I am worried that the continued delay in the publication of Chilcot’s report is giving rise to expectations that it will be forthright and damning of Blair and his supporters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though Blair plunged us into an illegal war with dreadful long-term consequences, the report has always been designed to be a typical Whitehall fudge. Mistakes made – errors of judgement – all in good faith – lessons learned. You don’t have to wait for it, that is it.
The Chilcot team was handpicked by Gordon Brown – himself up to his neck in guilt for the illegal invasion – and three of the five had been aggressive proponents of the war. The remaining two, Chilcot and Baroness Prasad, are “sound” for the Establishment. Let me remind you of my analysis of the committee members in 2009. Sir Lawrence Freedman was an active propagandist for the invasion while Sir Martin Gilbert (died while contributing to the committee) was so enamoured of the invasion he compared Bush and Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill. Rod Lyne was actively involved in selling the WMD lies and arguably in danger of war crime accusation himself.
None of the committee members had ever expressed the slightest doubt about the Iraq War while 60% had actively promoted it. Of Chilcot himself the eminent international lawyer Phillippe Sands noted:
“Sir John’s spoonfed questions give every impression of being designed to elicit a response from the attorney general that would demonstrate the reasonableness of his actions and those of the government.”
The point of the delay is to give the impression Chilcot has been absolutely painstaking and therefore the bucket of whitewash he will throw cannot be hiding anything.
Do not be fooled.
Feom the above:
However, according to several media sources, the Government has offered the services of its own lawyers to every single one of those subject to criticism in the draft report. They are being helped to prepare their responses in the protracted “Maxwellization” process, invented for the old rogue over 40 years ago when he was investigated by the then Department of Trade.
Taxpayers, especially the many victims of Iraq, have already waited far too long to see this report. Now they are being asked to support efforts to delay it and weaken it.
The story has so far produced little indignation. Perhaps the British people are already so cynical about their chances of ever learning the full truth about Iraq that they are no longer surprised by anything to do with this inquiry.
The so-called “Maxwellees” eligible for this special form of legal aid include ex-Ministers and others out of public office are making good money in the private sector. Even Tony Blair has been offered a Government lawyer.
Mr Blair has been doing so well in the private sector that he is currently enjoying a holiday off Sicily in a super-yacht which costs £22,000 a week – and paying for it himself.
(In the interests of accuracy, Mr. Blair is no longer off Sicily, nor even on or off Sri Lanke, where it remains in doubt whether he, Mrs, Nicky and Nicky’s Mrs actually paid for a further fortnight in the sun. He will shortly be joining other globalisers – and Putin -at Beijing’s WW2 anniversary parade.)
Perhaps BLiar has been reading Craig’s Down the Rabbit Hole posts or perhaps he is aware that this is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Dodgson’s Alice in Wonderland.
Anyway, he has made this ridiculous statement which follows his earlier ‘brain transplant’ one. The Guardian give him house room. Silly Ms Viner at Kings Place has rolled over.
Tony Blair’s final plea: Corbynmania is ‘Alice in Wonderland’ politics
The Guardian – 1 hour ago
Tony Blair says electing Jeremy Corbyn as leader would be a disaster for Labour.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/29/tony-blair-corbynmania-alice-in-wonderland
We already knew about free legal help offered to those criticized in the Chilcot ‘report’.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/08/beware-of-chilcot/#comment-546526
Fed up with hearing about his travels too.
Just a note to our American readers, Habbakuk, RD and Anon are our pets, they represent the establishment apologists here, a lovingly bunch of status quo apologists to Cameron’s murderous policies who embellish this blog like s..t sticks to a blanket.
Its the price we pay for democracy here, to have these corruptive interlopers tell us how to suck eggs, whilst sayin’ nothin’ linking shit, and excusing tax evaders who are the real scoundrels of today.
bedtime! vive a la France.
“Oh dear Mr Goss’s CIA bug or perhaps its my lousy typing appears to have got to the last post.”
Not much you write makes me smile but that did. 😀
“Oh dear Mr Goss’s CIA bug or perhaps its my lousy typing appears to have got to the last post.”
Not much you write makes me smile but that did. 😀
“Was that a reference to Mr Goss? If so, I wonder if he has tried to enter Poland again?”
No it was a reference to RD’s obsession with his Blame Putin meme.
Enter Poland. Why should there be any restriction? We’re all Europeans now.
9.53pm correction
Blair’s rot is in tomorrow’s Observer, not today’s Guardian.
The Observer editor is John Mulholland. He has also been made assistant editor of the Guardian by Viner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mulholland_(journalist)
@John Spencer-Davis
29 Aug, 2015 – 8:57 pm
To continue the sarcasm: I’m sure none of your clients, John, live rent free in a luxurious property on the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland. Likewise I’m sure none of your clients could afford to do a runner to ‘an unnamed European country’ (which in reality is probably somewhere in the Bahamas, where extradition treaties are a bit ‘dodgy’).
I will repeat again, the allegations are of child rape and murder.
It makes Ronnie Biggs look like some kind of hero.
In the build-up to both Iraq and Libya the media detailed the dictator’s sexual vioence, Saddam was supposed to force his ministers to let him sleep with their wives so that he could escape assassanation by sleeping in the same place and Gaddafi was supposed to be raping his female bodyguards.
Blair had increased the proportion of women in his party and back in 2003 these revelations were more able to produce a feminist element into the argument to invade.
We have become more cynical as a species since then. We can see that mr Nice Chavy Dave Cameron can be a monster war-criminal while being Mr goody 2 shoes. How did it come about that General Petreaus was sacked for infidelity instead of being a false-flag stirrer of the Sunni Shi’a divide in Iraq?
Very good point, Giyane (2:44am, today).
Also,iIn the propaganda war, all kinds of people get rolled out. Do you remember that during 2002-3, in the run-up to the destruction of Iraq, there was a Kurdish woman who had lost relatives in the Iraqi gas attacks in the 1980s who was brought into the audience in numerous discussion programmes and basically was used to shout and scream down anyone who argued against invading Iraq? She obviously had suffered terribly. But she was used in an entirely cynical manner – and she made anti-war panellists look, and feel, bad.
Gas attacks were used by Iraq also against Iranian civilians (as well as Kurdish). But I cannot recall hearing any proper mention or real acknowledgment of this fact, either in the 1980s or since. And of course, at the time (1980s), the USA/UK/France and the USSR all were supporting Iraq and had encouraged the dictator to attack Iran and destabilise its revolution. The end result of this (apart from a million dead) was for the theocrats to take complete control of the revolution, and thus complete power, in Iran.
The USA and England are both so corrupt and in thrall to Wall Street bankers and Israel, that no justice will be forthcoming thru regular channels.
Unless people get motivated and take to the streets and stay there until the corruptors fall from grace, expect more ‘dodgy’ wars and a bigger police state until what Mr. Murray does is outlawed.
I fear you may well be correct, Catman (10:20am).
Btw, how’s Catwoman these days?
Robert Fisk, on ISIS. This question is absolutely key and it is linked to the unanswered question as to precisely why the Moazzam Begg trial was dropped at the ‘request’ of MI5/6. In other word,s what precisely are the links between NATO at its allies in the region and ISIS (and the others)? And why are journalists – with a few exceptions – not pursuing this question with any real alacrity?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/isis-blinds-journalists-with-its-barbarity-but-we-must-continue-to-report-10468294.html
And why are journalists – with a few exceptions – not pursuing this question with any real alacrity?
Because the mainstream presstitutes know that while for appearances sake they are allowed to rock the boat from time to time, if they value their paycheques, they must never take any boat rocking exercise to the extent that they might actually induce sea-sickness and nauseous feelings among the boat’s occupants.
Thanks Silvio, I agree. It was of course almost a rhetorical question.
Fairly predictable Chilcot update:
Sir John Chilcot has been forced to reopen his inquiry into the Iraq War after senior military figures complained the first draft of his report was riddled with errors, according to sources who have seen the papers.
Senior commanders complained Chilcot and his team had blamed them for decisions that were actually made by politicians.
When the generals were sent the report’s conclusions, five to six months ago, the reaction was so aggressive that it has caused a wholesale rethink of the document, delaying publication until at least June next year.
Details of the behind-the-scenes wrangling have been uncovered by the author Tom Bower, who has interviewed 180 senior figures from the cabinet, civil service and the armed forces — many of whom are set to be criticisedby Chilcot – for a book on the Blair government to be published in the new year.
The rest of the story is behind the Murdoch paywall. It’s one of a few stories lately where military figures have hit back at Chilcot and follows Clare Short’s suggestion that the the need to redraft a poor first draft has held up the report.
It also may give some hint as to which Maxwellees have been citing documents that had not previously been given to the Inquiry. Perhaps Whitehall failed to provide the evidence that the military were just following orders, to coin a phrase.
http://www.iraqinquirydigest.org/?p=14971
Here we go. Kick it into the long grass forever. Just what Blair and his sofa cabinet would love to see happen.
PETER OBORNE: Chilcot must resign – or be sacked!
31 August 2015
Sir John Chilcot was appointed six years ago to lead the official inquiry into the Iraq war but has yet to publish anything
The moment has come for Sir John Chilcot, the civil servant who was appointed six years ago to lead the official inquiry into the Iraq war, to do the decent thing and resign. And if he won’t quit of his own accord he should be fired.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3216547/PETER-OBORNE-Chilcot-resign-sacked.html