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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}

^{Which one is your grandfather?}

Today is a day for the British to take stock of just what they’ve done by voting to leave the European Union.

Today is July 1st 2016. By the end of this day, one hundred years ago, 20,000 men of the British Empire would be lying dead in the mud of the Somme. The cause of this vile slaughter was one of the greatest tactical blunders in military history, led by British aristocratic incompetents.

And for what? So the powerful, infighting, families that ruled Europe could slug out their differences from their fancy mansions without so much as a splatter of mud on their expensive gowns and tuxedos.

The Mirror newpaper today:

“We must never forget the bravery of the young men who exactly 100 years ago today heard the whistles that would send so many over the top to an early grave.

‘Slaughter not in vain’

“Many of the men who died did not have the vote and their suffering played a part in obtaining rights and freedoms we should cherish, respecting those who never grew old so that we may be free.”

From the Times:

…the Somme was a slaughter, but it was not in vain, as it allowed Allied commanders to learn how to fight a mechanised war on an unprecedented scale.

It was knowledge that ultimately helped to secure victory.”

20,000 men on the first day; over one million killed or injured in the following five months, and these newspapers dare to state it was not in vain. How can that amount of death and suffering, young men blown to bits, families back home devastated, ever be justified?

They call them “brave”. They weren’t brave, they had no choice. Most of them were so scared they soiled their clothes before ever going into battle. Those who joined up voluntarily were testosterone-fueled, propaganda victims, who considered it a ‘jolly jape’. They soon discovered there was nothing ‘jolly’ about the Somme. Most were conscripted, as has been the case throughout history whenever a British king or queen needed an army to fight for more land to be conquered, more money to top-up their coffers.

The media and politicians are pastmasters at spouting sentimental guff to make us all feel better. They call them ‘heroes’, the ‘saviours of freedom’, but they were just human beings like you or I, who happened to be born at the wrong time, in the wrong place. They certainly died in the wrong place, and at the wrong time, their lives snatched away so, “allied commanders could learn how to fight a mechanised war on an unprecedented scale.” If that was the case why did it take another four years to defeat the German military, and cost another seventeen million lives?

It was the “war to end all wars”. Maybe they wouldn’t have minded dying so much if they knew that had come true. Sadly, it only took twenty years before realization dawned that “the war to end all wars” was just another catchy little propaganda phrase trotted out by the politicians and media of the day to justify something unjustifiable.

It’s still happening today: “Brexit will reclaim our sovereignty.” “Today is Britain’s Independence Day.”

The European Union was a great ideal, formed with the aim of preventing any more European wars. It has succeeded for over fifty years. Perhaps those who this week voted to leave it might first have stopped to consider what it was their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were forced to die for, one hundred years ago today.