2.6 million word Chilcot report into Iraq War is published

[Blackleaf]

What people tend to forget is that the majority of the British people supported the Iraq War and, just two years later in 2005, Blair was re-elected.

Writing inThe Guardian about the Chilcot report on Tony Blair’s decision to be George W. Bush’s poodle in the invasion and occupation of Iraq,whistleblower Katherine Gun zeroes in on some questions that still remain for her:


Back in early 2003, Tony Blair was keen to secure UN backing for a resolution that would authorise the use of force against Iraq. I was a linguist and analyst at GCHQ when, on 31 Jan 2003, I, along with dozens of others in GCHQ, received an email from a senior official at the National Security Agency. It said the agency was “mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN security council (UNSC) members”, and that it wanted “the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises”.

In other words, the US planned to use intercepted communications of the security council delegates. [...]

I was furious when I read that email and leaked it. Soon afterwards, when the Observer ran a front-page story: “US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war”, I confessed to the leak and was arrested on suspicion of the breach of section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. I pleaded not guilty and, assisted by Liberty and Ben Emmerson QC, offered a defence of necessity – in other words, a breach of the law in order to prevent imminent loss of human life. This defence had not and, to my knowledge, has still not, been tested in a court of law. [...]
We know a lot more now than we knew before, but what about the email I leaked? Who did the NSA talk to in the UK to OK it? Did it talk to anyone? How did an NSA official feel bold enough to write to UK civil servants anticipating their cooperation in an attempt to undermine the UN’s diplomatic processes, in a secret effort to garner information to secure “results favourable to US goals”? How far did the surveillance operation proceed? Whose communications did they intercept and record? What, if anything did they discover and did they use any information they may have gathered?

Was this email sent to other organisation or agencies besides GCHQ?

It seems reasonable to ask why this crucial information was not included in the Chilcot inquiry.



Katherine Gun leaves Bow Street Magistrates Court on November 27, 2003, in London. Gun was arrested that March on charges of violating the U.K.'s Official Secrets Act. She was working for the Government Communications Headquarters, a security agency dealing with signals intelligence, and leaked an email from the National Security Agency that sought GCHQ to pass along intercepted messages from members of the U.N. Security Council in order to determine how they might vote regarding the Bush's administration's push for an invasion of Iraq.

There's a film to be made about her, starring Natalie Dormer.

 

[gopher]

What people tend to forget is that the majority of the British people supported the Iraq War and, just two years later in 2005, Blair was re-elected.

Same thing with traitor Bush. Eventually the Brits came to their senses as did the USA people elected new blood into office once the truth about that stupid war came to light.

 

[tay]

Blair genuinely believed the invasion of Iraq was the right decision - and he still does.

[quotePS: Is it possible you could post stories without polluting you point with pictures as well?

What for? News articles do tend to be accompanied by pictures.[/QUOTE]



We know who the people are without their pics. And if we really want to see them again you can just post the story and at the end put


pics above the link....

 

[Blackleaf]

What for? News articles do tend to be accompanied by pictures.

We know who the people are without their pics. And if we really want to see them again you can just post the story and at the end put


pics above the link....[/QUOTE]

Bollocks.

Same thing with traitor Bush. Eventually the Brits came to their senses as did the USA people elected new blood into office once the truth about that stupid war came to light.

Blair wasn't kicked out of office. He never lost an election. He voluntarily stepped down in 2007.

 

[tay]

The Chilcot report has not called Blair a war criminal.

I also don't see why the anti-Iraq War lot are all focusing their anger on Blair. There were other people involved who would have provided Blair with intelligence and the like, such as the then Foreign Sectretary Jack Straw, yet people ignore all the others involved and just direct that anger at Blair.

And I also reckon that had there been no war in Iraq many of those now complaining about the war would instead have complained that we weren't taking any action against Saddam.

Yes others agreed with Bush to invade Iraq but Blair could have shown leadership and wisdom and urged No to an invasion.....

The Chilcot Report has been made public. Yet Tony Blair And George W. -- who claimed to stand for truth, justice and the American Way -- are enjoying their retirements. Gerry Caplan writes (link is external):

The invasion of Iraq never was about Saddam or his fictional weapons of mass destruction. Saddam had nothing whatever to do with 9/11 or al-Qaeda and had no WMDs. Look, if I knew that, how could Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair not have known?

What did they want, those two BFFs? Mr. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the neocons, as far as anyone can figure, mostly wanted to show the world that America could not be disrespected by a two-bit Middle East despot like Saddam. That refusal to abide America being humiliated was at the very heart of neoconservatism. For his part, Mr. Blair was consumed with being America’s most faithful lapdog. He needed Mr. Bush to know he could always be counted on, no questions asked. “I will be with you, whatever,” Mr. Blair wrote Mr. Bush.

In their names, crimes were committed:

In the hierarchy of the world’s international crimes, the top three are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It’s hardly in question that the Americans and British committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq. So what penalties are their leaders paying?

Why, the same penalty all Western leaders pay for their villainy. As Henry Kissinger did for his many crimes against humanity, from Chile to Indonesia to Bangladesh. He’s now a mentor on world affairs to Hillary Clinton – the non-reckless presidential candidate. Or Ronald Reagan, who backed sadistic terrorist groups across Central America and worked closely with the apartheid regime in South Africa. He’s now totally mythologized, the revered hero of the Republican Party.

The International Criminal Court, which the Bush administration always viewed with open contempt and which even now the United States refuses to join, is clearly not for the likes of high-profile American and British leaders. The enormity of their crimes is irrelevant. Just as Wall Street is too big to fail, so they are too big to arrest. For both, impunity is their ultimate entitlement.

Bush and Blair will never see the interior of the International Criminal Court. But they're hoping to enter the Halls of Mythology.

 

[Danbones]

Hey, I was only kidding when I said we should have some shootings to bury this in the news cycle
i should also have said stabbings, hackings, and truckings too

 

[Blackleaf]

Yes others agreed with Bush to invade Iraq but Blair could have shown leadership and wisdom and urged No to an invasion.....

The Chilcot Report has been made public. Yet Tony Blair And George W. -- who claimed to stand for truth, justice and the American Way -- are enjoying their retirements. Gerry Caplan writes (link is external):

The invasion of Iraq never was about Saddam or his fictional weapons of mass destruction. Saddam had nothing whatever to do with 9/11 or al-Qaeda and had no WMDs. Look, if I knew that, how could Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair not have known?

What did they want, those two BFFs? Mr. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the neocons, as far as anyone can figure, mostly wanted to show the world that America could not be disrespected by a two-bit Middle East despot like Saddam. That refusal to abide America being humiliated was at the very heart of neoconservatism. For his part, Mr. Blair was consumed with being America’s most faithful lapdog. He needed Mr. Bush to know he could always be counted on, no questions asked. “I will be with you, whatever,” Mr. Blair wrote Mr. Bush.

In their names, crimes were committed:

In the hierarchy of the world’s international crimes, the top three are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It’s hardly in question that the Americans and British committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq. So what penalties are their leaders paying?

Why, the same penalty all Western leaders pay for their villainy. As Henry Kissinger did for his many crimes against humanity, from Chile to Indonesia to Bangladesh. He’s now a mentor on world affairs to Hillary Clinton – the non-reckless presidential candidate. Or Ronald Reagan, who backed sadistic terrorist groups across Central America and worked closely with the apartheid regime in South Africa. He’s now totally mythologized, the revered hero of the Republican Party.

The International Criminal Court, which the Bush administration always viewed with open contempt and which even now the United States refuses to join, is clearly not for the likes of high-profile American and British leaders. The enormity of their crimes is irrelevant. Just as Wall Street is too big to fail, so they are too big to arrest. For both, impunity is their ultimate entitlement.

Bush and Blair will never see the interior of the International Criminal Court. But they're hoping to enter the Halls of Mythology.

The Chilcot Report itself doesn't call Blair a war criminal.

It's not defending Blair, but it doesn't say he is a war criminal.

 

[Danbones]

as we just saw with hitlaries email scandals, and election rigging scandals:
there will be know proper exposure or justice in the upper echelons

those pathetic pedephile dAshbuggs stick together like gloo

 

[tay]

Iraqi Woman Uses Chilcot Report in War Crimes Lawsuit Against George W. Bush

Inder Comar, Saleh's lawyer, explained, "Nuremberg held that domestic immunity was not a defense to allegations of international aggression. Everything the Germans did was legal under the law. We are asking the Ninth Circuit to reject the application of domestic immunity in this case, in line with the holdings of Nuremberg."

On July 22, Saleh urged the Ninth Circuit to take judicial notice of portions of the Chilcot Report, which makes factual conclusions about the run-up to the Iraq War. A court can take judicial notice of a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute and can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot be reasonably questioned. That includes public records, such as reports issued by a commission of inquiry.

Here are four of the excerpts from the report that Saleh has submitted to the court for judicial notice:

24. President Bush decided at the end of 2001 to pursue a policy of regime change in Iraq.

68. On 26 February, 2002, Sir Richard Dearlove, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, advised that the US Administration had concluded that containment would not work, was drawing up plans for a military campaign later in the year, and was considering presenting Saddam Hussein with an ultimatum for the return of inspectors while setting the bar "so high that Saddam Hussein would be unable to comply."

74 Mr. [UK Foreign Secretary Jack] Straw's advice of 25 March proposed that the US and UK should seek an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to re-admit weapons inspectors. That would provide a route for the UK to align itself with the US without adopting the US objective regime change. This reflected advice that regime change would be unlawful.
89. Sir Richard Dearlove reported that he had been told that the US had already taken a decision on action – "the question was only how and when;" and that he had been told it intended to set the threshold on weapons inspections so high that Iraq would not be able to hold up US policy.
​

The report includes copies of notes between Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which they discussed the invasion of Iraq as early as October 2001.

Eight months before the invasion of Iraq, Blair wrote to Bush, saying "I will be with you, whatever." In July 2002, Blair had told Bush that removing Hussein from power would "free up the region" even though Iraqis might "feel ambivalent about being invaded."

The report concluded that Hussein posed no imminent threat on March 20, 2003, the date the US and the UK invaded Iraq. It also noted that a majority of the United Nations Security Council favored continuing UN monitoring and inspections.

The UN Charter, which was created by the countries of the world in 1945 to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," prohibits the use of military force except in self-defense or with Security Council approval. Neither of these two conditions was present before the US-UK invasion of Iraq. Iraq did not pose an imminent military threat to any UN member country on March 19, 2003, and the Security Council did not approve the invasion.

A "crime against peace" is defined by the Nuremberg Charter as "planning, preparation, initiation or waging a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing." The US-UK war against Iraq was a war of aggression.

Iraqi Woman Uses Chilcot Report in War Crimes Lawsuit Against George W. Bush

 

[tay]

Newly leaked emails show how a key U.K. architect of the Iraq war expressed relief that the “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union would reduce media coverage of the devastating results of an inquiry into the United Kingdom’s role in the the war.

On July 4, former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw emailed former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss the upcoming release of the Chilcot Report– a document detailing the British government’s inquiry. The report probed, among other things, the depth of private British commitment and support for the American-led war in Iraq.

In anticipation of coming press coverage, Straw asked Powell to review a statement in a Word document he drafted. He wrote that the “only silver lining of the Brexit vote is that it will reduce medium term attention on Chilcot — thought it will not stop the day of publication being uncomfortable.”

pics

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13...-that-brexit-distracted-from-u-k-war-inquiry/

 

[MHz]

Summation. The petro dollar had to be reinstalled for oil sales or the rest of the world would have followed suit.