Bush and Blair conspired to lead us into an illegal, unnecessary war . . . that much is clear, especially with new information from a speech Blair gave last week in which he basically admitted it. This always leads to the question, “Why?” The answer, which most people now believe is obvious, is below.
From a Guardian story, “(Sir Christopher) Meyer, ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003, described a critical moment in March 2002, as Blair was preparing a visit to George Bush’s Texas ranch.
New instructions were brought to the embassy by the prime minister’s foreign affairs adviser, Sir David Manning. The message from Downing Street was that the 11 September attacks and the subsequent US determination to oust Saddam were established facts, “and it was a complete waste of time … if we were going to work with the Americans, to come to them and bang away about regime change and say: ‘We can’t support it’.”
See the video about the opening of the British Iraq war inquiry here. “Sir John Chilcot opens the inquiry as protesters demand to know who was responsible for taking Britain to war in Iraq”
This inquiry is a very big deal. Why don’t we have a similar inquiry here in the United States? After all, it was our horrendously dishonest president, George Bush, who started the Iraq war, which has left approximately 1.3 million Iraqis dead, most of them civilians. It only makes sense we would have an even bigger investigation here in the U.S., given the enormous evidence that the war was not because of a threat or WMDs at all.
Chilcot inquiry: Tony Blair decided on Iraq war a year before invasion
“No chemical weapons: Tony Blair admits to British soldiers — The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare last week.
The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr. Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.
And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just ‘four out of ten’ for accuracy.
On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister’s case for war.
Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain. [or America either]
. . . . Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter-proliferation between 2000 and 2002, also revealed that a month earlier, in February 2003, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had made clear that he did not believe the mythical weapons existed.. . . .
`Then, after the war, officials had to tell Mr Blair not to ‘declare success too rapidly’ in the quest to find WMD in Iraq as he continued to make misleading statements claiming that ‘massive evidence’ had been found.
The revelations reinforce the case that intelligence evidence that Saddam was no threat was ignored by Mr Blair to take Britain to war on a false prospectus.
Sir William Ehrman, former Director General of Defence and Intelligence at the Foreign Office, said that on March 10, 2003 – ten days before the start of the war – British spies reported that Iraq had ‘disassembled’ what chemical weapons it had.
He said: ‘On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn’t yet ordered their re-assembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.’
The evidence was summarised in a Joint Intelligence Committee report circulated in Whitehall on March 19.
Sir William blamed ‘contradictory intelligence’ for the failure to put the brakes on.”
After Downing Street story is here.
The answer: More than anything, control of Iraq’s oil was the reason for the war in the first place, and not just for profits. We are fast reaching peak oil. Whoever controls the remaining oil will have the upper hand in all global matters — unless alternative energy is developed quickly.
We need not only an inquiry but after the inquiry, we need a trial and a prosecution of President Bush and his administration for their involvement in these crimes. Not only 1.3 million Iraqis, but over 5,000 American and coalition soldiers are DEAD because of the lies of these people.
www.350.org"
Good article, ST. The problem with all of this is that the people in power who can do anything about it are on the take. They are compromised because they’ve chosen to worship at the altar of greed and don’t want to get excommunicated from it or because they might fear for their lives or the lives of their loved ones. How much you think it’s a case of the former and not latter? Besides, you’re talking about conspiracy, collusion and treachery and this takes a little amount of thinking which the public is not willing to do. The murders of millions and the bankrupting of the treasury to benefit a few is not what the people are interested in hearing. They are incapable of wrapping their minds around it. They’re also unwilling to accept responsibility for this mess that many of them supported. For instance, the sheepherders falsely accused and held in foreign prisons because of a bounty offered for whoever the US was offended with after the invasion of Afghanistan. The vast majority of captives in the various prisons, including Cuba, were guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, after languishing for years in cells for nothing, they are found not guilty or refused a hearing. On top of that, those who are released must be released in any other country other than the United States because the brave and free inhabitants thereof are afraid of their own shadow. Those found guilty are deemed too dangerous to be in a maximum security prison in the US because the bravest people on the face of the earth are scared to have them within those borders. In their eyes these should be sent to anyplace else, like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria or any place faaaaaaaaaaaaar away from the land of the free and the home of the bravest brave people on earth. Besides, bush and blair are christians and they would not lie about anything. And while they may have lied to get the whole thing started, the people demand that the job be finished.
They lied about everything to get their little war on and to control the price of oil, but at least they didn’t have sex with a willing adult intern. Goin’ against the marriage vow, now that’s something the people can understand, even if they haven’t always been faithful to the man-made thing themselves.
It’s sickening that the Secretary bowel stood before everyone and held up a vial of something (detergent?) and read that speech about how dangerous and deadly those weather balloon trailers were. Didn’t he initially refuse to read the speech, calling it so much bovine excrement?
Henry Kissinger was present at the China Olympics last summer. This is a man wanted for so many crimes in so many countries.
The two in the inquiry are guilty and should be in the Hague. Bowel, Condisleazy and the other neo-cons, including foreigner propagandist Murdoch, should be right there with them. Will it happen?
The people who were shills for the war, including certain media pundits living and deceased (Russet potato) should pay for this war. The war supporters should give money to pay for the war as well as the oil companies who profit off this carnage and the assets of Fox News and others should be sold and the money given to pay for this fiasco. Those who put out signs supporting their godly leader sending others to war should pay for it, too. The estates of pro-war deceased media pundits should go toward paying for this mess. It might not cover the whole thing, but the neo-cons love to repeat the meme ‘you broke it, you bought it’, so let’s apply it to them.