Another “secret” document from the British government has found its way into the press, this one revealing that the United States lied to Great Britain when it offered assurances it was not using napalm-like firebombs in the Iraq war.
But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. “The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,” he told Mr Cohen. “I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.”
Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets “away from civilian targets”, he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.
Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.
A half-dozen Downing Street Memos have been released to the media and now this. Either someone in the British government is out to destroy the Bush administration, or they have no idea about security and are unable to protect state secrets in that country. You decide which you want to believe.
More Liars Than Liberals Daily Howler
Chris Matthews might just as well have been reporting from Neptune. Last week, Matthews wondered why our Sunday shows never have “strong, articulate voices of the working person, the working family.” But let’s face it, Matthews was faking again; he knew the answer to his question. Our Sunday programs exit to serve those Millionaire Pundit Values—the foppish values of people like Matthews—and no liberal or working-class voice need apply. Indeed, Matthews has a Sunday show himself, and each week he assembles a Standard Panel—a group of foppish pundit script-readers among whom there will be no real liberals. Just as Bill Moyers explained (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/15/05), Matthews gathers four members of the press corps “establishment” (the press corps “elite”). and they proceed to show the world how clueless and scripted—how inbred—they are. Indeed, as we saw from the Chris Matthews Show just last week, there will normally be more liars than liberals when these foppish pundit groups meet. But before we get to one panelist’s lies, let’s take a fuller look at the views of our standard Sunday pundits.
A half-dozen Downing Street Memos have been released to the media and now this. Either someone in the British government is out to destroy the Bush administration, or they have no idea about security and are unable to protect state secrets in that country. You decide which you want to believe.
