Tony Blair: WMD? Feh.

By GottaLaff

If Boy Georgie and his poodle had come out and said, "We are going to bomb the hell out of Iraq no matter what, to hell with all of you, try and stop us", then the world might have-- Oh wait. They did:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Good thing they weren't arrogant. Oh wait. They were.

It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush's staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Blair's comments were immediately denounced by critics who accused him of using false pretenses to drag Britain into an unpopular war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of allied troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Well, at least the fraudulent invasion of a sovereign country that hadn't attacked us first produced all the positive results that Bush II and Bush III had promised. Oh wait. It hasn't.

Hans Blix, who led the United Nations team of inspectors looking into the claim, said that Blair's remarks gave "the strong impression of a lack of sincerity."

"The war was sold on the weapons of mass destruction [argument], and now you . . . hear that it was only a question of a 'deployment of arguments,' " Blix told the BBC.

"It sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up, and if the fig leaf had not been there, then they would have tried to put another fig leaf there."

What a relief that there will be justice done, and those responsible for this fiasco will be appropriately punished.

Oh wait. They won't.

VIDEO: Blair, Bush protesters wear bloody masks at Iraq War inquiry

By GottaLaff

This is what showed up in my e-mail alerts today:



We need an thorough investigation of our own:

Demonstrators wearing blood-smeared masks of the former British and U.S. leaders stage a protest at the start of an official inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. [...]

Demonstrators also held banners saying "No more whitewash" - alluding to fears that the inquiry will not be fair.

Report- Leaked UK documents reveal early Bush, Blair Iraq War plans

By GottaLaff

Eventually the drip, drip, drip of reports like this will bite BushCo et al. square in the Pet Goat and land them in prison:

A leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict. [...]

Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, then head of Britain's special forces, was quoted as saying he had been "working the war up since early 2002," according to the newspaper.

As if we didn't know. Oh, some of you didn't? You trusted that the illegal, fraudulent invasion was justified? Then you most likely also believe that Sarah Palin can read.

In July 2002, Blair told lawmakers at a House of Commons committee session that there were no preparations to invade Iraq.

Findings of the new inquiry will not be published before next summer, meaning conclusions won't be known before Britain's next national election, which must be held by June 2010.

Drip, drip, drip....

UK's Iraq probe will include death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly

Now here's some conspiracy theorizing for ya! Bet our media will ignore the whole damn thing, no "looking backwards" for us!

The death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly is expected to feature in the new official inquiry into the Iraq War, on the advice of the Government’s most senior legal adviser.

Attorney General Baroness Scotland has recommended that questions raised by Dr Kelly’s death should be considered by Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry.

The intervention of Baroness Scotland comes after The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mai Pederson, a close confidante of the Government scientist, has written to the law chief.

Ms Pederson, 49, a US Air Force linguist who worked in Iraq with Dr Kelly’s weapons-inspection team, called on the Minister to include the ‘suspicious circumstances’ of his death in the long-awaited inquiry, which will have Tony Blair as a star witness.

Former MI6 chief says Britain was 'dragged' into Iraq war

By GottaLaff

But... But... but BushCo and the Rushpublics say that the intel from al-l-l-l those other countries was the same as ours, and they all pointed to bad, bad things like imminent threats and WMD. Now Nigel had to go and open his big mouth and ruin everything:

Britain was "dragged into a war in Iraq which was always against out better judgment" the former deputy head of MI6 has claimed, in a remark that will reignite the debate over political interference in the war.

The comments, made by Nigel Inkster, who was deputy director of MI6 at the time, make clear there were reservations over the war at a very senior level within the Secret Intelligence Service.

MI6 was blamed for the failure of intelligence that took Britain to war after helping produce a dossier in which Tony Blair claimed that Iraq was ready to use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The dossier, said to have been "sexed up" by Downing Street, also mentioned controversial intelligence that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Niger.

In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Mr Inkster blamed weakness at the Foreign Office for allowing Britain to get dragged into a war over which officials had serious doubts. [...]

His views on Iraq, expressed for the first time in public, may also explain why he was passed over as the head of MI6 in favour of Sir John Scarlett, who took responsibility for the dossier during the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. [...]

The Butler Report into the intelligence that took Britain to war, concluded that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", and that judgements had stretched available intelligence "to the outer limits".

So many investigations, so little time.

More fuel: Secret e-mails show Iraq dossier was 'sexed up'

By GottaLaff

Is anyone surprised? .... Anyone....? ::crickets:: Who will be the first one to finally prosecute?

Secret Whitehall emails released yesterday provide damning new evidence that the notorious dossier making the case for invading Iraq was "sexed up".

They disclose that the intelligence services were skeptical over the "iffy drafting" of government claims that Saddam Hussein could mount a missile strike on his neighbours within 45 minutes of ordering an attack.

Officials privately mocked assertions that the Iraqi president was covertly trying to develop a nuclear capability and wisecracked that perhaps he had recruited "Dr Frankenstein" to his supposed crack team of nuclear scientists.

So much for that mushroom cloud. What was that you were saying again, Ari?

The release of a series of confidential memos and emails, following a protracted Freedom of Information battle, reignited the controversy over accusations that Tony Blair's government "spun" Britain into war.

Last night both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats renewed their demands for a full public inquiry into the decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The 45-minute claim – presented to MPs in a notorious dossier on 24 September 2002, six months before military action began – was central to the Blair government's justification for war.

But a memo sent 13 days earlier by Desmond Bowen, head of the Cabinet Office defence secretariat, to John Scarlett, who was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, suggested he had grave reservations over the threat. [...]

Another memo, dated 16 September 2002, from an unnamed official, also suggests exaggerated claims were being included in the about-to-be-published report. [...]

Last night William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "This is the latest in a steady stream of damaging revelations about the events leading up to the Iraq war. These minutes shed interesting light on the process by which the caveats in the Joint Intelligence Committee's original assessment of Iraq's WMD programmes were stripped out of the dossier that was presented to Parliament and the British people." [...]

The emails: How 'sexing-up' was achieved:

11 September 2002 Desmond Bowen: "The question we have to have in the back of our mind is: 'Why now?' I think we have moved away from promoting the ideas that we are in imminent danger of attack and intend to act in pre-emptive self-defence... In looking at the WMD sections, you will clearly want to be as firm and authoritative as you can be. You will clearly need to judge the extent to which you need to hedge your judgements with, for example, 'it is almost certain' and similar caveats."

11 September 2002 Mark Sedwill: "I would expand the history of weapons inspections. It is an interesting story and would give the media a better feel for the difficulties they faced and the persistence of the Iraqi obstruction... We need a very simple table somewhere... This should be brief enough to get on to the Sky wall – ie no more than five bullets."

16 September 2002 Unnamed official (thought to be intelligence agent): "I note that the paper suggests that Saddam's biotech efforts have gone much further than we ever feared. Page 4 Bullet 4: '[Iraq] has assembled specialists to work on its nuclear programme' – Dr Frankenstein I presume? Sorry. It's getting late... We have suggested moderating the same language in much the same way on drafts from the dim and distant past without success. Feel free to try again!... Lots of 'ranges' close together – iffy drafting."

At the risk of repeating myself, what more does it take? Now that Bush and Blair are out of office, and troops are coming home, more evidence is being revealed. What excuse can anyone come up with to justify avoiding a full investigation, not just some white-washy commission?

Maybe we the people need to be a little louder with our demands.

"There was no Cabinet debate in run-up to war."

By GottaLaff

All of these revelations must, absolutely must, lead to a very thorough, very big, major, supercolossal public investigation that will eventually lead to big, major, supercolossal, public prosecutions:

The Government is refusing to release minutes of Cabinet meetings before the Iraq War because they would reveal there was no discussion on the issue.

Details surrounding two crucial meetings on the eve of the conflict were laid bare for the first time yesterday when former Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who was present at both, gave a full account of what happened.

She told The Mail on Sunday the main reason for the ‘scandalous’ decision not to publish the minutes was not to protect confidential discussions about the war, but to cover up the fact there was no such discussion.

Debate-free governing is highly toxic and exceedingly unhelpful prior to a deadly, illegal invasion, don't you agree?

At the last Cabinet meeting, no debate on the legality of the war was allowed and Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, said brusquely: ‘That’s it.’

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, besides killing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people and destroying an entire country without provocation?

The official records would also put an end to claims by Gordon Brown’s supporters that, in private, he had grave doubts about the war, said Ms Short. In fact, he led the Cabinet campaign to accuse France of sabotaging British and American attempts to win United Nations support for the attack on Saddam Hussein.

Ms Short, who resigned as International Development Secretary after the war:

‘The bitter irony is that what they are doing is concealing the fact there was no robust decision-making. The minutes will reveal there was no real Cabinet discussion about the Iraq War. That is the real scandal.’

Ms Short spoke out after the Government blocked an order by the Information Commissioner to reveal minutes of Cabinet meetings on March 13 and March 17, 2003, two days before the war started on March 19. [...]

Ms Short said: ‘When we arrived, there was a piece of paper in front of each of us, a few paragraphs written by the Attorney General saying the war was legal, there were no problems etc.

‘Lord Goldsmith started reading it out but we said, “You don’t have to, we can read it.” Then Tony said something like, “That’s it.” And that was it.

‘I wanted to know if the Attorney General had any doubts about the legality of the war.

‘They all said, “Clare, be quiet, stop.” No one else wanted to talk about it. I was shouted down.’

Whistleblower: U.S. Snooped on Tony Blair, Iraqi President (including pillow talk)

By GottaLaff

Too much information... literally:

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia, between 2003 and 2007.

Classy, huh?

"If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits," said one former CIA official.

In the case of the former Iraqi president, al-Yawer, Faulk says his "pillow talk" phone calls were to his fiancé, whom he later married. Faulk says the calls were intercepted by operators in the NSA facility at Ft. Gordon, Back Hall, and posted on the computer system for others to read about and hear.

Faulk described the al-Yawer calls as "courting, wooing and pillow talk" with an Iraqi woman he would later marry Nasrin Barwari, the minister of public works in the interim government.

Remember when we had a Constitution? Yeah, me too:

The Inspector General for the NSA is reported to be conducting an investigation into the allegations by Faulk and another former military intercept operator, Adrienne Kinne, about listening to calls between American citizens.

The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees also are investigating the allegations about calls involving American citizens.

Trust, schmust.

January 20, 2009.