Sir Jeremy Seeks Absolution
The All Spin Zone
The Downing Street Memo might be receiving some serious backup shortly.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock was the U.K. Ambassador to the United Nations at the time the war in Iraq was launched in 2003. After the fall of Baghdad, he was Tony Blair's envoy in Iraq during the days of Proconsul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority. And he has written what is apparently a scathing book on the subject.
In a story published in the Sunday Observer, Greenstock is quoted as saying:
• The American decision to go to war was “politically illegitimate”
• UN negotiations “never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration”
• The opportunities of the post-conflict period were “dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution”
...
The problem is, we may never read the book - at least in a unredacted version. The UK Foreign Office and Downing Street have apparently put a hold on publication.
...The decision to block the book until Greenstock removes substantial passages will be interpreted as an attempt by ministers to avoid further embarrassing disclosures over the conduct of the war and its aftermath from a highly credible source.
Officials who have seen the book are understood to have been 'deeply shocked' over the way in which Greenstock has quoted widely from 'privileged' private conversations with Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and from the private deliberations of the UN Security Council...
It's also a safe bet that the manuscript has made its way around Washington, and that some degree of pressure has been brought on the U.K. government by the U.S. State Department.
Apparently, Sir Jeremy became very disillusioned with the whole process that led up to the war, and then the immediate aftermath when it became clear that post-invasion planning was an afterthought. But if so, that begs the question - where was Sir Jeremy during the U.N. debate, and why didn't he express his reservations during deliberations prior to the war? What good does a mea culpa do two years after the fact, at a time when both the U.S. and U.K. are hopelessly stuck in a quagmire with no end in sight?
Most certainly, this won't be the last such “tell all” book or article from a high ranking memeber of the Bush / Blair inner circle. I suspect we'll see many in the future. But for the moment, allow me to pose a serious question to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who apparently now seeks absolution for his sins of commision and/or omission:
Where were you when it mattered?
...The decision to block the book until Greenstock removes substantial passages will be interpreted as an attempt by ministers to avoid further embarrassing disclosures over the conduct of the war and its aftermath from a highly credible source.
Officials who have seen the book are understood to have been 'deeply shocked' over the way in which Greenstock has quoted widely from 'privileged' private conversations with Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and from the private deliberations of the UN Security Council...
It's also a safe bet that the manuscript has made its way around Washington, and that some degree of pressure has been brought on the U.K. government by the U.S. State Department.
Apparently, Sir Jeremy became very disillusioned with the whole process that led up to the war, and then the immediate aftermath when it became clear that post-invasion planning was an afterthought. But if so, that begs the question - where was Sir Jeremy during the U.N. debate, and why didn't he express his reservations during deliberations prior to the war? What good does a mea culpa do two years after the fact, at a time when both the U.S. and U.K. are hopelessly stuck in a quagmire with no end in sight?
Most certainly, this won't be the last such “tell all” book or article from a high ranking memeber of the Bush / Blair inner circle. I suspect we'll see many in the future. But for the moment, allow me to pose a serious question to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who apparently now seeks absolution for his sins of commision and/or omission:
Where were you when it mattered?
NY Times Covers OSHA Impersonation Story Confined Space
The story of immigration officers impersonating OSHA officials, has now gone national with a front page article in the NY Times by Steven Greenhouse, who first read the story in Confined Space earlier this week.
The 48 immigrants thought they were attending mandatory safety training by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But it was not until they showed up to the meeting in Goldsboro, N.C., last week that they discovered they had been summoned for an altogether different reason.
Federal immigration officials had posted
A question from the UK press really caught Bush flat footed (cackles ensued) and made Tony Blair smile and say: "You had kind of forgotten what the British media were like, hadn't you?" (Laughter.)
