to 2002, has a poor opinion of the quality of the questioning at the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war.

Ross told the BBC that chairman Sir John Chilcot was running a "narrow" investigation, with the standard of questioning "pretty low".

He went on to say that the Chilcot inquiry was not doing enough to ensure it got a full picture of events.

"The other government witnesses are giving a partial view... I think that the standard of interrogation by the panel is pretty low. The level of questioning is very easygoing.

In particular my greatest concern is that witnesses are not being challenged on the contradictions between what they are saying to the panel and what's in the documents."

These allegations are nothing new, from the very outset journalists have been saying that witnesses have been given a very easy time by Chilcot.

Quel Surprise!

Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, has told the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that the invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK and has "radicalised" a generation of young people in the UK and abroad.

She stated that a year before the war she had advised the government that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited".

Wilful Ignorance

The Guardian reports that a report "A State of Ignorance" issued by Action On Armed Violence (AOAV, formerly Landmine Action) shows that Labour ministers and officials bent over backwards to avoid engaging with the issue of how many people were killed in Iraq, except to try to confuse it.

The Guardian describe it as "wilful ignorance".

Now that Labour have their hands off the levers of power, more revelations will come out.