(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
But first we have the release of a scathing report from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, {46 page PDF} How we failed to get bin Laden and why it matters today
As I’ve said in a few posts, the past week of the hearings, the picture coming out was our administration then especially, and others, weren’t focused on bin Laden, al Qaeda nor the Taliban who were harboring them in Afghanistan, their almost complete focus prior to 9/11, as to that region, was a growing want to have regime change in Iraq, that became the total focus on the same day as 9/11, as has been noted by Condoleezza Rice mentioning Saddam as a possible suspect behind the 9/11 attacks or supporter of al Qaeda, which he never was.
Here is an analysis of the released report:
Report savages ‘lost opportunity’ to stop bin Laden
A report from a US senate committee has criticized the failure of Bush administration to use all available military means to pursue and capture the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden eight years ago.
Snip
But the military strategy was faulty and its failure meant a lost opportunity to defeat international terrorism.
“The decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide,” the report says.
“The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism, leaving the American people more vulnerable to terrorism, laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.”>>>>>
Millions around the World knew, as soon as the drums started beating, that Afghanistan stopped being about 9/11, bin Laden, al Qaeda and the help Afghanistan needed to rebuild their country after the promised help, never kept, following the Soviet occupation and war and the rule of the Taliban!
The World, especially Iraqi’s and the Afghans, seek answers as to why the start of this century turned so deadly and possibly turning the coming decades of into a much more Dangerous World Stage. They seek Accountability for the crimes committed, by those setting policy thousands of miles away, and all the innocent lives lost and maimed, the instability wrought with the changing of their people’s way’s of life and their countries destructions.
The British people, especially families of their fallen, have pushed for this inquiry. The American People, on the other hand, have moved on with their lives, their political infighting and games as well as their lives and apathy towards others, seeking no answers, no accountability and laying blame on others when something devastating and destructive occurs, criminal terror. Oh ya and the really important and seemingly growing new past time of some seeking their reality, even ex vice presidential candidates, on ‘Reality TV’ by doing possibly extremely dangerous stunts, and using inflammatory speak, in seeking their ‘trickle down wealth’ while America watches and holds it’s collective breath in anticipation of more to come.
The British people, now that the Inquiry has opened and more has been stated then known before, only suspected, want it to become a wide open investigation of everything, as it should, and the calls for grow!
Then Attorney General Goldsmith was ‘pinned to the wall and bullied into keeping quiet’ while the Prime Minister kept the Cabinet in the dark.
Tony Blair will be quizzed over a devastating official memo warning him that war on Iraq would be illegal eight months before he sent troops into Baghdad, it was claimed last night.
Snip
But Mr Blair refused to accept Lord Goldsmith’s advice and instead issued instructions for his long-term friend to be “gagged” and barred from cabinet meetings, the newspaper claimed. Lord Goldsmith apparently lost three stone, and complained he was “more or less pinned to the wall” in a No 10 showdown with two of Mr Blair’s most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan. Mr Blair also allegedly failed to inform the Cabinet of the warning, fearing an “anti-war revolt”….>>>>>
And so far {from link above}
Critical evidence from key figures to Chilcot inquiry
Sir Peter Ricketts “We quite clearly distanced ourselves from talk of regime change… that was not something we thought there would be any legal base for.”
Sir William Patey “We were aware of those drumbeats from Washington [about regime change]. Our policy was to stay away from that end of the spectrum.”
Sir Michael Wood “[Establishing no-fly zones over Iraq] was very controversial … The US government was very careful to avoid taking any real position on the law.”
Sir William Ehrman “We did, on 10 March, get a report that chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and Saddam hadn’t yet ordered their assembly.”
Sir Christopher Meyer “Suddenly, because of the unforgiving nature of the military timetable, we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun.”
Sir Jeremy Greenstock “I regarded our participation in the military action against Iraq in March 2003 as legal, but of questionable legitimacy.”
And the push back for all that went on has been growing:
Front Line: Stephen Claypole with a young local boy in front of a tank in Iraq
In the pre-dawn darkness of an April morning in 2003 an American C-130 Hercules transporter made a forced zig-zag descent through a potentially hostile sky and came to a screeching halt in an arc of armoured vehicles at Baghdad international airport.
On board – as well as me – was a human cargo of the first civilian administrators in post-Saddam Iraq led by Jay Garner, a retired US Army General.
Snip
They were not going to do much to overhaul Iraq’s creaking power stations. But the reality was that they were in control.
There was Larry Di Rita, one of the right-hand men of US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and later Pentagon chief spokesman; Margaret Tutwiler, a former State Department spokesman and Republican campaigner who helped to end the 2000 Florida recount impasse in George W. Bush’s favour; Dan Senor, a former White House assistant Press secretary; Emily Hands, a Downing Street Press officer; and Charles Heatly, a young Arabic-speaking British diplomat who was acting as a pair of eyes and ears for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Forget the oxygen of publicity. This was about the sarin gas of spin and ‘information operations’. It came to me that just as the Spanish-American War in 1898 had been a newspaper proprietors’ war, the invasion of Iraq was a spin doctors’ war…>>>>>
Gordon Brown urged to lift Iraq inquiry secrecy
Fears most explosive documents related to beginning of war will not be aired at Chilcot hearing
Gordon Brown is facing demands to change the rules of the Iraq inquiry this weekend amid fears that the most explosive documents explaining why Britain went to war will not be made public.
As the inquiry enters its second week, the prime minister is under pressure to make key evidence relating to secret government discussions public, including minutes showing how the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, changed his mind about the legality of the war.
The demands are made in a letter to Brown from the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, who insists that unless the lid is lifted on secrecy, the Chilcot inquiry will fail to satisfy the public’s demands for honesty…>>>>>
Iraq Inquiry bombshell: Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies
Pressured: Lord Goldsmith leaves No10 in March 2003 after talks with Blair
An explosive secret letter that exposes how Tony Blair lied over the legality of the Iraq War can be revealed.
The Chilcot Inquiry into the war will interrogate the former Prime Minister over the devastating ‘smoking gun’ memo, which warned him in the starkest terms the war was illegal.
The Mail on Sunday can disclose that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote the letter to Mr Blair in July 2002 – a full eight months before the war – telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law…>>>>>
Diary of deceit … and how the Attorney General lost three stone
Blair ‘knew WMD claim was false’
Has this Inquiry had an effect on decisions as to Afghanistan and the British presence there, as the U.S. looks to be ramping up forces in a conflict and occupations that mirrors the one many of us served in some four decades ago, Vietnam, and our Country and Military never learned the real lessons of, especially those of the previous administration and congresses and their outside of government co-conspirators, most never having served in that occupation nor even the military, it looks that way with the following Gordon Brown announcement:
Troops may begin Afghan pull-out in a year, says Gordon Brown
The Prime Minister is responding to growing public opposition to the war
Gordon Brown yesterday set out a timetable for British troops to start pulling out of war-torn Afghanistan by this time next year.
The Prime Minister responded to growing public opposition to the war by signalling that within 12 months, five of the deadliest provinces currently occupied by British and American soldiers will be returned to Afghan control.
‘It is at that point that we would look at whether there is the need for British troops,’ Mr Brown said – the first sign of a clear exit strategy after an eight-year campaign in which 235 have died and thousands more have been injured…>>>>>
While it reads as not being set in stone, it is interesting that his timetable comes just before this countries President speaks to the Nation on the new Afghanistan strategy, or will President Obama be making a similar call, we’ll know soon, and so will the Afghans.
These next couple of links and cuts I had posted with some others yesterday which seem to be leading to others coming forward in the peoples push of Accountability.
Without blame: The Chilcot Inquiry will not hold leaders to account
The inquiry into the Iraq War is not a court and no one is on trial. So said Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the inquiry, in his opening statement. He added that he was not there to determine the guilt or innocence of those responsible for the invasion of Iraq.
The object of the inquiry is simply to identify the lessons that should be learned from Iraq in order to help future UK governments who may face similar situations.
Snip
But although these are worthy objectives, they fall scandalously short of the crucial issue which millions of people in this country – myself included – believe this inquiry should be about.
With respect to Sir John, there is really no point in holding a further inquiry unless it does apportion blame, unless it does hold to account those who led us into this unnecessary, unwinnable and costly war in Iraq.
The inquiry should be the first step in a judicial process that brings those responsible for the disasters of the Iraq war before the courts – and could, as I shall explain, ultimately result in Tony Blair being indicted for war crimes…..Read the Rest of what General Sir Michael Rose writes
General Sir Michael Rose was commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. He is shortly to appear as a witness in the Karadzic war crimes trial in The Hague.
The World Waits, but more Importantly the Iraqi People Deserve Their Day in Court and Much More, as the World needs the Accountability:
Four years ago, I traveled to Iraq to talk with its besieged people. Chilcot cannot ignore them now
Four years ago this week I was kidnapped in Baghdad. My trip to Iraq had been motivated by frustration at the government’s deafness to all voices of reasoned opposition to the war in Iraq. I went to meet Iraqis to reassure them that most people in Britain did not regard them as enemies. Today, the lead-up to that war is back in the spotlight with the Chilcot inquiry. This is more than just an academic exercise to many. Anyone – in Britain, Iraq or elsewhere – who had a relative killed in the conflict will feel an intense personal need to discover the truth. They will be listening to testimony that appears to gravely undermine the official justification for going to war. They will want to learn the reaction by the then government to the advice of Middle East diplomats who knew about the conflicts within Iraqi society, conflicts that Saddam had suppressed but were always likely to explode on his removal. If you are going to war, ignorance of the probable effects on the country in the aftermath is inexcusable. Why else do you have a large diplomatic and intelligence force in the area?…>>>>>
Baghdad Garden Becomes Graveyard, Full of Grieving
An Iraqi woman at the grave of a relative behind Baghdad’s Abu Hanifa mosque, the most hallowed place of worship for Sunnis in Iraq.
BAGHDAD – In the gardens of the living and the dead, the war goes on; not so much with enthusiasm as with resignation.
Snip
Thousands of mourners throng the headstones in what only three years ago was a community garden on the banks of the Tigris River. This is a relatively new tradition in Iraq, paying respects to the dead between morning prayers and the feast held later in the day. On this one day, the garden of the dead overflows with the living.
Snip
Now this garden, known as the Martyrs of Adhamiya since it became a cemetery in 2007, is so densely packed with graves that it is often difficult to walk between the rectangular capstones that cover each one (out of reverence, no one dares tread on top). Six months ago, the authorities counted 9,000 graves, but many more have been added since. Nearly all are victims of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence of one sort or another – terroristic bombings, sectarian killings, political assassinations…>>>>>
The Pandora’s Box, of an innocent country and people, different religious sects, ancient trible communities, political ideologies, ethnicity, heritage, all living together under a U.S. supported dictator. We not only opened but totally destroyed and that it take decades to be rebuilt, if ever!
Scott Ritter: The truth of UK’s guilt over Iraq
Until Chilcot hears UN weapons inspectors’ testimony, the fiction of Britain honestly seeking a WMD smoking gun prevails
With its troops no longer engaged in military operations inside Iraq, Great Britain has been liberated politically to conduct a postmortem of that conflict, including the sensitive issue of the primary justification used by then Prime Minister Tony Blair for going to war, namely Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.
The failure to find any WMD in Iraq following the March 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of that country by US and British troops continues to haunt those who were involved in making the decision for war. The issue of Iraqi WMD, and the role it played in influencing the decision for war, is at the centre of the ongoing Iraq war inquiry being conducted by Sir John Chilcot….>>>>>
Some may want to close by reading this as posted on the 26th at the Veterans Today online News Site:
GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?
ILL INFORMED, ILL ADVISED AND ILL PREPARED MCCHRYSTAL SENDS OTHERS OFF TO WAR
You could ask, how do you get to be a General if you haven’t had one second of combat in an entire career spanning decades? Was being born the son of a General a help? Did kissing up to Dick Cheney help? Did a lifetime of telling people what they wanted to hear, no matter how stupid or what the cost, help? Do we want to turn the lives of our children over to this man, someone who is 90% politician and 10% soldier?
Where does McChrystal get his information? Does he get it from Karzai, defacto president of ten square miles of Afghanistan? Who is McChrystal planning on defeating?…>>>>>