Author: R J Adams

The Chilcot report ran to two million six hundred thousand words. That’s the equivalent of three and a third Bibles, or nearly four and a half volumes of War and Peace. If we’re brutally honest all 2.6 million words were about Tony Blair.

In practice, that’s probably not quite true, but so far as the British public are concerned, the Chilcot report was all about whether Tony Blair did the right thing, or not; whether he was guilty of taking Britain to war illegally, or not.

The report was fairly damning on both questions. No, he wasn’t right, and probably he went to war illegally. The Chilcot inquiry wasn’t about gathering evidence for prosecution, so that was as far as Sir John Chilcot could go in his condemnation.

On Wednesday, after the report was published, Tony Blair spent two hours defending his position over Iraq. He apologised profusely for what he did wrong, while insisting everything he did was right. You’d have thought that would be sufficient. He’d said his piece, the report was out, now it was time to hide away and keep one’s head down for six months, or so, until the heat’s off.

That’s what any sane person would do. Not so Blair. One day later and he’s back on the radio – BBC, no less – telling everyone the world would be in a much worse position today had he not decided to invade Iraq.

“I can regret the mistakes and I can regret many things about it – but I genuinely believe not just that we acted out of good motives and I did what I did out of good faith, but I sincerely believe that we would be in a worse position if we hadn’t acted that way. I may be completely wrong about that.”

He argued that had Saddam Hussein been left in power, “he would have gone back to his [weapons of mass destruction] programmes again”.
And if he had been in power during the Arab Spring in 2011, “I believe he would have tried to keep power” in the way that Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, had done.”^[1]

It seems that Blair is forgetting that the “Arab Spring” fomented as a direct result of the toppling of Saddam Hussein. There would have been no “Arab Spring” had the invasion of Iraq not taken place.

Neither Blair, nor the U.S. administration, had any idea of the violent Muslim factions that would be unleashed by removing the strong, dictatorial, powerbases of Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad.

America makes much of ‘spreading democracy and freedoms’ throughout the Middle East. Its politicians need to read Middle Eastern history. Then they might just comprehend why these nations were governed dictatorially. Saddam Hussein may not have been a very nice man, but he knew how to control his countrymen and prevent the violent, tribal, warfare that has been tearing Iraq apart since his forced removal.

Similarly with Gaddafi, and now the sickening mess that is Syria. Overlording them all is the devil-child spawn of the British/U.S. occupation of Iraq – ISIS.

There was no al Qaeda in Iraq when Saddam was in control. ISIS didn’t exist. Neither was al Qaeda in Libya when Gaddafi was in control, nor in Syria under Assad. All have been created from the warmongering antics of one superpower and a deluded egocentric British politician who loved to be seen hobnobbing with the president of the United States.

Democracy is not for everyone. Some cultures aren’t ready for it. Iraq, Libya, and Syria are fine examples of what can happen when strong leadership is removed, or rendered powerless.

Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, have the blood of many thousands of innocents on their hands. They were ignorant of those they were dealing with. But ignorance is no excuse in law.

Blair is, of course, horribly wrong to suggest the world is better off today than in 2002. No-one in their right mind could possibly believe that. Perhaps now he’ll go and hide himself away for a while. He needs to. We’re tired of his excuses, bored with his plaintive assertions, but above all we’re heartily sick of the mass murder, torture, rape, starvation, orphaned children, husband-less wives, and the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons resulting from his actions and those of his political ‘buddies’ in the United States.

^{[1] “Tony Blair says world is better as a result of Iraq War” BBC, July 7th 2016}

There’s been nothing particularly new so far in the Chilcot report into the Iraq War, just confirmation of what was already known to anyone who’s been following the war’s history.

Tony Blair spent two hours on live television telling everyone how dreadfully sorry he was for being right – which surely fooled nobody – and there was the expected group of protesters, many who’d lost loved ones in the invasion and subsequent occupation, calling understandably for Blair’s prosecution as a war criminal. It’s never going to happen. It would mean indicting George Bush and most of his administration, and America wouldn’t hear of that.

Perhaps more interesting than the report itself is the chitchat of the aftermath. In particular, that of Sir Jeremy Greenstock who was the U.K.’s ambassador to the United Nations in 2003. According to a BBC report:

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN in 2003, said Mr Blair had wanted a UN resolution backing action.
But he told the BBC senior US officials thought it was a “waste of time”…

The 2003 invasion had not been the “last resort” action presented to MPs and the public, Sir John [Chilcot] said, adding that there had been no “imminent threat” from Saddam Hussein, and the intelligence case was “not justified”.

Sir Jeremy said he felt Mr Blair had wanted to wait longer before taking military action.
It would have been “much safer” to give weapons inspectors in Iraq another six months to continue their work, he added.

“I felt that at the time, the British felt it at the time, I think the prime minister felt it at the time, that the Americans pushed us into going into military action too early,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight…

Mr Blair had wanted to secure a UN resolution before the conflict but US officials were not committed to a resolution, he added.

“The Americans weren’t genuine about it – but the prime minister was genuine about it – because he thought there was a chance that Saddam could be made to back down before we had to use military force.
“And George Bush for a while agreed with him. But other people behind George Bush didn’t agree with him and thought it was a waste of time. [my bold]”^[1]

It’s long been known that the ‘other people behind George Bush’ were the then U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and a number of other members of the PNAC* (including Paul Wolfowitz) who had infiltrated the Bush administration. Bush was the stooge fronting the show and Blair was part of the double act.

Interestingly, though frankly unsurprisingly, the U.S. State Department is refusing to acknowledge the Chilcot report. The BBC continues:

The US State Department said it would not respond to the Chilcot report’s findings as it was focusing on present issues in the Middle East.

“We are not going to examine it, we are not going to try to make an analysis of it or make judgement of the findings one way or another,” a spokesman said.
“Our focus is on the challenges we have in Iraq and Syria right now.”

Sadly, but predictably, the United States is not prepared to learn from history – not even such recent history. Arrogance and superciliousness are so often the creators of failure. America’s war in the Middle East has now been ongoing since the Carter Doctrine of 1980. Thirty-six years of military meddling in that region, the outcome of which has been the understated “challenges” America has today in Iraq and Syria. Apparently, Somalia, Libya, Palestine, Afghanistan, Tunisia, and the general threat of terrorism from all these countries and more, are not considered priority by the U.S. State Department.

Still, one job at a time, eh, lads?

It’s not an impressive record. The number of innocent civilians killed in those conflicts is astronomical, but totally unimportant – collateral damage – to the military industrial complex growing fat on the profits of the U.S. war machine.

It’s to be hoped that the U.K. will learn its lessons after Chilcot. It seems unlikely that America ever will.

^{[1] “Chilcot report: US ‘pushed UK into Iraq War too early’, says ex-ambassador” BBC, July 7th 2016}

^{* Project for the New American Century.}

Tomorrow the Chilcot report will finally be published. It only took seven years to complete. The report is the final outcome of the Chilcot Inquiry, which determined whether the decision for Britain to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was right, or not, and if not, who was to blame for the decision.

Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister of the day, is thought to be heavily criticised in the report. However, it’s generally accepted he’ll not suffer any punishment for his part in destroying a country still riven by sectarian violence. The ICC has already made clear Blair will not be prosecuted, whatever the report’s condemnation.

Why? Prosecute Blair and Bush would also need to be indicted, and that would not be condoned by the American government (and, likely, not its people).

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, wrote today from Iraq:

It is doubtful whether Iraqis who are so caught up in the pain of daily life will take much interest in the long-delayed publication of the UK’s official inquiry into its part in the invasion of 2003…

Many people I have spoken to have already made up their minds about the impact of the invasion on Iraq. One of these is Kadhim al-Jabbouri, a man who became a symbol of the Iraqi peoples’ rejection and hatred of Saddam Hussein…

Kadhim owned a popular motorcycle shop and was a Harley-Davidson expert. For a while he fixed Saddam’s bikes, but after the regime executed 14 members of his family he refused any more work. The regime’s response to his effrontery was to put him in jail for two years on trumped-up charges…

…Kadhim, like many Iraqis, blames the invaders for starting a chain of events that destroyed the country. He longs for the certainties and stability of Saddam’s time.

“Saddam has gone, and we have one thousand Saddams now,” he says. “It wasn’t like this under Saddam. There was a system. There were ways. We didn’t like him, but he was better than those people.”

“Saddam never executed people without a reason. He was as solid as a wall. There was no corruption or looting, it was safe. You could be safe.”

Many Iraqis echo that. Saddam’s regime was harsh, and it could be murderous. He led the country into a series of disastrous wars and brought crippling international sanctions down on their heads.
But with the benefit of 13 years of hindsight, the world that existed before 9 April 2003 seems to be a calmer, more secure place. They have not had a proper day of peace since the old regime fell.

I asked Kadhim what he would do if he could meet Tony Blair.
“I would say to him you are a criminal, and I’d spit in his face.”
And what would he say to George Bush?
“I’d say you’re criminal too. You killed the children of Iraq. You killed the women and you killed the innocent. I would say the same to Blair. And to the coalition that invaded Iraq. I will say to them you are criminals and you should be brought to justice.”

…Jihadists were not in Iraq before the invasion. Shia and Sunni Muslims, whose sectarian civil war started during the occupation, could co-exist…

Iraqis have often made matters worse for themselves, but it was mistakes by the US and Britain that pushed Iraq down the road to catastrophe.”^[1]

Tony Blair hid away from public scrutiny for many years after his fall from power. Recently, he’s been turning up in newspapers and political talk shows, as though Chilcot never existed. When asked about Chilcot he shrugs it off as though it doesn’t matter. “Obviously, there’ll be a debate,” he says, “And I’ll be putting my viewpoint across when the time comes.”

He still believes what he did was right. At least, that’s what he tells us all.

Tomorrow, after seven years of waiting, we’ll know whether Chilcot agrees with him.

^{“Iraq Chilcot inquiry: Bitterness in Baghdad” BBC, July 5th 2016}