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From: J
Category: Other stuff
Date: 17 May 2004
NEVER forget what the politicians said when they made the case for war in Iraq.
Never forget the absurdity of what they said. Remember how Tony Blair stood in Parliament with conviction and said - 'Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.'
Saddam represented 'a real and present danger to Britain'. Remember those words for they were nothing more than lies.
The case for war in Iraq was about as watertight as a sieve. The intelligence was constructed on false premises and the outcome has been a catastrophic failure.
This was not a war about Iraq's appalling human rights record, nor was it about capturing Saddam Hussein. This was a war about the threat Iraq posed to the world. Yet notice how nobody talks about the reasons that led to war.
Notice how the term 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' is distinctly missing from the vocabulary of those who were in favour of the war. Notice how the Iraq survey group is taking rather a long time to report its findings of WMD. Notice how the Neo-Conservatives in Washington have turned their attention to the transfer of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30.
If this is war, what are we fighting for? Is it not the case that had it not been for the terrorist attacks on 9/11, regime change in Iraq would never have been considered. Look at any intelligence brief prior to 9/11 such as the Rumsfeld Report (1998) and you will see that the US Intelligence Community did not consider Iraq to be a threat.
The focus was not on Iraq because a policy of containment had weakened her ability to produce chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Iraq didn't even have the capability to target British bases in Cyprus - let alone target UK cities!
The most important question is if containment was working and Iraq was in a position of weakness - why is it the case that following the events as 9/11 Iraq suddenly became a threat to us?
Is it not the case that the Bush administration saw a golden opportunity to 'capitalise' on the events of 9/11 whilst the International Community was in a state of flux?
The Neo-conservative architects of the war against Iraq and the wider war on terrorism have already expressed their views very clearly prior to 9/11.
I would ask Tony Blair not to sign up to any more wars with the Bush administration because the Iraq war has already shown the damage it has brought to the International system.
Perhaps Blair could refer to the work of Thucydides and his historical analysis of the Peleponnesian war (430-400BC). There is one particular passage that Blair could relate to. It is the passage in which the Athenians said to the Melians in realist terms, 'The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.' Let this be a warning from history.
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