Iraq War Inquiry, Day 13

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Iraq – Phase Four, Fissiparous and Catastrophic Success!!

Blair’s critics are asking the wrong questions

All the talk is of WMD, lies and the decision to go to war. But the Chilcot inquiry is uncovering a much bigger scandal

Snip

One is a recollection from my own private meeting with Sir John Chilcot, some weeks ago, as part of his meticulous trawl through the people he thought might have something to add or suggest. He told me then, as he reminds each witness now, that the inquiry team has already received and sifted through thousands of documents, many of them with the top level of classification. This means that some of the questioning is much less innocent than it sounds.

One should recall here that the removal of the sovereign government of Iraq left the invaders with the full moral responsibility for the country in the immediate postwar period, a responsibility given legal force by UN Resolution 1438. What was to happen after the war was no detail to be tacked on after a military campaign, but a major strategic question that would affect that country and the future of the whole region. It was reasonable to expect that massive effort would go into planning that future.

Listening to the questioners at the inquiry, and particularly Sir Roderic Lyne, it seems to me they are asking some uncomfortable questions about the resources and co-ordination that were put into Phase Four…>>>>>

And right the writer is except I wouldn’t place it as bigger but very equal to everything connected with this Historic Debacle of Death and Destruction that will affect the coming decades!!

This directly below is the start of a running description transcript as the inquiry is being held:

Sir Jeremy Greenstock at the Iraq war inquiry

Greenstock criticised the way the CPA operated in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. He said that he was warned before he arrived that he would find the adminstration “dysfunctional” and he said this turned out be true. He suggested that Paul Bremer, the American in charge, was partly to blame because he refused to take advice, but he also said there was a wider problem caused by the failure of the American military to liaise properly with the civilian administration. American leadership was “fissiparous”…>>>>>

Now there are times, though from what I can find or hear if streaming, where a few have actually praised the U.S., mostly as to the Military personal, but those do seem rare occurrences.

Iraq inquiry: in search of the pro-war voices

As Sir John Chilcot continues his inquiry into the Iraq conflict, Channel 4 News online discovers pro-war voices are now a rare breed.

Apart from Tony Blair himself, it is increasingly difficult to find people who were pro-Iraq war in 2003 and remain so today. MPs who voted for the war declined to comment to Channel 4 News online and figures in the arts world, previously outspoken in favour of removing Saddam, were conspicuously quiet.

The former prime minister has said the “threat to the region” posed by Saddam Hussein was enough to convince him it was right to attack, and that he stands by his decision.

Snip

Hilal Chalabi came to the UK in the 1960s and could not return under Saddam Hussein’s regime because he was accused of being a communist. He has campaigned for the Union of Iraqi Democrats.

He said: “I supported the invasion, but I wasn’t very happy after that because there was no planning for post-invasion….>>>>>

Saddam lawyer seeking consent to prosecute former UK PM Blair for war crimes

Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer on Saturday asked the British attorney general for consent to prosecute former prime minister Tony Blair {official profile; JURIST news archive} for violations of the Geneva Conventions {materials}. Giovanni di Stefano, who represents former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz {JURIST news archive}, sent a letter {text, DOC} asking for consent to prosecute Blair after Blair said in a BBC interview aired Sunday that he would have invaded Iraq {BBC report} even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. According to the letter:…>>>>>

Blair misled us on Iraq, says ex-DPP

Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, accuses the former PM of ignoring public opinion to “mislead and cajole” the British people into a deadly war.

In an article far more damning than the evidence so far given to the Iraq inquiry by ex-civil servants, the former chief prosecutor criticises Blair for engaging “in an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush”, and taking Britain to war “on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible”.

Macdonald attacks the former prime minister as “weak”, saying his “fundamental flaw was his sycophancy towards power”….>>>>>

Chilcot censors Iraq inquiry’s live broadcast

Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s evidence on political mistakes after invasion is interrupted

Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq inquiry, cut the live video of today’s hearings, raising fears that he is suppressing evidence on grounds of embarrassment rather that any damage to national security.

“I interrupted the broadcast because of a mention of sensitive information,” he said after hearing evidence from Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s UN ambassador before the invasion and special envoy in Baghdad afterwards.

The broadcast was stopped as Greenstock was speaking about how the US drew up plans on the basis of a “best-case scenario” in Iraq. Immediately before being cut off he said: “When I talked to other members of the American team, when I talked informally to the military, to the intelligence agencies, to other people who were operating, I found a very much more gloomy prognosis of what was going on than I felt or understood ambassador Bremer [Paul Bremer, the chief US civil administrator in Baghdad] was reporting back to the Pentagon.”

Greenstock added as the broadcast was cut: “I reported these things …”

Most people following the inquiry do so by listening to it in an adjacent media room or remotely via the inquiry’s website. There is a very brief time gap between what is said in the inquiry chamber itself and what is heard via the live video feed.

A member of the audience in the inquiry chamber said that after the feed was cut Greenstock went on to say that Colin Powell, who was then secretary of state, used British intelligence reports about the situation in Iraq because they were more accurate than the more optimistic dispatches that Bremer was sending to Washington…>>>>>

From what it has been sounding like after Bremer came onto the scene was he apparently wasn’t doing a good job, or maybe he was according to the wants in the White House and then Halls of Congress, and it was being noticed by a number of people, especially coalition partners. Though according to above someone in the administration, Powell, was noticing the problem as well.

Iraq invasion ‘catastrophic success’

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a “catastrophic success”, the official inquiry into the war heard today.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK’s former special representative to Iraq, said Saddam Hussein was toppled so quickly that US and British forces were left “holding a baby without the materials for looking after it”.

He also criticised the planning of the post-invasion period, saying the operation was under-resourced and rushed.

The inquiry faced fresh questions about its openness today after the live video feed of Sir Jeremy’s evidence was halted for more than a minute for reasons of national security…>>>>>

And the huge crowds came, massing on either side of the paved highway, pushing among each other trying to get as close to the front as each could, carrying bundles of flowers wrapped in their arms to be able to throw at the conquering military forces that had invaded their land and freed them, Whoops Wrong Movie……………………

Britain was warned about Iraq’s ‘capacity for violence’

Britain was warned to be wary of attacking Iraq because its people had a huge ”capacity for violence” before the 2003 invasion, the inquiry into the war has heard.

The UK’s former ambassador to the United Nations said his Egyptian counterpart cautioned him about the dangers of launching military action against Iraq.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock said there was anger and resentment among UN officials that Britain and the United States had decided to go to war despite widespread international opposition.

He recalled that Ahmed Aboul Gheit, then Egypt’s ambassador to the UN, told him: ”You will not believe the degree of violence of which these people are capable when you come to it. So be careful what you take on.”.

He said: ”There were people who felt that we had far exceeded any possible legal or legitimate authority that we had and we were going to cause problems in the country whose history was violent and whose people would show us that they had a capacity for violence which would shake us to the core when we actually had to deal with them.” …>>>>>

Gotta stop drinking so much coffee.

Memories are so short, why many already knew that’s why they liked Saddam when he was a young man and a brutal street thug. Helped even more being related to the powers so who better to help topple the government then and place their on the payroll buddy Saddam at the top!

Entering The Language

I think we’ve just witnessed another moment which will go down in history.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the Iraq war, has just come up with a phrase which will become part of the language.

He’s told the Iraq war inquiry that the invasion was a “catastrophic success”.

Sir Jeremy explained: “That is, it would happen so quickly and Saddam’s regime would collapse so fast that we would be left holding a baby without the materials for looking after it. And that, indeed, is what happened.”

A “catastrophic success” is a classic example of an oxymoron. It’s bound to enter the language – you heard it first on Sky News….>>>>>

He might have liked that one but he missed this one “fissiparous”, ahhh that old europe queens english.

Well here’s another shot at our very distinguished rummy, the media’s love child at the time.

Donald Rumsfeld dismissed Iraq insurgents as ‘bunch of no-hopers’

Donald Rumsfeld, the former US secretary of defence, dismissed the Iraq insurgency as “a bunch of no-hopers carrying out some terrorist acts”, the Chilcot inquiry was told.

Lieutenant General John Kiszely, who was senior British military representative in Iraq from October 2004 to April 2005, told the inquiry forces faced a “security situation with a growing insurgency” but there was a “reluctance for people to call it an insurgency”.

Reconstruction efforts were also made difficult by an uncertain political situation, economic struggles and the fact that the “basic wheels of bureaucracy just did not exist”, Gen Kiszely said.

He added: “I think (US) secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld had instructed that it wasn’t to be called an insurgency.

“I think he called it a ‘bunch of no-hopers carrying out some terrorist acts’ – but it was an incipient insurgency.” …>>>>>

Diplomat urges UK to ‘avoid’ Iraq mistakes in future

Mistakes made before and after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 must not happen again, a top diplomat has said.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former UK ambassador to the UN, said the entire mission was “rushed” and did not have enough international input.

He told the Chilcot inquiry the UK was a “minor partner” and did not have enough clout to affect key decisions.

The broadcast of Tuesday’s hearing was cut off for more than a minute by its chairman on national security grounds….>>>>

Good advice above, trouble is they should have thought much more long before any invasion. The actions taken have sealed the already thought descriptions by many of what so called western powers really are, we showed and sealed their propaganda by the invasion then occupation, The next couple of decades, and probably longer as surviving children grew up in the devastation and death, at least will bear the results of this past one!