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Showing posts with label Iraq inquiry whitewash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq inquiry whitewash. Show all posts

Saturday, January 30, 2010

You're a Liar and Murderer They Screamed at Him: Fury in Public Gallery as Blair Says 'I Have Not a Regret'


Despite the deaths of up to 700,000 Iraqis and 179 British troops, Mr Blair said he felt 'responsibility but not a regret' as he concluded his six hours of evidence to the Chilcot inquiry.

There was uproar and shouts of 'liar' and ' murderer' as bereaved relatives in the public gallery of the QEII conference centre in Westminster realised they were not going to receive the apology for which they had waited all day.

There was no hint of remorse.

Indeed, Mr Blair even suggested the world should be grateful to him.'

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Friday, January 29, 2010

Israel’s Voice on Britain's Iraq Inquiry Accuses Critics of 'Anti-Semitism'


On 22 November 2009, as the inquiry, was preparing to convene, a former British ambassador, Oliver Miles, wrote an article in the Independent on Sunday newspaper expressing concern at the fact that two out of the five members of the inquiry’s committee, Martin Gilbert and Lawrence Freedman, were "strong supporters of Tony Blair and/or the Iraq war". He also pointed out that both Gilbert and Freedman were Jewish, and that "Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism".'

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Revealed: Jack Straw’s Secret Warning to Tony Blair on Iraq



A “SECRET and personal” letter from Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, to Tony Blair reveals damning doubts at the heart of government about Blair’s plans for Iraq a year before war started.

The letter, a copy of which is published for the first time today, warned the prime minister that the case for military action in Iraq was of dubious legality and would be no guarantee of a better future for Iraq even if Saddam Hussein were removed.

It was sent 10 days before Blair met George Bush, then the US president, in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. The document clearly implies that Blair was already planning for military action even though he continued to insist to the British public for almost another year that no decision had been made.'

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Lies, Damned Lies and Mr Campbell



Quite the most striking aspect of Alastair Campbell's evidence to the Iraq War inquiry is that most of it was untrue. Blatantly, breathtakingly untrue.

Take his claim that he was not making the case for war when he produced his dossier on Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction.

Oh, yes you were, Mr Campbell. That was the whole point of the exercise.

Or take his assertion: 'I don't think we were ever saying, "look, Saddam has got these weapons and can whack them off to Cyprus in 45 minutes".'

Isn't that precisely what he was saying? Or if it wasn't, why didn't he set the record straight when the whole country 'misinterpreted' him?

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Thursday, January 07, 2010

The Chilcot Inquiry: Britain’s 9/11 Commission


All too often, official inquiries are conducted by the very people who should themselves be under investigation.

In this respect, Britain’s Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq war bears a distressing similarity to the 9/11 Commission.

In a remarkable symmetry, both inquiries involve a Jewish Zionist historian, who not only advised his country’s leader to go to war against Iraq, but actually provided the ideological justification for that unnecessary war.'

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Iraq Inquiry Whitewash Continues: War Criminal Blair to Give Evidence In Secret


Key parts of Tony Blair's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War will be held in secret, sources close to the hearings revealed last night.

His conversations with President George Bush when he was prime minister, and crucial details of the decision-making process that led Britain into war, will fall under the scope of national security and the protection of Britain's relations with the US.

But there are also suggestions by well-placed sources that anything "interesting" will also be shrouded in secrecy, leaving his public appearance containing little more than is already known.'

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Friday, December 11, 2009

Normalising the Crime of the Century


I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day only to learn he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man. We met soon after he had resigned from the Foreign Office in 1991 and I asked him if the government knew that Hawk fighter-bombers sold to Indonesia were being used against civilians in East Timor.

“Everyone knows,” he said, “except parliament and the public.”

“And the media?”

“The media – the big names – have been invited to King Charles Street (the Foreign Office) and flattered and briefed with lies. They are no trouble.”

As Iraq desk officer at the Foreign Office, he had drafted letters for ministers reassuring MPs and the public that the British Government was not arming Saddam Hussein. “This was a downright lie”, he said. “I couldn’t bear it”.

Giving evidence before the arms-to-Iraq enquiry, Higson was the only British official commended by Lord Justice Scott for telling the truth. The price he paid was the loss of his health and marriage and constant surveillance by spooks. He ended up living on benefits in a Birmingham bedsitter where he suffered a seizure, struck his head and died alone. Whistleblowers are often heroes; he was one.'

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Friday, November 27, 2009

UK Diplomat Questions Post of Jews on Iraq Panel

A British diplomat has criticized the appointment of two leading Jewish academics to the UK's Iraq Inquiry panel, stating it may upset the balance of the inquiry.

Sir Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, told The Independent newspaper this week that the appointment of Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned Holocaust historian and Winston Churchill biographer, and Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies and vice-principal of King's College London, would be seen as "ammunition" that could be used to call the inquiry a "whitewash."

Miles said the two academics were Jewish and that Gilbert was an active Zionist. He also said they were both strong supporters of former prime minister Tony Blair and the Iraq war.'

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