Leaked British Report: No Preparation for Iraq Invasion So Blair Could Keep Lying
By Susie Madrak Monday Nov 23, 2009 7:00amAnd yet, there are no consequences. It's unlikely anyone will ever stand trial for the slaughter of countless innocents in Iraq - but at least the truth is coming out in England. If only it would happen here:
Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.
They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.
The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders' anger at what they call the government's "appalling" failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, promised to produce a "full and insightful" account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict.
Fresh evidence has emerged about how Blair misled MPs by claiming in 2002 that the goal was "disarmament, not regime change". Documents show the government wanted to hide its true intentions by informing only "very small numbers" of officials.
The documents, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, are "post-operational reports" and "lessons learned" papers compiled by the army and its field commanders. They refer to a "rushed" operation that caused "significant risk" to troops and "critical failure" in the postwar period.
One commander said the government "missed a golden opportunity" to win support from Iraqis. Another commented: "It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves". One, describing the supply chain, added: "I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert".
[...] Significantly, the documents support what officials have earlier admitted – that the army was not allowed to prepare properly for the Iraq invasion in 2002 so as not to alert parliament and the UN that Blair was already determined to go to war.
The documents add: "In Whitehall, the internal operational security regime, in which only very small numbers of officers and officials were allowed to become involved [in Iraq invasion preparations] constrained broader planning for combat operations and subsequent phases effectively until Dec 23 2002."
Blair had in effect promised George Bush that he would join the US-led invasion when, as late as July 2002, he was denying to MPs that preparations were being made for military action. The leaked documents reveal that "from March 2002 or May at the latest there was a significant possibility of a large-scale British operation".
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Obama should dump 240,000+ additional troops over there, then resign and these wars will be "good to go" for the Palin administration.
Let's see how long she'll cope with what Bush did to Obama. She'll quit after the inaugural party, January 21st.
We'll get Keith on MSNBC and Rachel to start slamming President Palin immediately like FOX did to Clinton then Obama.
But at least we're doing the right thing in Afghanistan. I fully support the president's coming decision to escalate this war and stay as long as it takes to finish the mission. Whatever the mission is. Even if as long as it takes is forever.
as long as we leave enough alive to keep selling us our smack.
Are you ready to send your own childen to that nighmare?
According to Nurember: War of agression it is the supreme Crime!
No more Blood for OIL!
Turn on your sarcasm detector.
However the sad point of my comment is that this is the way more and more progressives seem to be speaking as they rally behind Obama and rally against those who say "Pull out!"
And if any one counters that Obama hasn't made a decision, I can guarantee it will be military escalation with no changes in strategic goals.
..we'll let you know.
It would be nice if we could leave karzai to the mess w got him into, yes/no?
Yes. The best people to sort it out are the Afghans. make sense? yes/no?
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Yes/No?
I have to turn it on (The sarcasm detector).
I Apologize to you.
You are correct about some "Progressive Warmongering"
Its not about doing what is wright but what is Pollitically Correct.
does this not surprise me?
I get it, but what's more important than acknowledging the criminal misdeeds of the previous administration for illegally invading and killind/misplacing millions of innocent people.
We can't just pretend the last 8 years never happened. I want justice. I want a reckoning. Starting with the appointment of George W. Bush to the White House by the Supreme Court.
...unless you think he is president of England or something.
Maybe Eric Holder could attempt to extradite Tony Blair?
the crimes/misdeeds of the past 8 years.
He can't do that?
I wanna see justice too but...
Apparently Obama wants to "move on .org"...He wants to "progress" past all the bad stuff.
(Maybe) Obama wants to see justice (for American criminals) but Eric Holder is just incapaple of doing his job? (who knows?)
I don't think Obama's plate is full...I think the problem is he is already full of shit. (and has no room in his intestines)
and he's probably is going to take Thanksgiving Day off. Thanks for letting us know what you think. Now go away!
pop up in Baghdad with a big plastic turkey.
http://thedefeatists.typepad.com/apoplectic/i...
is the plastic turkey?
ZING!!!
well played.
gonads
It would set a dangerous precedent, because EVERY administration is corrupt in one form or another.
One hand washes the other. It's been this way since way before Ford pardoned Nixon.
in the McKinley assassination. Those clever batards could see the administration orchestrated the Maine incident to grab Guantanamo.
..then every President would have to look at the previous administrations crimes and misdemeanors.
The President enjoys my support right now. The economy, health insurance reform and wars on two fronts but, like many, we're getting tired of no action on the crimes of the previous administration. Considering that the former liar in chief has admitted to war crimes, i.e., torture of detainees, one would think criminal prosecution is a slam-dunk AND with all the "patriotism" claims being bandied about, you'd think that these "innocent until proven guilty" patriots would just love to come forward and explain how we can try and convict a "Nazi" soldier who was following orders for his crimes and try and convict a Japanese POW guard for water-boarding but the former administration remains above the law. I want desperately to hear that argument in the face of the laws and international agreements we've made.
of the events of 9/11.
Even the 9/11 Commission now admits it was lied to and considered going to The Justice Dept. in order to fully investigate the lies of various "witnesses" they called, particularly from The Pentagon. To think of all the unasked and unanswered questions by the Commission makes one's head spin.
Watch any recent speeches by Kevin Barrett and you'll know what I'm talking about.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq both spring directly from the events of 9/11. Until the full truth of these events is revealed to the world we will NEVER be able to appropriately adjust our political course.
men (I'm a fan of Kevin Barrett)
support his views on Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman?
GATEKEEPERS!
I rather support GORE VIDAL on this issue.
I've just watched Kevin Barrett, part way through, here, I will finish later.
He does himself, and his cause, an extreme disservice by being quite slip shod.
A number of times, more than a few, he states something categorically and then says he could be wrong.
Forensic science must be meticulous. Absolutely meticulous.
You study a situation, your conclusions go as far as the evidence is incontrovertible.
He is sloppy.
That is not to say the official position is correct or that people in doubt have no basis.
Conspiracy theories and people that bring them forward make a fundamental mistake.
In science, when a basic assumption is found to be in error, assumptions built upon it immediately need to fall into question.
Conspiracy theorists get that far and say AHA! Fact A is false, we don't know what fact A actually is, therefore fact B is the logical conclusion.
A meticulous scientific method does not allow the statement: fact A which is now shown to be erroneous, means fact B which is built on it is erroneous and should be replaced with fact C.
The correct approach is to say: fact A is now shown to be erroneous, it must be re-established and all subsequent facts re-examined.
That would be an appropriate scientific method.
In addition, he apparently opens a second front in his battle by taking on non establishment people.
To call Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman gatekeepers, especially Chomsky after a lifetime career of being the pre-eminent American establisment critic in the world, now to place him in the establishment is taking on another front in a personal campaign that Barrett doesn't need.
But I am relying on the statements here and I don't know percisely what Barrett did or did not say.
I have great admiration for Chomsky and Amy Goodman, but no one is infallible. Chomsky said early on when asked if 9/11 was an inside job he said he didn't think so. I will find a link for the exact statement.
None of this is to say that it was or was not an inside job. It is only to say that one must be absolutely meticulously in their procedure, and I repeat, Kevin Barrett needs to clean up his presentation considerably. Otherwise he will be viewed as being completely out of his league.
By me, if no one else.
No one has it right 100 %
Not Amy Goodman, not Noam Chomsky, not even EINSTEIN.
Kevin is one of those University Professors who lost his job for speaking out his mind.
In this issue i am with him not with Chomsky no matter how genius hi is in Politic.
I knew a genius Doctor who not even knew how to swith a bulb!
I am a musician and the famous story about Einstein playing in a string quartet (he was an amateur violinist) was the time he was asked if he didn't know how to count.
So far in the professional domain he has held up very well.
So does Chomsky.
I am not taking sides but pointing to things that Barrett needs to do to firm up his delivery.
If anyone, any group is going to get to the bottom of all these matters, it will take keen forensics.
Not piecemeal argument or slipshod opinion.
I am all for the forensics, let them begin.
But, the most important development is . .
'New Moon' wolfs down $140.7M in opening weekend!!!!
No punishment for the murderers? I guess that means we have to release all the murderers in Us prisons. Bad idea.
... always referred to the former prime minister as Bliar. It's just a typo, of course. ;)
That position had been promised him (by those who are really in power) but a surprising amount of public and political bad will surfaced forcing them to choose the Belgian guy instead.
I just wish Blair would be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity now.
There was a deliberate, even meticulous plan to create a state of lawlessness in post-invasion Iraq. Could anybody watch this clip and think otherwise?
The infamous CPA Order 17 led to the deplorable situation where Jamie Leigh Jones could be gang-raped by KBR co-employees and have no recourse in any criminal court in the world. Lavena Johnson suffered an even worse fate.
It would be naive however to think that this state of lawlessness was created so that Blackwater and KBR thugs could rape and kill with impunity. The obvious motive seems to me to lie in the $10 BILLION in paletted cash that went missing in the early days of Bremer's stewardship -- a disappearance that for reasons unknown has never even been properly investigated. And BTW, can anybody point to any time in the history of conflict when so much money was shipped into a recently-invaded country that had not yet even been properly stabilized?
"When you secure an area, don't forget to tell the enemy."
These violations of the Geneva Convention are just the "birth pangs of a democracy." Remember Rumsfeld dismissing all those burning Ministry buildings and the mass lootings with glee? Remember the utter lunacy of the "de-Baathification" order, that no one has claimed responsibility for (Read: Rumsfeld)?
It is well documented that any post-war planning effort was rejected by the administration as an "Anti-War" agenda by the state department. Just ask Doug Feith.
Donald Rumsfeld that, when asked where $2 tillion in cash went to in Iraq, answered:
"Er... I don't know"
Lets notify the International Courts see if we can do a snatch and grab get this Spineless coward out of this Country and on to the International Crime and Justice Stage.
The way I look at it the Clown can have a heart attack and die which is no great loss or the snatch and grab can be a success and that is one less American War Criminal that is Free. Watch the Racist, Nazi, Fascist, Socialist Moron and Clowns on the right go nuts when they read this one.
You can bet your last three dollars that the facts in this and other cases like this were PART of the reason the Europeans just told Tony Blair to go away when Gordon Brown had the nerve to put his name forward as president of the EU....Didn't happen and wasn't gonna happen BECAUSE Blair and George Bush better be at their WAR CRIMES TRIAL about the same time the Belgium guy takes over....
Here Tony - You're going to the HAGUE !!!! Have fun with chimpy and darth and lizo....
I take it "MP's" means "Members of Parliament" Please excuse my ignorance.
This is one shortcoming of blogging I dislike- when abbreviations are used from the original source but the meaning is different and/or not clearly defined in the blog posting.
MP = Member of Parliament
I highly recommend the Guardian as a primary source for news about the US. And since the US and the UK are joined at the hip, reading about what is happening in the UK is a good perspective on the US. The Guardian also does top-notch reporting from around the world.
That being said, you're gonna have to learn a whole new "English" vocabulary if you do start reading it!
Nobody with more than half a brain here in the UK was fooled by Blair's lies. We always called him 'Bush's Poodle' and with good reason. Over one million of us marched on Parliament to protest the war at its start (to put that figure into context, it's equivalent to 5 million Americans marching on the White House).
Blair has been blocked from becoming president of the EU because the 'powers that be' know he's about to be thrown under the bus for the Iraq fiasco. The Belgian PM, who has got the job instead, is a puppet of the Bilderberger Group. Google him and find out the facts for yourselves. The fuse has now been lit here in London. We know that Blair is going down; we sincerely hope that the resultant explosion also destroys the neo-con BushCo criminals responsible for the Crime of the (21st) Century.
Tic toc Mr Cheney.
Tic toc...
Chimpy McStagger and good ol' Tony are joined at the ass-holes?
LMAO
The Brits are investigating their own misconduct in Iraq.
But Obama's DOJ is (other than a few key appointments) entirely made up of holdovers from Bush -- no investigations or indictments here.
The Brits and the EU are breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks.
But Obama's financial advisers were all players in the meltdown -- Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs. No investigations of the meltdown OR breaking up the too-big-to-fail OR new regulatios OR fines and prison terms (except for Madoff, who wasn't a Goldman Sachs player).
And - surprise! surprise! - most of the rest of the over-developed world has moved on from the financial crisis, but the unemployment rate in the US continues to climb.
There are investigations and indictments of soldiers and marines. The Fort Hood killer is dissected with such painstakingly presented "understanding" of the war conditions that may have "caused" this poor victim to "act out." Whole different standard for the 4 soldiers surrounded by death and snipers who knew who/where the snipers were, and decided to break the chain of command by going and getting them and killing them. They were convicted, sentenced to life in military prison, and then granted "clemency," which was, sentences reduced to 20 years.
Torture-murdered Afghan taxi driver got justice when his tormentors were tried and punished. The real perps, Rumsfeld and the Planners, are all still free, probably taking frequent trips to the Dominican Republic with big bottles of viagra, when not enjoying everything else life has to offer the untouchably privileged.
Soldiers in prison for doing something 1,000 times more "understandable" than our misunderstood Fort Hood killer did, while the war criminals blank-blank-blank (really bad word I guess, really fitting, but probably ticket to swift deletion, I mean SOMETHING causes deletion, might be THAT word) in the TV spotlight, and their daughters too. THAT makes the refusal to investigate ourselves and punish crime if the criminal is "boss" 100,000,000 times worse.
9/12/2001 saw the beginning of the overthrow of the governments of America and Britain. The government we had, we no longer have. Power has been seized by a cabal so vile that "Tha Right" isn't the word for it anymore. "Tha Right" was just the big bucket of chum it came in on.
Kudos, MountainMan. Every word you wrote is true. Am not attacking you with my screed about the soldiers.
.. understood ..
Presidency, Imagine the War Criminals and American Traitors buddy being sworn in as the new EU President and how these three Morons would have crowed.
Now when is OUR Government going to reach between its legs squeeze real hard now if it hurts it means your suppose to be a MAN (maybe they really are eunuchs), and START the Investigations into the bush, cheney War Crimes.
A small island Nation like England with its irritated and very upset neighbors just 90 miles away STANDS UP and takes it on the chin by the Nations that are watching.
While what WAS the Greatest Nation on the globe is turned into a bunch of whining snivelling name calling TWITS by the Party that was once in power and now has been reduced to the grade school level of name calling and childish antics of Lying, and cheating to stop the Party of FAILURE from taking accountability for its Actions and Its self. What can one expect from Cowards, Liars, Cheats. the Party of NO is a National and International disgrace to me, MY Country (these COWARDS never served)
Now the COWARDLY, GUTLESS, SPINELESS AMERICANS are hiding their heads in the sand. They have a Speaker of the House that is inclusion to assist the WAR CRIMINALS from prosecution. You have a SPINELESS MOUTH PIECE called DOJ the laughs are on JUSTICE unless one is a guy stills $20.00 versus a WAR CRIMINAL that stole Billions (the secret must be in the secret pay offs), a Senate that is a JOKE which carries the chant YES,WE CAN, and proves it by doing everything the Racist Nazi, Fascist, Socialist fear, Hate Mongering republicans wants.
Yes the RIGHT has turned AMEERICA a Country that USE to be Great into a Country of snivelling whining COWARDS, and Spineless disgraces in the guise of humans. Yet NOT ONE will stand up and call for the PROSECUTION of the Last WORST CRIMINAL PRESIDENCY in the history of this Country and the COWARDS on the RIGHT do not want this truly acknowledged.
..when the first one goes, they all fall down! That's my hope!
Our current administration though may not be up to the task or may not want to be up to the task. After all, there's a lot of Americans out there that think its OK to torture. They are not being tortured so what do they care if someone who doesn't look like us gets tortured, no big deal. Of course, if they travel to another country and get rounded up off the street and subjected to torture, wow, then what? Well, we've no moral high ground, we tortured and we're all war criminals. Its the responsibility of this administration to investigate (that's all they have to do) the allegations of torture (which w has admitted to) and punish the offenders. It seems so simple except the part about the administration doing something, actually anything to its predecessor.
The law only applies to we little people in order to insure that nothing unfortunate should happen with the well-to-dos' playground, i.e., the world.
So the trials begin soon?
Tony Blair is also a war criminal.
I could not believe he was actually up for EU president - and was very pleased to see that, THAT - did not happen.
*
Been saying that for years.
Please let me put in a word for Australia's contribution to this mess.
John Winston Howard. The man who was so far up Bush's posterior he could see Blair's heels.
He too ignored military qualms about the lack of planning in his lust for war glory.
Howard is the 'turd' man.
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