War Criminal?

[DaveP]

I don't think there's any evidence of that. Only evidence to the contrary. If you look at the correspondence between officials the entire tone of it was "We need to find evidence of WMDs to sell the war". There was no desire to stop the war. As far as I see none of the key people worked at all for a peaceful resolution...............  Avoiding war was possible but not desired.

Yes you are right, they were determined to remove Saddam whatever as they incorrectly perceived him as a threat.

But that was not what I said was it?

I said if they knew back then, there were no WMD, that the whole country would erupt in civil war, that so many lives would be lost, that IS would emerge from the mess, that Blair's reputation would be trashed, if he knew all that, then I don't think he would have supported Bush.
DaveP

 

[DaveP]

Now, further more, I'm guessing you never read the policy statement by the neo-cons that ended up in government. But if you read their statements it was absolutely 100% clear that once in government they would all push for deposing Saddam, WMDs or not.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5527.htm

Yes I've read it and you are right, they wanted to remove Saddam because they thought he could make WMD and be a threat to moderate Arab states.  They also said diplomacy was failing.  I think you added WMD or not.

At the time, he was viewed in much the same light as Assad is now, only much more powerful.  He had gassed around 5000 kurds at Halabja, he had killed many thousands in the 1991 uprisings and he had invaded Kuwait to get their oil.
I have read your article, maybe you should read this article on human rights atrocities under his regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein%27s_Iraq

We do need to put ourselves back in the shoes of the actors at the time before we make judgements in hindsight.

Definition of Revisionist History.

When people, with the benefit of years (or generations) of hindsight and typically with ulterior motive, try to rewrite history as it originally occurred.

DaveP

 

[sahib]

  If Bush and Blair had known then, what they know now, they would never have started that war, I think we can all agree on that.
DaveP

I don't think there's any evidence of that. ........

Not only you don't think there is any evidence of that, but there is evidence for the contrary. That psychopath Blair has said he would do it again.

My late father-in-law used to say that behind any trouble in the Middle East you will find a British man.  And yet the history repeated itself not once but twice more.

 

[DaveP]

Not only you don't think there is any evidence of that, but there is evidence for the contrary. That psychopath Blair has said he would do it again

I thought Blair meant that if he had the same wrong info on which to base his judgement he would do it again.

If you think he meant he would do it again after everything that has happened, then he truly would be mad.

If the war had not happened, I think that Saddam would probably have killed thousands of innocent people, but not on the scale of what has since happened.  I wonder if he could have kept Al Qaeda out of Iraq?  We shall never know.

DaveP

 

[sahib]

Dave,

My understanding is that he said would invade Irak again.

As MattiasNYC also said he has cashed in and has been cashing in on his legacy in millions. Nobody still has managed to penetrate through his business deals yet,  when even  a most junior journalist can find out the colour of pants of anybody in the flick of a moment at a time like this. From British history's point of view he is responsible for this mess and has blood in his hands that will never wash off.

And all that nonsense of them being given wrong intelligence is a lot of b**locks excuse my language. They created the intelligence. They took out bits and twisted to suit their own agenda. That Jack Straw also has a lot to answer.

 

[DaveP]

I think his reputation has been well and truly trashed, I doubt if his wealth offers him any consolation now.  He will be a pariah for the rest of his life.

Apart from the war, he was actually a competent Prime Minister and got the minimum wage through into law.

He certainly had most of his MPs behind him, which is more than can be said for his current successor.

DaveP

 

[sahib]

I think his reputation has been well and truly trashed, I doubt if his wealth offers him any consolation now.  He will be a pariah for the rest of his life.

Well. I am not sure about that. He has already demonstrated that he does not give a  tosh. He is laughing all the way to the bank while the others crying to the graveyards.

Apart from the war, he was actually a competent Prime Minister and got the minimum wage through into law.

Yes he did. I voted for him

He certainly had most of his MPs behind him,....

Yes a flock of career sheep. If only there were few more like Robin Cook.

which is more than can be said for his current successor.
DaveP

Well, his successor was Gordon Brown.

But I think Jeremy Corbyn deserves another thread.

 

[Banzai]

Davep, the entire premise for your argument is flawed: The intelligence for the Iraq war wasn't faulty. It was fabricated.

 

[ruffrecords]

I think his reputation has been well and truly trashed, I doubt if his wealth offers him any consolation now.  He will be a pariah for the rest of his life.

Well. I am not sure about that. He has already demonstrated that he does not give a  tosh. He is laughing all the way to the bank while the others crying to the graveyards.

Let's hope he gets an eyeful from a stray tennis ball at Wimbledon where is is lording it today.

Cheers

Ian

 

[DaveP]

Davep, the entire premise for your argument is flawed: The intelligence for the Iraq war wasn't faulty. It was fabricated.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I think you need to provide some proof for that statement beyond urban myth.

The Chilcot Enquiry which cost £10M and took many years to complete did not say that.  If they had come up with that it would have been all over the world's newspapers by now.  Surely Snowden would have leaked that?

The report has already said it was not "sexed-up", if that's what you mean by fabricated.

DaveP

 

[mattiasNYC]

I don't think there's any evidence of that. Only evidence to the contrary. If you look at the correspondence between officials the entire tone of it was "We need to find evidence of WMDs to sell the war". There was no desire to stop the war. As far as I see none of the key people worked at all for a peaceful resolution...............  Avoiding war was possible but not desired.

Yes you are right, they were determined to remove Saddam whatever as they incorrectly perceived him as a threat.

But that was not what I said was it?

I said if they knew back then, there were no WMD, that the whole country would erupt in civil war, that so many lives would be lost, that IS would emerge from the mess, that Blair's reputation would be trashed, if he knew all that, then I don't think he would have supported Bush.
DaveP

The only part I might agree upon is the question of ISIS. However, I really don't think they cared about the aftermath much before the invasion. I seem to recall that Blair raised the issue as important only after (in the now released correspondence between him and Bush). And as for WMDs:

Now, further more, I'm guessing you never read the policy statement by the neo-cons that ended up in government. But if you read their statements it was absolutely 100% clear that once in government they would all push for deposing Saddam, WMDs or not.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5527.htm

Yes I've read it and you are right, they wanted to remove Saddam because they thought he could make WMD and be a threat to moderate Arab states.  They also said diplomacy was failing.  I think you added WMD or not.

At the time, he was viewed in much the same light as Assad is now, only much more powerful.  He had gassed around 5000 kurds at Halabja, he had killed many thousands in the 1991 uprisings and he had invaded Kuwait to get their oil.
I have read your article, maybe you should read this article on human rights atrocities under his regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein%27s_Iraq

We do need to put ourselves back in the shoes of the actors at the time before we make judgements in hindsight.

Definition of Revisionist History.

When people, with the benefit of years (or generations) of hindsight and typically with ulterior motive, try to rewrite history as it originally occurred.

DaveP

I'll recap on what my reasoning is after these short videos, because I think it got a bit lost. But just watch these few clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHnSPsZshyM

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/meet-the-press/24917310#24917310

Here's my point, or reasoning, because I think you're somewhat missing it;

- The neo-cons wanted Saddam gone, and they didn't care if he had WMD or not. They wrote that " Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. " But inspections did resume and they did produce results. They knew that once they were in power. Thus the real reason wasn't ridding Iraq of WMD and thus your position that it would have been different had they known they wouldn't find WMD is something I disagree with. They didn't care.

- Condi Rice and Powell were clearly not part of the above group of people. They most likely tried to do their jobs as well as they could and spoke the truth about the estimates of Iraq's capabilities in the above linked video. But their opinions didn't have enough weight compared to all of those powerful men inside the Bush government. So them speaking the truth was less important that getting rid of Saddam.

- The third video again affirms that the decision to go to war was made well before the inspectors would have finished, thus regardless of what they would have found. So, yet again, WMD were not the issue, at all. The recent report on Blair/UK involvement in the run-up to the war is entirely consistent with this.

- Other than Curveball being a questionable source, you had Iraqi defector Kamel saying Iraq indeed had dismantled and destroyed WMD.

- These neo-cons were in power under Reagan, and back then WMD were apparently not much of a problem, because they were used against a nation they didn't like. In other words; WMD isn't ever really much of an issue, it's who has them. This is a horse/cart situation, because they want to imply that Saddam was bad because he had and used WMD, but he really wasn't. He was bad for other reasons,  otherwise they'd have never supported him under Reagan.

- Remember the "Iraq dossier"? Highly questionable sources revealed ahead of the attack. Blair gave it his approval.

So all of the above is to say that WMD were not the primary reason the war was fought, it was desired to get rid of Saddam well ahead of time, not because he was evil but because he no longer served a purpose. WMD was just a sales point to push the Clinton government to do it and then to get public support. Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and others all said Saddam eventually cooperated and they found nothing, well ahead of the actual attack, but none of that mattered because these people wanted war.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Davep, the entire premise for your argument is flawed: The intelligence for the Iraq war wasn't faulty. It was fabricated.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I think you need to provide some proof for that statement beyond urban myth.

Start with the Niger documents maybe?

 

[Gold]

If the war had not happened, I think that Saddam would probably have killed thousands of innocent people, but not on the scale of what has since happened.  I wonder if he could have kept Al Qaeda out of Iraq?  We shall never know.

I think blaming faulty intelligence is a straw man argument. At the time Saddam was boxed in with the no fly zones in the north and the south. He had no ability to attack  anyone without instant air strikes. All that had to happen was to wait for Saddam to implode. It's not easy to wait because it seems like you aren't strong but it would have been the right thing to do and save a lot of blood and treasure..

 

[Banzai]

Davep, the entire premise for your argument is flawed: The intelligence for the Iraq war wasn't faulty. It was fabricated.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I think you need to provide some proof for that statement beyond urban myth.

Start with the Niger documents maybe?

+1

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/

DaveP, then follow that with the September Dossier, which was also proven to be entirely false. The foreword is written by Blair, making a direct reference to 45-mins... How's that for urban myth?

But let's look at all this from a simpler perspective: if you or me were to set in motion a string of events that somewhere down the line lead to the loss of life, we would be held responsible and prosecuted for murder. It's the law that you and me have to live with.

Blair and Bush knowingly set in motion a process that led to the deaths of maybe more than 1 million people. They knowingly lied to their citizens, and they even have the gall to claim they would do it all again. Yet, you find it disproportionate some people want them to face the same repercussions you or me would face?

I don't get it...

 

[DaveP]

Like a lot of other people, I watched Colin Powell's presentation to the UN at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErlDSJHRVMA
He either changed his mind since his earlier video, or he was ordered to lie, any ideas?
Would a senior US official lie to the UN?
I always thought he had some integrity, am I wrong to believe that?

DaveP

 

[Banzai]

Your view of politicians and western governments (and what motivates their actions) is misguided. Of course Powell lied, and of course he was ordered to lie. For a very mild taste of the kind of world we're really living in, read the book 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' by John Perkins...

War is a multi-trillion dollar business, and has nothing to do with values, security, democracy, freedom, or whatever other cheap buzzword they come up with to sway public opinion... and 'rebuilding' what you just destroyed, inside the brand new client-state you just created? It's even more profitable than war itself.

 

[DaveP]

I have watched all your videos and listened to your arguments and obviously you have made some good points.  Cheney struck me most as having a good grasp of the fragility of the situation, maybe 9/11 made him think later it was worth the risk?

But none of you have addressed the circumstances and context of the time that I mentioned earlier.  The gassing of the Kurds, the thousands killed in the uprising after the first Gulf War, Kuwait and finally 9/11 which changed the whole world overnight.  It does look like you are trying to revise history in hindsight.  Put yourself in the position of Bush and Blair after 9/11.  You have just seen the west attacked in an unbelievable way (CNN was on repeat all day because we couldn't take it in).  You have to identify the threat to your own countries and look for allies, Saddam was already on the radar as a western enemy, its your call.

Why did Tony Blair get elected again in 2005, the country liked him enough then despite the war.  Yet now he is branded a war criminal by the same electorate, it seems fickle to me and lynch mob mentality.

Blair and Bush knowingly set in motion a process that led to the deaths of maybe more than 1 million people. They knowingly lied to their citizens, and they even have the gall to claim they would do it all again. Yet, you find it disproportionate some people want them to face the same repercussions you or me would face?

For them to face repercussions, it would have to be proved that they did it out of an evil intent, for financial gain or some kind of treason.  They cannot be prosecuted for being stupid, incompetent or making wrong decisions whilst in office, they can only be voted out.

Read these for an alternative view:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/justin-huggler/tony-blair-iraq_b_10858886.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/06/dont-blame-tony-blair-for-the-mess-iraq-is-in-blame-obama/
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/blairites-jeremy-corbyn-labour

These are the reasons that I think the reaction is disproportionate.

I will try to help your case with something you haven't mentioned yet, the 1991 gulf war.
Bush senior wanted to go on to Baghdad after he pushed Saddam out of Kuwait, the UN said no, which many think was a huge mistake.  The last I heard, that UN decision cost 15,000 Shia lives.  If there was a reason the Iraq war was pre-planned, then it was Bush junior trying to correct his dad's mistake, that is a conspiracy theory I can believe in.

DaveP

 

[DaveP]

I would also like to hear your opinions in the light of this respected BBC journalist's resume.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36746453

He describes Blair as being swept along by Bush but not being a war criminal.

DaveP

 

[mattiasNYC]

Like a lot of other people, I watched Colin Powell's presentation to the UN at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErlDSJHRVMA
He either changed his mind since his earlier video, or he was ordered to lie, any ideas?
Would a senior US official lie to the UN?
I always thought he had some integrity, am I wrong to believe that?

DaveP

Let me offer you a different perspective Dave:

In most civilized industrialized democratic societies we have rule of law. In those legal systems by and large there's a very simply principle at play at all times; the more severe the charge the more severe the punishment / the more severe the punishment the more solid the evidence. That's why it's easy to get a parking ticket and the burden is almost on you to prove your innocence, but where it's hopefully substantially harder to get convicted of rape and murder (in the opposite order).

Now, given that that's the case, and that it builds upon reason (the bigger the claim the bigger the evidence required to prove it), and in conjunction with us applying essentially the same logic to international relations, Colin Powell's UN address struck me as absolutely 100% ridiculous at the time I saw it. Just think about this for just one second:

He presented a computer rendering based on a drawing based on a translation coming from hearsay of a defected person no US person ever talked to. That's his evidence. So we have the absolute worst punishment humans can devise - war - for a crime that hasn't yet been committed - with the above evidence!

When the US presented evidence to the UN on the Cuban missile crisis they at least had aerial photos of the actual weapons. Again: A computer rendering based on a drawing based on translations based on hearsay by a questionable source.

Do I think Powell lied? Either that or he was incredibly incompetent. Or both.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I have watched all your videos and listened to your arguments and obviously you have made some good points.  Cheney struck me most as having a good grasp of the fragility of the situation, maybe 9/11 made him think later it was worth the risk?

I actually think Bush was more sincere when he prior to him beling elected the first time stated that the US shouldn't be in the business of nation building. Cheney will say whatever gets him what he wants. I think he's an opportunist evil sob. He's sadly not the only one. I have far more "sympathy" for Bush to be honest.

But none of you have addressed the circumstances and context of the time that I mentioned earlier.  The gassing of the Kurds, the thousands killed in the uprising after the first Gulf War, Kuwait and finally 9/11 which changed the whole world overnight.  It does look like you are trying to revise history in hindsight.  Put yourself in the position of Bush and Blair after 9/11.  You have just seen the west attacked in an unbelievable way (CNN was on repeat all day because we couldn't take it in).  You have to identify the threat to your own countries and look for allies, Saddam was already on the radar as a western enemy, its your call.

I did address most of what you said above. Saddam was supported by the west as long as his evil acts didn't conflict with western interests. This is the same as has been by numerous hideous regimes all around the globe, and Democratic presidents aren't immune to it. So again; the gassing of Kurds etc was really a non-issue in and by itself for these people, because they not only had the chance to get rid of Saddam in the early 90's during the Gulf War, but also to not support him in the first place. I mean, do you really believe they suddenly grew a conscience? I absolutely don't. For the most part these are callous psychopaths in my opinion (and again, as much as I dislike Bush I give him a pass on psychopathy).

Now, as for 9/11: Look, I was in NY when it happened, so I'm well aware of the impact it had on this country. But we should remember that there are nations, like Nicaragua, that have suffered at the hands of US supported terrorism where if the suffering on 9/11 had been proportional to what they experienced you could have added at least one zero, if not more, after the number of casualties. This 'meme' that "the world changed on 9/11" is just a thing people in the west say. If you're Vietnamese, or your family is from Hiroshima or Nagazaki, or your East Timorese, Nicaraguan, El Salvadorian etc, then you've known terrorism and war for a long time. For none of them the world didn't change, it was more like the US was welcomed into the real world where that kind of crap happens.

The absolutely most profound experience in my life, largely due to how little I think about it (ironically), is the fact that I never ever thought I'd be living in a country that was at war. Think about that for a second: Living in a country at war. But so since I didn't leave it eventually sunk in - Americans were traumatized because for decades any support of terrorism or waging of war was always done by someone else somewhere else. Finally somthing happened on our own soil. I'm quite frankly shocked that not more people have flocked to the likes of Ron Paul simply because of his more isolationist stance regarding these things.

When it comes to the practical and ethical implications of 9/11 though we must remember what I said in context; the neo-cons wanted Saddam gone even before 9/11. It changed nothing as far as his demise was concerned other than speed it up. The terror attack was perpetrated by Saudis living in Afghanistan. So what did Saddam have to do with it? Absolutely nothing.

So, speaking of history, here again we have a secular regional government, in this case terrible as opposed to Iran's Mossadegh, and the west goes in and screws that up. Fine. Saddam didn't deserve to be a leader, but it's curious that yet again the result of western meddling in the region was another theocratic crap-regime (just like in Iran).

Yes, Saddam was terrible, but he and his country did NOT pose a threat to the UK or the US. He just didn't. He was contained, and he possessed no WMD.