Fresh doubts over Iraq war advice

[BEagle]

From BBC News:

Fresh doubts over Iraq war advice


The attorney general faces fresh claims he changed his mind about the legality of Iraq war just before it began.
The claims are in a censored section of a resignation letter written by Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst, obtained by Channel 4 News.

She says Lord Goldsmith agreed until 7 March 2003 that war would be unlawful without a new UN resolution.

That suggests a late change of mind as his view published on 17 March said a new UN resolution was not needed.

Ms Wilmshurst resigned on the eve of the invasion on 20 March because she did not believe military action in Iraq was legal.

In the uncensored version of the letter obtained under Freedom of Information laws the former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office said the Iraq war amounted to a "crime of aggression".

'Professional privilege'

"Nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law," she says.

A censored version of the letter was obtained by news organisations including the BBC News website.

The Foreign Office said the missing part was covered by exemptions relating to the professional privilege applying to a law officer in the formulation of government policy.

According to Channel 4 News, the missing piece refers to legal advice Lord Goldsmith gave to the government.

'Legitimacy'

Channel 4, without giving a source for the information, quotes Ms Wilmshurst as indicating that the attorney general changed his mind at the last minute, giving approval for the war after previously opposing it.

A spokesperson for the attorney general told BBC News: "More of the same questions about process have been raised.

"What matters is that as recently as 1 March this year, the attorney general made very clear to the House of Lords, that the view set out in his parliamentary answer of 17 March 2003 was his own genuinely held independent view, that military action in Iraq was lawful."

According to Channel 4, in the missing piece Ms Wilmshurst says: "My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this office (the foreign office legal team office) before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the attorney general gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March. (The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line.)"

The significance of the missing paragraph is that it appears to show a late change of mind by the attorney general.

'Own goal'

Up until his letter to the government of 7 March, he had apparently been of the view that it was not legal.

Another significant point that emerges from the released section is that Ms Wilmshurst specifically rejects the grounds on which Lord Goldsmith said that the war was legal.

He had argued that Iraq's failure to comply with UN demands had "reactivated" the original 1991 Gulf War ceasefire resolution 678, thereby allowing a resumption of hostilities against Iraq.

Responding to the report, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said: "The government blacked-out that section not in the public interest, but in the government interest."

Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram called on the government to explain how Lord Goldsmith arrived at his final advice.

[gravity victim]

The Iraq debacle was well summed up by a talking head on Newsnight as:

"The worst failure of Cabinet Government since Suez. They were utterly supine."

:*

[LoeyDaFrog]

Clair Short's book, 'An Honourable Deception' casts the same view and whilst I'm not a fan of hers, and at times her writing style is a bit heavy to wade through, the overall impression of the book was interesting.
I can agree with a great number of commentators about the current govt's style. The 'watering-down' of the various checks and balances, from cabinet govt through to the changes to the Upper House are an utter disgrace.

Rant Off, returning to the corner to sulk

[JessTheDog]

The reason the UK joined the "coalition of the willing" was not because of intelligence - flawed or otherwise - or legality under international law, or flouting of UN resolutions.

It was because Blair "believed" that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with and the legal opinions, intelligence and the authority of UN resolutions were tailored or cherrypicked to suit this "belief".

Even now, Blair still "believes" that he acted correctly. He is a dangerously deluded person.

[BillHicksRules]

Dear all,

And despite it all Trust Me Tone will still win a 3rd term in a walk.

Cheers

BHR

[soddim]

The next election will be as much a test of the common sense and decency of the British electorate as it will be of the integrity of the Labour Government.

We will all find out what sort of people we share our country with.

[SASless]

Once the Iraqi situation settles down and the Iraqi people are governing themselves...is that not a good thing compared to Saddam's henchmen filling up mass graves of those that were not "loyal"?

Is not all of the foreign money going into rebuilding the infrastructure of the country not an improvement over the way things were going when Saddam was in power?

There are good things that are coming out of this....watching a video of Iragi women training to be police officers (they did have to have their husband's permission, however.) shows the amount of change that is occurring in Iraq.

Do you think maybe the longterm benefits of this regime change in that region may have a payoff that more than justifies the war?

We have seen an improvement in Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, and in the Israeli/Palestinian situation, all due to some degree with the events in Iraq. More changes are coming in Saudi and Pakistan as a result of this change in the way of doing business. Are we taking the short view when we ignore the other positive aspects to recent developments? What will we say if the Iranians come around a bit as well....there is a strong opposition movement growing in that country as well.

I do not see this as all bad...there is some good there to see too.

[jindabyne]

Good debate chaps - but my old and simplistic mind remains confused. If at the time Mr Bliar decided on his course of action with all the 'facts' available to him from a plethora of senior civil servant advisors etc, was his stance morally and legally justifiable? Did he adopt it after an in-depth appraisal of the consequences (on the sofa)? I would prefer to think that, as our Prime Minister, the answers would be of course. His TV performances at the time were convincing, to me. But far less so now. Would it have been worse to do nothing and leave Saddam in power? Would that, for all the undoubted ongoing atrocities commited in the meantime, have created the potential sea-change which we hear of now in the 'Mid-East' order?

I lean towards SASless's views, but harbour a deep distrust of our current leaders. Would Churchill or MacMillan have done things differently? Or am I naive?

Back to the red stuff.

[SASless]

In the grand scheme...does it matter why we went to war....it has been done....the question really lies more in where do we go from here?

There are people in this world that actually think things like war are as they are described to the ordinary citizen by the governments then in power.

What they tell us really matters little.....we are going to be caught up in the wheels of the system no matter what we are told.

You can have your arguments but the fact remains....when your government...whichever one it is at the time...decides Tommy is going to earn his pay....it is off to war you go.

We are now beginning to see documents being declassified from World War II and later that do not paint the same picture as the published history to date. Does that mean we ought to go back and unfight that war, or Korea, or Suez, or Vietnam?

Wars are going to be fought. Wars will be fought for reasons we know nothing about and will not be told. The fact you do not agree with why this particular war was fought matters not a whit. You and I will not change a thing about how our governments do business when it comes to war. We never have...we never will.

The one thing we can do is on a strictly personal level....some of my countrymen did a runner to Canada instead of enlisting in the military for some safe job that would promise no combat service. That was their choice. I made mine....I did two tours in Vietnam and was just as dis-illusioned as they were but I did what I determined to be right for me.

If you feel better for hashing out the reasons why the war in Iraq was wrong, evil, injust, illegal, immoral, unethical....have at it. But do not entertain any notion that what you say here will change a thing.

There are those of us that take an opposing view and see lots of right reasons for our governments doing what they did.....and still not disagree with you that it was not properly done.

The end result is what matters....and I certainly hope the loss of life and limb that our troops are incurring brings about something worthwhile.

I think it will....but then I take the long view and accept the fact the world does not run to my liking. As to protecting , propping up other dictators.....that is all a matter of expediency. At some point, they will outlive their usefulness just as Saddam did and down the road they will go.

Politics on the grand scale is an intersting topic. Lets talk about the continent of Africa....and consider the politics of that area. How many people died in Rwanda and yet the western world ignored that situation? Consider the situation in Zimbabwe....where is that headed and what will the current British government do to undo the mess that the other one did to cause the situtation back when the Rhodesians parted company with the UK?

The topics we could discuss are numerous and way beyond anything we can do to affect....I am sure heads of state have nightmares over what to do with each one of these problems. How would you like to grapple with what to do about North Korea and Iran having nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them? These are huge issues and sometimes law and morality just do not carry the answers in nice neat packages. What is the greater good? When is might right? When is law inapplicable?

An example of what I mean....George Bush the Father actually said we were going to restore democracy to Kuwait. I heard him say it...with my own two turbine whined hurting ears.....restore democracy to a kingdom? How do you do that pray tell?

[Omark44]

In 1991 a cease fire was drawn up by the allies and it imposed a number of requirements on Saddam Hussein and his regime.
SH failed to meet any of the requirements of the cease fire and hostilities resumed some eleven years later.
The legal justification was already in place with UN approval.
Going to the UN again before hostilities resumed was an unnecessary courtesy on the the part of George W. Bush and Co.

Why are people bothering to scratch their heads about the 'leagility' aspect now? The legality was established in 1991.

Discuss!

[soddim]

The way in which this government conducted its' spin to convince parliament that the war was justified is the whole point of this argument - not whether the war was just.

It is now apparent that Bliar almost certainly got both the intelligence he needed and the legal case by foul means not fair because he exercised undue political influence on his advisors.

He not only misled parliament but the whole electorate.

Will the latter be misled again into voting for him?

[16 blades]

I am going to make a series of statements, with the aim of promoting discussion, NOT with the aim of causing offence.

1. THE INVASION OF IRAQ WAS PERFECTLY 'LEGAL'.

2. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'INTERNATIONAL LAW'.

3. HITLER, HIMMLER, GOERRING, GOEBBELS, AND THE REST OF THE NAZI CRONIES WERE NOT 'WAR CRIMINALS'.

4. THE NUREMBURG TRIALS WERE NOTHING BUT A SERIES OF KANGAROO COURTS WITH NO BASIS IN 'LAW'.

All of these statements are aiming at a common theme, and as I said, are not intended to cause offence.

If you can refute any of these statements outright, please do so, citing examples IN WRITING of where I am wrong.

DISCUSS!

16B

[16 blades]

These are NOT laws. They are treaties, conventions, charters, call them what you will.

The difference is, these conventions etc are dependent upon MUTUAL CONSENT between agreeing parties, therefore cannot by definition be a 'law'. If one party removes that consent, the treaty becomes useless. Also, a law requires a sovereign authority to uphold it - there is no international sovereign authority (the UN has NO sovereignty, just consensus), therefore there is no international law.

In short, a law is something that is IMPOSED by a higher, sovereign authority, and upheld by such. A convention, or treaty, is something that is AGREED between two or more parties. Breaking a treaty is not a crime in itself, but may have consequences that the treaty was intended to prevent.

In respect of obedience to the Geneva Convention, a national sovereign authority can impose upon it's subjects / citizens a requirement to observe the convention, with appropriate punishments meted out to any who transgress. In this case, observance of the convention becomes law in the country imposing that requirement - this does not give the convention itself international legal force. If every country in the world made observance of the convention a legal requirement, then every person in the world can have sanctions imposed for non-observance according to their national legal system. This, however, STILL does not constitute 'international law', since it does not prevent a sovereign entity from deciding to withdraw from the convention and act as a state power in doing so.

Not being legally trained, I probably haven't expressed my thoughts on this subject very clearly, but I hope you get the general thrust of my argument.

16B

[SASless]

Along a similar line of thought....

President Andrew Jackson speaking of his Supreme Court Chief Justice who handed down a decision Jackson did not like, said..."There he has his decision...it is the law now....lets see him enforce it!" Thereby alluding to the fact the Supreme Court has no police or army to force compliance.

[MajorMadMax]

Excellent comments on this thread, and I wholeheartedly agree with SASless, Omark44 and 16Blades. Too many are concerned about what has happened, instead of what can/will happen. Debating the legality of the Iraq invasion is done by those only looking to use it as fodder during the next UK elections, and those same folks will bash the British public if they vote Tony Blair in for another term. They can't stand it when everybody doesn't subscribe to their opinion! :*

As for the "arguments" on WMD, if they never existed, then what in the hell did Saddam use against the Iranians and Kurds? And if Saddam did get rid of them, why didn't he tell the UN how he did? That would have avoided this whole ordeal. But the bottom line is he didn't think anyone would have the guts to challenge him, and he was proven wrong. :ooh:

Having just been to Afghanistan, I can tell you that three years down the road, it is becoming a better place. It is still a pit, but improving. Look at the successes of DDR, reconstruction, the presidential elections, and the drafting of their constitution. It serves as a great model for Iraq, which will follow suit, it is just a matter of time. Despite anyone's beliefs concerning Iraq, we are doing the right thing there and it will pay off in the long run.

Cheers! M2

[Cambridge Crash]

16 Blades

Err... treaties, agreements, final acts &c are part of municiple law - when ratified by Act of Parliament under a transformational system that the United Kingdom has adopted. Moreover, under the concept of opinio juris sive necessitatis the United Kingdom, in concert with most of the international community, requires that State practice should be regarded as a legal obligation. Otherwise matters such as international trade, freedom of the seas, the universal postal system, telephone networks, civil aviation, diplomatic immunity, acceptable treatment of prisoners of international conflict ... would simply not work.

There is international law - and it works because countries do consent to it applying in municiple law. This practice in the UK is by and large an automatic process, moreover it is no defence that municiple laws are at variance with international norms. This was demonstrated in the Alabama Claims case dating from the 1870s, when the US government sucessfully obtained compensation from the British Government who failed to take action to stop in the UK the construction, commissioning, crewing and victualling of Confederate commerce raiders.

Your point of justice of the victors is not lost; however the Nuremberg trials did codify the concept of genocide and crimes against humanity (established under international law by instruments such as the Genocide Convention). Furthermore, the Nuremberg defence of 'just following orders' was soundly rejected, recognising the need for individuals to be cognisant of jus cogens ie peremptory norms.

There we go! Int'l Law 101!

CC

[BEagle]

I knew why we went to War in 1991; however, I could not believe the obvious lies and spin being put about by Bush and Blair to legitimise the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It was obvious that nothing was going to stop the dimwitted cowboy's intention to "Finish wha' ma Pappy don' bin startin' " and Bliar's poodle-like subservience made my skin crawl. But I was out of the mob a few months later in any case, so never got involved in GW2......

Of course Saddam was a nasty sonofabitch, but so is Mugabe. The world is undoubtedly better off without Saddam and without the tyrannical behaviour of the Taliban in Afghanistan - but in Iraq's case did the end really justify the means?

One hopes that the nation will remember Bliar's action in 2003 and boot him and his cronies out of office in May. Regrettably that doesn't seem terribly likely, given the quality of the opposition......

And now I read that our forces will still be in Iraq in 2006....

[JessTheDog]

There is a perfectly respectable and compelling case to be made for regime change as the reason for removing Saddam Hussein.

That case was not made and we were lied to in the gravest way possible.

If only it was possible to see Bliar impeached and locked in the Tower awaiting the chop....alas, we will just have to make do with his resignation in May after Labour's majority is reduced to 40.

[Impiger]

Jess,

I'm no international lawyer, and I would generally describe myself as largely for the war, but I think you'll find that regime change is not a perfectly respectable reason to attack a sovereign nation no matter how despicable the regime might be. Indeed in the UN only self defence, no matter how loosely described, is acceptable. I don't think we can even wage war to prevent atrocities - cf Rwanda. I don't make the rules ............

[SASless]

Impiger,

Was not World War I a war about regime change? Was not WWII not about regime change? Wars invariably result in regime change.

War is just another form of diplomacy....a method that forces your will upon the opponent. The goal of both non-coercive and coercive diplomacy is the same.....to get your opponent to agree to your demands. In the case of Iraq, there had been plenty of effort devoted to acheiving that compliance from Saddam. The current investigation of the UN for corruption demonstrates why that was not working. Sanctions were being avoided and he was still ignoring the UN's demand he comply with other requirements.

The only thing wrong with the war in Iraq is the way the Turks let us down. If the 4Th Armored had been able to enter Iraq from the west....the war would have been very much different and much shorter in duration. That would have prevented a lot of the problems we have had since.

[JessTheDog]

I personally do not agree with the regime change reason, but it is a far more respectable argument than lying about weapons of mass destruction and concealing a regime change agenda.

[pr00ne]

16 blades,

I would be very very careful if I were you, if you are in the military and hold a position of authority, that sort of comment or advice to those under your command or influence could get you into a lot of trouble.

Take the advice of Happytruckin, find out your obligations and responsibilities for your own actions and those directly or indirectly under your command or influence.

Your concept of the existence of international law is so so wrong. There are a whole host of what we loosely describe as “international laws”, International criminal law being just one example. I have to be extremely careful myself about what I say here, having been involved in the Hague in just such instances, just ask yourself how and why some very senior folk from the Balkans are in prison, being sent to prison or being tried right now, under INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Mutual consent simply does not come into it at all, law does NOT require a sovereign authority to uphold it, it simply requires a recognised judicial authority, hence the existence of, for example, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

As this is an anonymous form I can say this, I think Blair and Bush are on very rocky legal ground when it comes to the legality of what they did in Iraq, if it came to the crunch, I wouldn’t like to be the one to defend them, not that this will be needed however.

[SASless]

Awlright Pr00ne....who is going to charge them? Who is going to try them? What military is going to hunt them down and clap them in irons?

Without talons an Eagle is just another Magpie!

You miss the point I believe....the victors hold the courts...not the losers. Last time I checked we came out of top in this last affair...and sit at the top of the totem pole when it comes to "power" be it economic, military, or political.

Who is going to successfully make a court case and in just whose court will it be?

You throw out these statements, very carefully, but you don't suggest the mechanism by which you suggestion might happen. Would you be a bit more specifc...name the court, the prosecuter, and the nation that will fund that proceeding?

Under what "law" would the charges stem from? What kind of evidence would you have presented?

What mitigating evidence would our side present? Reckon video tapes of folks having their tongues cut off would have an impact? You think videos of summary executions would have an effect? How would the mass graves of people affect the jury? Reckon the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds would be persuasive in court as a reason why Saddam had to go?

I sure hope your military in general does not have such a mindset as you present. If you feel an unlawful order has been given....at least under our system, you have not only a right but a duty to refuse it.....did you refuse to carry out any orders? Did any of your troops refuse any orders that ultimately led to the death of an Iraqi?

You are throwing a mantle of guilt upon your comrades that I do not think they wish to wear.

[BEagle]

SASless, please accept that the politics of the Wild West do not apply in the civilised world.

Something which that half-wit Bush and that Rice woman have yet to learn; perhaps when they do they'll wake up to the fact that blundering about in the gung-ho manner they do is hardly a recipe for making friends with the rest of the world.....

[16 blades]

Pr00ne,

My point was that my obligations under international treaties, as a serviceman, are governed by the domestic law of my own, sovereign, nation state. My own government would punish me, according to the laws I am subject to, for any transgression. This does NOT make the Geneva Convention, or any other treaty, a 'law' which is universal. For a start, not all countries in the world are signatories to it. Similarly with the 'international' criminal court - it is not 'international' at all, it only governs those countries who have signed up to it, and only then by consent. The US has, thankfully, seen through this leftist conspiracy and refused to sign up.

My point is this - I cannot, as a British subject, decide to withdraw my consent to obey the laws of this country - they are LAWS. If the UK government decided to withdraw from the Geneva convention, and amended our own laws to suit, there is NOTHING that ANYBODY could do about it. This is NOT a LAW, this is an AGREEMENT.

As for your assertion that
it simply requires a recognised judicial authority
There IS no internationally recognised judicial authority, and there never will be. When the most powerful nation on earth refuses to recognise an 'authority' (or indeed ANY nation), it is no authority at all. Therefore, there is no 'international' law.

As for the original thread title, the war was perfectly 'legal', even if you do believe in the leftist concept of international law. Reolution 678 authorised the use of military force against Iraq - it had no time limit, expiry date or 'sunset clause'. Resolution 687 brought about a CEASEFIRE, not an end of hostilities, that had certain conditions attached that Iraq must fulfil, lest hostlilties be resumed. These were not fulfilled, therefore 'authority' for invasion was always there. Resolution 687 was never 'reactivated' because it never 'expired' in the first place.

16B

[soddim]

All the erudite reasons why saddam got what he did and why international law did or did not apply do not alter the fact that we in UK are led by a man who has displayed lack of integrity.

I think Bush has also lied but that is a matter for another electorate.

Lack of integrity might not matter to some but I want a PM I can believe if not trust. If he comes with a manifesto I like so much the better.

I'll not follow anyone I don't trust.

[SASless]

BEagle...you do talk silly.

Straight talk and a willingness to take a stand always confuses Liberals. When called upon to validate their arguments , liberals always invariably fall back to name calling and posturing. The reason they do that is simply because they cannot substantiate what they say by the use of facts, data, or other convincing arguments.

That "Cowboy" has really gotten the Liberals in this country in a right tizzy....he made campaign promises and then unlike normal politicians....carried them out. He has taken on the most controversial issues that normal politicians avoid like the plague. Our dear friends on the left just cannot cope with that kind of politician.

Our guy is not without faults....lord knows he is not articulate when speaking in public but what he does in private is the key to his success. This is the first President in the past 20-30 years that has taken a proactive position on those that mean us harm....that includes his father when he was President. The philosophic shift by this "Cowboy" to consider Terrorists as enemies and not criminals is the first time we have begun to use effective strategies againt them. That too angers the Liberals....they cannot accept the fact that the past way of looking at terrorism was wrong.

It might be a "Cowboy" thing but bringing outlaws to justice or taking justice to them is the right way of dealing with those that mean us harm. Liberals cannot understand that kind of thinking....to them "good intentions" is enough.....getting the job done does not matter.

When those two towers fell in New York.....things changed on this side of the salt water divide. If it offends you and those that think like you then you should wake up and understand....we do not care about winning friends. That "Cowboy" explained it very clearly....you are with us or against us....no fence straddling allowed. Liberals are uncomfortable with being forced to state clearly their position on an issue and then hold to it. Not so our "Cowboy".

Liberals decry the Iraq war....but voted for it over here. They say there was no authority for it... now...but they voted for it when it was popular. They ignore the UN Resolutions and say now Sanctions would have worked. They now ignore the real evidence of how the sanctions were not working. Some of our erstwhile allies declined to stand up when it was time....some actually aided the Iraqi's right up to the bombs falling....and then wanted to be included in the reconstruction program.

Sorry BEagle....you are all wet here....Whoopee-Ty-Ri-Yo!Cowboy!

[BEagle]

Predictable.

No doubt you own half a dozen guns as well - to defend your American way?

:yuk:

And if making up my own mind about the lies and spin spouted by self-seeking politicians and idiots like Bush makes me a 'liberal' in your eyes, then so be it.

[SASless]

Actually BEagle....I would have to do an inventory to confirm the number...well in excess of a half dozen...and that is after having whittled down the stash due to not needing some of them anymore. All legally purchased, all legally stored, all legal in every respect. And BEagle...when I use them....to protect myself or others....it will be done legally as well. Owning guns is not a remarkable facet of life in this country....except to liberals.

Now what is your point?

Our founding Fathers being very bright men who had a hatred of oppressive government (can you guess which one?) ensured we have the freedom to actually own things like that. Freedom of speech was the first thing they sought to protect....and the second was the right of the people to bear arms....it has worked so far.

If I am ever called upon to defend my "American Way" as you put it.....I stand ready. Remember the Homeguard shortly after Dunkirk....drilling with Pike Poles and pitchforks? There is something to be said for civilian ownership of smoke poles and sixguns.

BEagle old boy....Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than all of my guns put together....he is a liberal and I am not.

[soddim]

SASless,

It's really good news that your leader has stopped considering terrorists as criminals and started calling them "enemies" but that doesn't quite forgive you all for funding the IRA in the days when we were dealing with terrorists in our own way.

Is it still alright in USA to fund criminals?

[SASless]

Soddim...

The US State Department lists the "Real IRA" as being the Irish Terrorist group that is officially considered a terrorist group under current US Law. It appears that is the case due to their not agreeing to the cease fire. Several other groups are listed in other areas but apparantely are not listed now as terrorist groups due to their participation in the cease fire agreement.

They have been so listed since 2001 and remain so today.

It took the 911 attack to bring this country to reality about terrorism and its sources of funds.

When you seek to tar all Americans with that brush you are being unfair....there are far more of us that would have nothing to do with such activities than ever would.

I dare say we do not want to open a debate on the Irish question...there are plenty things on both sides of that situation that could be brought to light that will only cause argument and not resolve a thing.


The list of organizations of interest in the Irish question....

Irish Nationalists (Ulster)

Irish Republican Army (IRA) (1916-present) **

Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) (1969-present)
Splinter group of the 'Official' IRA.

Supporters of the PIRA split from 'Official' Sinn Féin to form Provisional Sinn Féin. Provisional Sinn Féin was later known simply as Sinn Féin (while 'Official' Sinn Féin eventually became the Workers' Party).
Under ceasefire since the Good Friday Agreement of 1997

Splinter groups:

Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA) (1986-present)
Also known as the "Continuity Army Council" and "Óglaigh na hÉireann (Gaelic for 'Volunteers of Ireland')

Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) (1997-present) *
Also known as the True IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann (Gaelic for Volunteers of Ireland).
Does not recognize Belfast Agreement.

Irish National Liberation Army


Protestant Supremacists (Ulster)

Ulster Defence Association (UDA) (1971-present) **
Also called the "Ulster Freedom Fighters," or UFF.
On February 22, 2003, announced a "complete and utter cessation" of all acts of violence for one year. It said it will review its ceasefire every three months.

Splinter group:

Red Hand Defenders (1998-present) **
UDA splinter group. Opposes ceasefire.

Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) (May 1966-present)
Very closely linked with the Red Hand Commandos (1972-present).

Ulster Defense Force (UVP) **

Loyalist Volunteer Force (disbanded)

Orange Volunteers

[soddim]

SASless,

This is not the place to debate the IRA and we Brits are so pleased that you chaps now see terrorists in their true light that we can probably forgive the years of funding from USA.

I was not tarring you all with the same brush - merely pointing out the lack of continuity in the American history of dealing with terrorism.

[Oggin Aviator]

School bullies get the biggest shock when someone actually fights back - they are all cowards at heart. The stand the US has taken since 911 has had the same effect - look at the changes in policy of some of the other middle eastern states. Its all very well for the more liberal to spout PC bull**** and pamper to other people's sensibilities but when they start bombing you or flying aeroplanes into buildings it is obvious these liberal policies are not working. Give them a bit of their own medicine I say, it is the only way they will change.

As Bush said - you are with us or you are not. They (the Spams) are not out to make friends where the defence of their country is concerned .... and the best form of defence is attack. I'm not a liberal and I'm with SASless on this one, even as a Brit, and even though I'm no fan of TB either. And I'm not getting into a long winded arguement about it either.

[SASless]

Soddim.....

From one of my earlier posts....


"This is the first President in the past 20-30 years that has taken a proactive position on those that mean us harm....that includes his father when he was President. The philosophic shift by this "Cowboy" to consider Terrorists as enemies and not criminals is the first time we have begun to use effective strategies againt them. That too angers the Liberals....they cannot accept the fact that the past way of looking at terrorism was wrong. "

Is that not what you keep saying...but in my words....The Jimmy Carters, the Bill Clintons....even Ronald Reagan to some extent and even Bush the Father did not take such an agressive stance. Reagan came close....but he was dealing with trying to end the Cold War....once the Soviet Union fell...and their support of terrorist organizations dried up...as well as to Cuba...the world political climate changed too.

Reagan did send our SEALs after the Achille Laruo hijackers and landed them in Catania...only to have the Italians turn them loose. Another case of worrying about what our friends think rather than doing what was right. That was a very tense time.

[soddim]

SASless,

I too am pleased that we have a new approach to terrorism from the USA and I admire the committment to that task. However, I think you have to acknowledge that the gung-ho approach to dealing with the problem, including the invasion of foreign territory, might not provide a one-size-fits-all solution.

In the case of Iraq it gave regime change that was long overdue but it has probably cost TB his job - I hope so because he lied to us in order to honour his pledge of support for your leader.

In dealing with Iran and with Hezbollah/Syria I hope some more flexible doctrine will be employed because I have no wish to live through another World war.

It is also of interest that today's news includes the payoff to Pakistan in the shape of the F-16. I wonder how long it will be before we realise that in supplying our weapons to that region we risk causing far more bloodshed than terrorists ever caused.

[JessTheDog]

There needs to be a framework of international laws adhered to by all that govern the relationship between nations. If these are ignored by the US and UK in the invasion of Iraq (an odious regime but one that was no strategic threat and that had no ties to Al Qaeda) then the Chinese can happily hop over the Strait into Taiwan using the pre-empitive strike argument.

[DP Harvey]

For what its worth, despite this revelation on Channel 4, I think the Labour Party will retain its majority and stay in power. However, due to the electoral pressure that will surely be applied to Bliar and his questionable leadership regarding Iraq, the swing away from Labour will be huge. As a result, he will be viewed as a liability in the next election (2010). Therefore he will lose the leadership of the party this autumn, thus providing Labour the time needed to attempt to win back their support. Gordon Brown has been noticeably mute on the subject of Iraq. He's the next PM.

[SASless]

No greater risk than Russia providing top line fighter aircraft to India....remember....the "Cowboy" said you are with us or against us in this fight. The Pakistani's so far have been with us. That how it goes...either you are in...or you are out.....like playing a game of stud poker, table stakes ,and you cannot fold.

[ORAC]

A bit of thread creep I fear.

[JessTheDog]

Back to the topic, with an article from the Guardian. We have a serial liar with a personality disorder as prime minister but everyone knows that now anyway!

MI6, Jack Straw, defence staff: Blair ignored them all

His public assertions on Iraq were at odds with what he was told in private

John Ware
Saturday March 26, 2005
The Guardian

I was recently speaking to a former senior civil servant about the prime minister's relationship with the truth. "Has he got one?" he asked. He was deadly serious.
Because of the way Tony Blair made the case for war with Iraq, quite a lot of people have begun to think the relationship is tenuous. The suggestion that he found in the attorney general a lawyer who fortuitously told him that what he wanted to do was legal adds to the perception. Blair himself denies anyone was deceived.

It would be fairer, perhaps, to ask why some of his claims in public during the build-up to war, when compared to what was going on in private, show up inconsistencies that more than two years on have still to be explained.
Central to this question is a meeting on July 23 2002. The minutes were taken by Blair's private secretary, and were not to be discussed with anyone not on the circulation list. This excluded most cabinet ministers.

The prime minister was at a crossroads. Having told the White House he wouldn't "budge" in his support for regime change, he had sought to persuade the president at their summit in April that, in return for British troops, Bush should seek as much support as possible through the UN for invasion, if that's what it came to.

By July, the neocons had chipped away at the president's flirtation with multilateralism. Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, and Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, had returned from separate visits to the US and were reporting that an invasion was inevitable.

Would the prime minister continue with his commitment to the Americans and risk a huge split within the parliamentary Labour party; or would he pull out and risk damage to the alliance?

Dearlove reported that the "facts and the intelligence" were being "fixed" by the Americans "round the policy", meaning not that they were inventing the intelligence on WMD, but that they were trawling around for intelligence to support the decision President Bush had already made to replace the Iraqi regime. Did something similar happen here?

People close to Blair have told me that whenever he was invited to rethink his commitment to Bush, he closed down the conversation. Following the July 23 meeting, he redoubled his efforts to get Bush to go through the UN, in part to make it palatable to the PLP - provided the UN did not dictate the terms or timing of an invasion.

His problem was that British public opinion was lagging far behind the rapidly advancing American military timetable. The intelligence case had to be built up, in order to convince the public that the removal of Saddam Hussein was worth British troops dying for.

Prior to July 23, the prime minister had been told the intelligence on Saddam still having weapons of mass destruction was thin. The joint intelligence committee, described it as "patchy" and "sporadic" and the defence and overseas secretariat said "our intelligence is poor". Two-thirds of MI6's intelligence on Iraq in 2002 had been coming from just two main sources.

A draft dossier summarising the intelligence for the public had been postponed the previous March, partly because it was not convincing - though Blair flatly denied this at the time. We now know that the day after it was postponed, Peter Ricketts, the Foreign Office's political director, had penned his thoughts for Jack Straw to pass on to the prime minister: "I am relieved that you decided to postpone publication ... even the best of Iraq's WMD programmes ... have not, so far as we know, been stepped up."

On July 23, Jack Straw again said he was not convinced Iraq posed a threat sufficient to warrant an invasion, having previously put this in writing to the prime minister. Straw thought the case was "thin".

But Blair's commitment to the president was unshakeable. Following the meeting, MI6 revisited its handful of main sources, urging them to go out and get everything they could. The driving force for this was presentation. There was to be a new dossier.

In August came four reports that were influential. One was from an MI6 source who had previously reported reliably on non-WMD issues but who had been tasked to find out what he could about weapons. Back came what turned out to be the nonsense about Saddam's ability to deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes. The JIC took this as confirmation that Saddam did actually have chemical and biological weapons.

When MI6 interviewed the source after the war, he is said to have denied ever having sent his message in the terms in which it had been reported.

The political imperative set by July 23 had a further disastrous consequence midway through the drafting of the dossier. A new source, who MI6 now suspect was in financial difficulties and may have spun a yarn for money, claimed for the first time positively to have details of the locations of chemical agent production. Again, there was no time to get collateral because the prime minister had set a deadline for the dossier's presentation to parliament, which he was about to specially recall.

A reliable source concludes that, as a result of the July 23 prime ministerial summit, "there was a direct cause and effect" between the arrival of last-minute uncorroborated intelligence and the political imperative set by Blair in order to keep his commitment to Bush.

It's now clear that the JIC lost its critical faculties by failing to spot that the intelligence was being fixed around that policy, much as the Americans were doing. The committee had allowed itself to become sucked into helping Blair make the case for war.

Yet if the JIC gave these new, meagre, intelligence pickings credibility beyond their merit, Blair went a step further in his foreword to the dossier by asserting the intelligence was "beyond doubt", reinforced in parliament by his assertion that the intelligence picture was "extensive, detailed and authoritative". It was nothing of the sort, and we know from Lord Butler's review that he had been told of its inherent weaknesses.

Was the fervour of Blair's belief in weapons such that he did not recognise these weaknesses? Or, did he deliberately hide them because, as Robin Cook says, he was committed to the Americans?

Blair had also been told by the attorney general of the risks he ran in going to war without the explicit support of the UN security council. To this day, these caveats have not been disclosed to parliament or even the cabinet.

In judging the truthfulness of the prime minister on Iraq, the central question remains: how he reconciles what he said in public with what he knew in private.

[BEagle]

But will enought people vote against the lying $hite and his slimy cohorts at the next election to push them out of office?

I fear not, very regrettably.