Thing is does it need to blame people? I'd rather that instead of wasting time deciding who's fault it was they put all their effort into finding out the last details and then make up my own mind. If they find proof of a US plan to invade before and some proof that blair was in on it then I can decide myself what happened to a fair degree. I'm guessing if the committee does get to apportion blame they'll have to do it in a proper formal way, declaring all the evidence, and basically making it into a court case type deal. With the amount of stuff to get through that could take some time right?
First off, read your sources, there has been no U turn, anything interesting will still be held in private as all the interesting stuff will be sensitive information. All that article says is that Jack Straw would give as much of his testimony in public as he could without endangering British soldiers - of course we lack the security clearance to know what he considered to be a danger to those soldiers; he could decide that the contents of his lunch box were too sensitive and move the hearing to a private forum without the need to give reasons. The inquiry has no right or reason to apportion blame. Blame comes afterwards, the inquiry is only trying to uncover the truth. Blame would be a conclusion based on that truth. And we [the public] dont need a public inquiry. The overwhelming majority (probably more than 99% of the public) wont pay any mind to the inquiry beyond tabloid headlines - which is what we would get with a non public inquiry and the final result.
I'm confused about something actually. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I don't doubt every government gets up to some shady stuff, I doubt military intelligence's job is just to talk to people, so if its in private I'm assuming there will be some sensitive stuff that goes into the inquiry. How are these worked into the final report? You can't really have official secrets documents published in the tabloids.
They'll give a summary, 'Credible intelligence sources reported that Hussein probably did/did not possess WMDs' etc.
They might release some documents, protective markings can be lowered/removed if the information is no longer considered sensitive - I daresay reports on the old Iraq might qualify, or at least parts of them might.
Oh right. Isn't there a normal ten year confidentiality thing on these anyway? Be interesting what else might turn up in a few years
When the Second World War ended, did we say "ok 6 million dead Jews plus hundreds of thousands of dead allied soldiers, do we need to blame people!? Nah, we will just find out what happened and let others make up their mind". No we didn't. We found out what happened, why, then we blamed the people responsible, then we held them to account at the Nuremburg trails and the ones found guilty were hanged for war crimes! Now don't get me wrong I don't think Blair or Bush will ever be hanged or even imprison. However there is a strong case to say they should stand trial at The Hague (international criminal justice court). But again that will probably never happen. The fact is thousands of INNOCENT Iraqi civilians, woman and children, babies are now dead. Sadam wasn't attacking us, he didn't even have the capabilities to, if he wanted to, we invaded and now thousands of innocents are dead. This doesn't "just happen" this is someone’s fault! We need to find out who and hold them accountable. If a committee like this isn't allowed to apportion blame, there is no way we can even start to hold those responsible to account. I understand what you are saying, that effectively this committee's finding might allow Blair to be held to account in the 'court of public opinion', but whilst this sounds nice, this means NOTHING. Ask most people in Britain about Blair and the Iraq war, they will already tell you that they think he is responsible. Has this affected him, is he suffering by being found guilty in the court of public opinion!?! Well he is now middle east envoy for the UN (I know the irony is amazing!) and he plans for run for EU president when the position is created if the Lisbon treaty is passed http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2953045.stm So whilst many in the public already think he is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, his career is going from strength to strength. Blair and Bush (although I very much doubt anything will ever happen to hold Bush to account) need to be held accountable, if you commit crimes, if you break international law on the rules of engagement, if your actions result in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, woman and children you need to be tried and if found guilty punished! Whilst I am not deluding myself to thinking that Blair will ever stand trial, something like this is a baby step in the right direction and if it is done properly will be a good thing, but if not will just anger more people, in particular the families of the dead soldiers.
Inquiries =/= trials. Trials could be the outputs of an inquiry. In the inquiry shows that the intelligence that Blair and Bush based their decisions on was credible (by far the most likely conclusion in my opinion - faked intelligence just seems too far fetched) then I dont think either can be blamed for that. I dont think the way the war was conducted was too bad in and of itself (disregarding the isolated incidents that happen in every conflict) so there is no blame to be apportioned there. Most of the dead Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis, so they can't really be blamed for that either. I'm not sure I am seeing where these hypothetical charges can come from.
Perhaps "faked" is a strong word. But seriously, do you not remember to butler reviews!? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3892809.stm "Doubt has been cast on a "high proportion" of human intelligence sources - and so on the quality of intelligence assessments given to ministers and officials" "Information used to justify the certainty of claims to the public about Iraq's production of chemical weapons came from "a new source on trial"" "It (Irad) did not have significant, if any, stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for use, or developed plans for using them." "There was "no recent intelligence" to lead people to conclude Iraq was of more immediate concern than other countries, although its history prompted the view there needed to be a threat of force to ensure Saddam Hussein's compliance " "Intelligence only played a "limited" role in determining the legality of the war " "The impression there was "firmer and fuller" intelligence backing up the dossier was reinforced when Tony Blair told MPs on its publication day the picture painted by intelligence agencies was "extensive, detailed and authoritative" As I say, faked might be a strong term. But since the Butler review it is common knowledge that the evidence to support invading Iraq on the basis that he could attack us and had WMD's was very very weak, yet it was portrayed by Blair as very very strong. This is not my opinion but the results of an official inquiry.
Human intelligence sources are well known for being unreliable, but they are also the best source of intelligence available - it could well be that those sources provided evidence that strongly suggested that Iraq had WMDs but the sources themselves were of dubious credibility. Whether or not to trust those sources then becomes a matter of opinion.
Mate, the Butler review found that "There was "no recent intelligence" to lead people to conclude Iraq was of more immediate concern than other countries.." No intelligence (human or otherwise) to suggest that Saddam was more of a threat than any other country!!! But that didn't stop Blair from making out that we had to make a pre-emptive strike or risk being attacked! Again not my opinion or conspiracy theory, findings from an official government inquiry.
If you look at that one sentence you see a couple of problems - 'recent' a subjective term (was it defined within the report?), 'immediate' again, were the timescales for immediacy defined within the report? (yeah, ok, it pretty much quashed the 45 minute theory) 'Other countries' - surely not, Iraq were certainly more of a threat than Luxembourg or Switzerland, so what does he mean - more of a concern than countries that are cause for concern? more of a concern than other countries in the middle east?
Again from the Butler review... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3892809.stm "The inquiry is surprised ministers, officials, and intelligence agencies did not reassess the quality of intelligence as UN weapons inspectors failed to make finds in the months immediately before the war" Remember the UN did go in on a number of occasions to look for weapons, the UNs intelligence said that Saddam had no weapons, but again Blair choose to ignore the evidence of a reputable international body like the UN and instead believe things that, as you yourself said, came from very unreliable sources! Am I the only one who sees that as strange, does that not suggest to anyone else that perhaps we did not go to war because the government was genuinely worried about an attack!? "Intelligence only played a "limited" role in determining the legality of the war" Again this suggests to me that the reasons for going to war were not for the reasons we were told of potential attack "Tony Blair's policy to Iraq shifted because of 11 September, not the pace of Iraq's weapons programmes." Well, with regards to Saddams potential WMDs, I think that says it all really... Again this is all common knowledge now after the Butler review, it was all over the news when it came out. I am surprised that you don't remember and still think that we went to war because of the intelligence relating to Saddams weapons and potential to attack us. You must be one of few people who think that, certainly the majority of people in politics see the Butler review as credible.
I still reckon it was just because the US wanted the oil and we got roped in, possibly with the promise of a cut, but thats what the inquirys for so why bother argueing now over why we invaded?
Ok, so if Blair knew that Hussein had no WMDs and that there was no chance of finding anything particularly incriminating - why would he stake his political career on it? It was a fight he wouldn't have been able to win. There had to be a reason for him to send troops into Iraq (and no, America asking wouldn't have been a reason), he must have been told something that made him believe that Iraq did have WMDs or that he would find something there to soften the blow of there not being any. This is the problem with conspiracy theorists - they never look for motives. Blair was staring at a no win scenario if Hussein had no weapons - why would he choose to go down that path? It effectively killed him politically, has seriously damaged his standing in the international community (he would probably be UN Secretary General were it not for Iraq) and destroyed his legacy as Prime Minister.
Or there was another motive. There have been too many theories going on for me to be entirely convinced one way or another but we have had wars with iraq in the past. There could be a few reasons for the invasion we've never heard of
For the US there was revenge for 9/11, but for the UK, you take away the WMDs and you've got nadda. We haven't benefited from the invasion in any way that I can see.
I good tactic, when all else fails and you realise you have been shown evidence that makes your argument look weak you try to destroy the credibility of your opponent by calling him a conspiracy theorist in the hope that it will make my points look like they have just came from some over excited X-files fan, thus meaning they are not valid and you are right I guess Lord Butler must be a conspiracy theorist then!? After all I am basing most my arguments of a review that he carried out and is widely accepted in politics. This isn't conspiracy, many governments across the world through-out history have used their military to protect economic and political interests, not just defend themselves from potential or happening attacks. Why did America fight a war with Vietnam for so long, was there any chance of Vietnam attacking them or even wanting to!? Why did the UK and US fund the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran in the 70's!? List could continue, but the fact this is how government have operated and will probably continue to operate in the future. Someone once said "war is just an extension of politics". Nothing secret, nothing new, no conspiracy. But we will call it a day mate, I was happy have an intelligent debate (well as intelligent as a debate ever can be across the internet), but it appears the rest of your 'arguments' are just to be an attempt to destroy my credibility so I'll let you 'win' this one! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
