Gordon Brown Accused in WikiLeaks Cables

Cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published by Scotland on Sunday accuse the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown of pulling British troops out of Iraq to improve his chances of winning a general election, despite warnings from the UK's allies that withdrawal would represent a victory for terrorists.

Libya Is Not Iraq

Reuters reports that the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has stated that the involvement in Libya will not turn into Iraq style conflict.

This despite the fact that Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, has noted parallels with the campaign in Iraq.

Hague is quoted:

"It's very different from Iraq because of course in the case of Iraq there were very large numbers of ground forces deployed from Western nations.

That's clearly not the case and it's not going to be the case in Libya. It's right to point to the need for a political process when Gaddafi goes, and that of course is something we discuss with the National Transitional Council in Libya.

They have put forward their plans for that, for an interim government including figures from the regime, for the holding of elections and those are the right plans to put forward."

That's all very well, maybe. However, it may well take a lot more resources/military commitment to remove Gaddafi than are already in "play" there.

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?

Campbell's Claims Contradicted

The Independent reports that in written evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Maj-Gen Laurie (a former intelligence official) rejected Alastair Campbell's claim that the dossier was not intended to make the case for war:

"This was exactly its purpose and these very words were used."

Where to now for the Chilcot inquiry, given that "star" witnesses (eg Blair and Campbell) have given evidence that contradicts Maj-Gen Laurie?

Will they be recalled?

The Age of Deception

The former chief UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei has published a memoir ("The Age of Deception") in which he suggests that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the "shame of a needless war" in Iraq.

ElBaradei accuses US leaders of "grotesque distortion" in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Quote:

"..deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators.."

"The Age of Deception," is published today by Henry Holt and Company.

Arming The Libyan Rebels

Arming the Libyan "rebels" may be all very well (in theory) whilst Gaddafi is there to unite them against him. However, if he is removed, they will simply fracture along tribal and religious lines and use the weapons against each other and any Western troops placed on the ground as peacekeepers.

The Coalition of The Unwilling

It would appear that we are now up to our eyes in yet another war in the Middle East, being waged by a coalition of the unwilling, which has no strategic goal nor by defintion means of detrmining when it is over.

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?

A Dictatorship Reborn

Despite deposing and executing Saddam Hussein, on the pretext of "democratising" Iraq, it seems that the US mission to bring "freedom" to the people of Iraq has failed.

The Washington Post reports that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is using special forces to deal with demonstrations in Iraq:

"Witnesses in Baghdad and as far north as Kirkuk described watching last week as security forces in black uniforms, tracksuits and T-shirts roared up in trucks and Humvees, attacked protesters, rounded up others from cafes and homes and hauled them off, blindfolded, to army detention centres."

Out of the ashes of one dictatorship it seems that a new one is emerging.

As I have noted several times before, you cannot impose democracy on a society or country using the barrel of a gun.

The Parade of Horribles

In October 2002, five months before the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld emailed President Bush a memo that listed 29 reasons why a military confrontation with Saddam Hussein could go wrong.

Item 17 is Banquo's ghost:

"The US could fail to manage post-Saddam Hussein Iraq successfully, with the result that it could fracture into two or three pieces, to the detriment of the Middle East and the benefit of Iran."