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Here at the lake we all know the anti terror league headed by Clark, the FBI and CIA informed president bush there were no wmd’s long before he attacked Iraq
the guardian breaks the story! that blair was informed as well;
Days before the invasion of Iraq, the British government received intelligence that Saddam Hussein might be unable to use his chemical weapons, the official inquiry into the war was told today. And despite claims at the time by Tony Blair, intelligence about what Saddam was up to in the run up to the war was "patchy".
"patchy" is hardly the word here, the proper word would be "manufactured";
Questioned by the panel of the Iraq inquiry, Foreign Office officials said they believed Saddam’s nuclear programme had been dismantled and they had
no evidence
of his trying to supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.
YUP, notice that phrase I emboldened there, "no evidence"
check out my next bold;
Sir William Ehrman, the Foreign Office’s director of international security at the time, yesterday revealed that ministers were repeatedly warned over the limits of intelligence on Iraq.
see that phrase, "repeatedly warned"?
yet nobody is in jail
now check out the public record for how Blair reacted;
Yet Blair that month described Saddam’s banned weapons programme as "active, detailed and growing" and said the picture emerging was "detailed and authoritative".
this is a bold faced lie, he knew as a FACT the evidence was at best suspect, yet the war monger goes on international television to INSIST the FALSE data was "authoritative"
let’s HOPE england has the BALLS Obama cut off for himself in abeyance to the Cheney/bush treason brokers in war
now how damming is THIS?
In the government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons, published that month, Blair wrote that he believed intelligence assessments had established "beyond doubt" that Saddam was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons – an assertion repeated up to the invasion.
YUP, "beyond doubt" when there was nothing BUT "doubt"
check out this RIDICULOUS "defense" for these war crimes;
However, Ehrman said that the intelligence warnings had not made any difference to the case for war. "I don’t think it invalidated the point about the programmes he had. It was more about use," he said.
now what do you suppose this moron means by "it was more about use"?
HOW COULD HE USE THEM IF THEY DIDN’T EXIST, IDIOT?!
35 Comments
Although it was feared that the panel would not be impartial, it looks like lots of the truth is going to come out. More than a few in the US that conspired with Blair in order to launch an illegal war of aggression in Iraq must be extremely worried these days. Good.
It will be interesting to see what happens. It is the worst crime there is, but the U.N. Security council members are accomplices for voting for it. I doubt they are capable of prosecuting themselves.
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/19/tony-blair-loses-eu-presidency-bid-belgiums-van-rompuy-wins-job/
I was wondering why Tony didn’t get the Job.
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/Blair-knew-iraq-wmd-war/
Any bets Tony will be found guilty of misleading the public? But will he be Prosecuted? The American Press will avoid this story. Just as all the Bushies will now avoid England.
If Tony has to go to Court though and answer questions Obama gets embarrassed that we have not held Bush accountable.
Tony was Bill Clinton’s best bud he was thought to be a Liberal. I’m guessing Tony and his wife have lost a lot of friends.
I did not know he was considered a liberal when clinton was in office
thc, this is going so much more expansive then I ever hoped, I am thinking it’s pretty clear tony is going super down
they blame him for the war, for the economy, for being the sub servant to bush, I really think they want their pound of flesh
I guess even the his colleques have some integrity, unlike either the republivans or the democrats on this side of that pond
Yes he was a liberal in the Bill Clinton tradition but if you recall that was Liberalism then.
Under the British system this inquiry is what? I think its a hearing to decide what to charge him with but I don’t know what the next step is?
I don’t know what an inquiry means but I suspect it’s a little more important then a grand jury hear or “investigation” here
a grand jury just about always brings down the charges and lets the courts decide
an “investigation” almost never brings down charges, instead they usually supply cover up
of course I’m painting a broad brush that is clearly incorrect at times
I think the UK inquire is a combination of the two
The inquiry is not to decide who is guilty of what and no charges will be laid by the inquiry members. Its purpose is to have the truth disclosed as to what really happened in the lead up to the attack on Iraq. The inquiry will provide the documentation that others could use eventually for the laying of charges.
Videos, transcripts, or watch it live.
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/
thanx blue
have good holidays!
Very interesting. Thanks perris, et al
Great diary, perris. Let’s hope Blair takes some Americans down with him if gets convicted.
You’re welcome…great site that is. Hope you are having a nice day.
Cool! Thanks Blue
ok, this is very hard to take
do you see that there?
tin foil hat time and I’m sorry but it is hard to believe they weren’t prepared for an attack if she was already talking about Iraq the very same day we were attacked on the ive of september
let me rephrase that;
it’s IMPOSSIBLE to believe it
clark told the president in no uncertain terms, clinto told bush in no uncertain terms, the cia told the president in no uncertain terms, if we were going to be attacked it would come from afghanistan
this brings my heart that heavy feeling again and the tears swell
it gets worse, condi even admits what I am saying;
I am reliving the attack tonight as I write this entry;
want to hear something really scary?
even with all this comming out, it’s not the half of it, this actaully represents a cover up;
g’night all
have a read of that article, it’s incredibly unsettling, first finding out with no doubt the adminstration was prepared only hours after the attack with an approach to Iraq even though they knew the attack came from afghanistan
but then to find out these devastating exposures actually represent a cover up, just imagine what they are keeping from us
it’s going to be very hard to sleep
Thanks, perris. Recommended. Excellent diary and comments. perris, if you’re still awake, here is some great news (for a change). h/t to a wise person I know.
That is very good news indeed aq, a shame they have to do obama’s work thoug isn’t it
and imagine the uproar when they take cheney.rove.rumsfeld, wolfowit, rice as soon as they keave the states, it might start a war
Brown does not like Tony why is his government backing this? The Conservative minority Party hates Tony they could bury Labour with this? Or are Brown and the Conservatives protecting Bush?
You’re welcome.
Brown tried to prevent the inquiry from ever happening and then he tried to make it a secret one. Not liking Tony is immaterial considering that Brown would have been one of the politicians who knew and therefore helped bring about an illegal war of aggression. He isn’t protecting Tony so much as he is trying to protect himself.
good info blue, keeps it all in some kind of perspective
Plans to invade Iraq were being made by the US and the UK throughout 2002. This information has actually been out there for years. The Downing Street Memos exposed it in May 2005. The “spikes of activity” mentioned in the letter below was the bombing of Iraq’s planes and infrastructure for a year before the invasion. As you are emotional drained, you might want to wait a day or two before you read the memos. Powell was part of the deception and he lied when he appeared at the UN with his pictures and vial.
***************
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL – UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
“The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work. ”
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html
by Russ Baker
“Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.””
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/11-04-04/discussion.cgi.4.html
it’s the very reason, the only reason he ran for president, he is a slackard and while he might have heard “presidentin is hard work” he never thought that would apply to him, why “college is hard work” too but he never worked at that either did he…unless you can count cheer leading as hard work
he ran to have war, to be “a war president” and the fact that only hours after we were attacked by a country he knew with no doubt was not involved, he wanted to attack them anyway is just mind boggling
you know, most of this information is well known by us dfh’s, which means we’ve seen this before only from differant sources, this is not “real new” it’s just differant source new
Official this time with disclosures to the UK inquiry. Easy for the powers that be to write off and ignore the alternative press and its bloggers. Not so easy to pretend that the same information given at this inquiry is false. No dfhs there..’g’.
He wanted to prove he was tougher and smarter than daddy. Failed at that like everything else he did.
perris, thanks for keeping this issue alive. we need accountability. impossible they have gotten away with so much Blair and Bushco and are still wandering about unfettered. And Obama who didn’t have to choose cover-up but heartbreakingly did.
in my gut I knew that there were no wmds. if i knew and millions of us knew, what horror to see Congress voting and led down the garden path, as well as media. i heard ted koppell admit on tv once he was so convinced that iraq had wmds and I shook my head. was the paranoia and propaganda that good?
at times I thought the Dems went along hoping Bush would hang himself on his wrongness. let him have his awesomely wrong-headed tack and this will show him up. how craven if they did. and how utterly wrong-headed of them. And evil and party-narcissistic.
I recommend the movie IN THE LOOP. It shows the insanity of the “in the loop” people of Britain and the US frantically running about, lost to the game, without a second for moral consideration, trying to make the political will of their respective bosses happen. It is an ugly GAME, and opportunities — that is, CRISES — are a part of the game to be pounced on and manipulated for the political amoral will.
Anything at all can be puffed up into a rationale. That movie makes use of the “Curve Ball” character to be given great weight. In the movie that character ends up a last minute total invention, to be presented to UN as evidence for war.
But war criminals write their books, they go on tv, or their daughters do, or whomever, or on dancing with the stars, and the media honors and respects them, solicits their further lies. and they keep raking in a great part of he blood money they created for their top 1% cronies.
will the United States watch other countries assert morality, fight the hard fight for accountability, but not go there, juat as the US doesn’t offer universal health care, either. It is not that we are as bad as other countries, now. It is a matter of us being WORSE.
What a travesty all around. We gotta fight the learned helplessness from so much insane evil from our leadership that has been normalized by the media and the numb denial of so much of the citizenry.
And the grotesque evil of waging “proxy wars”. Choosing countries and then playing out the global political game letting civilians of that country die, pouring gasoline on the fire of ethnic tension, destroying the infrastructure, the natural environments, gutting their civilizations to make a global political militarized outpost for ourselves. Taxpayer money for destabilization purposes or all out genocidal wars.
We have got to stop enabling gross criminality of our leadership.
here’s what I knew, and I posted exactly this before the war, during the run up;
“with our satalites we can count the hair on a mans arm, if there are wmd’s capable of attacking this country we know where they are, if they tried to move them we knew they tried and we knew whre they went”
there was never any doubt what so ever that they knew there were no wmds
Hard to face down the depth of so much evil. Did the consequences of this get considered and dismissed or were they so morally imbecilic and stupid to the vast scope of destruction they were unleashing?
I wanted to focus it all on Bushco… but the MIC keeps on chugging like the energizer bunny. And the carpetbagging corporations. And I keep hearing the phrase “proxy wars” which is chilling.
cheney had prior experience understandng he could get everyone to make believe what he did was a good thing
under ford cheney made up crap about russia to undermine nixon’s detante, we found out about the lies yet cheney still had a career in politics
he used that experience to understand figure out how to get away with it all