Cameron is in serious trouble at Westminster after overreaching himself by the claim that there are 70,000 “moderate rebels” willing to take up the ground war with Isis. Quite literally not one single MP believes him. There are those who believe the lie is justified. But even they know it is a lie.
There is a very interesting parallel here with the claims over Iraqi WMD. The 70,000 figure has again been approved by the Joint Intelligence Committee, with a strong push from MI6. But exactly as with Iraqi WMD, there were strong objections from the less “political” Defence Intelligence, and caveats inserted. As the Head of Defence Intelligence, Major-General Michael Laurie, told the Chilcot Inquiry:
“we could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was clear to me that pressure was being applied to the Joint Intelligence Committee and its drafters. Every fact was managed to make the dossier as strong as possible. The final statements in the dossier reached beyond the conclusions intelligence assessments would normally draw from such facts.”
The truth is the military tends to be much more honest about these matters than the spooks. Rather than make the same mistake again, parliamentarians should be calling Laurie’s successor, Air Marshal Philip Osborn, to ask him the truth about the nature, composition and availability of the 70,000. I happen to know that signals of dissent from Osborn’s staff – quite probably with his blessing – are reaching not just me, but many Tory MPs.
Meantime we can ourselves deconstruct the 70,000 figure and work out the various civil service sleights of hand that produced it. We have Cameron’s written response to the Foreign Affairs Committee in which he sets out his case for war. This document is of course extremely carefully written.
The 70,000 figure is at page 18. It does then give the breakdown of who these 70,000 are.
The very first group listed are the Kurds, and they are indeed the best organised and most numerous group. But there is a trick here – the paper includes them in the 70,000, despite going on to accept that they are not available to fight in Isil territory because it is Arab not Kurdish land. So that already knocks the largest and best contingent out of the 70,000.
Why were the Kurds included in the total when the paper itself acknowledges they are not available?
After that, Cameron is really struggling and the paper becomes vague. The paper talks (p.19) of rebel forces who defended the Syrian-Turkish border near Aleppo from ISIL attack.
This is perfectly true, but their leading fighting component is Jabhat-al-Nusra, an open al-Qaida affiliate. They cannot conceivably be described as moderate, and are armed and equipped by Saudi Arabia. Their principle martial activity is looting and raping in Shia villages. There are in fact about two dozen rebel groups around Aleppo – here is a good snapshot – who often fight each other and for the last few months have been losing ground to Assad forces. They are also a primary target of the Russians. It is simply nonsense that they could march on ISIS in Raqqa.
Cameron’s paper then goes on to reference the southern front of the Free Syrian Army, and paints a rather rose-coloured picture of its military prowess. The Free Syrian army can legitimately be painted as less extremist than other groups, with some important reservations, but nobody has ever assessed the strength of its southern branch at over 10,000 fighters. It is completely pre-occupied with fighting Assad and Hezbollah.
After that, the paper is seriously stuck, and goes on to enumerate policemen, “white helmet” humanitarian workers and even local authority engineering workforces as part of the evidence of the existence of moderate forces. Whether any of these groups is included in that amazing 70,000 total is unclear.
What is clear is that the 70,000 figure does not stand up to thirty seconds scrutiny, and there is no coherent plan whatsoever for ground forces to follow up air attack.
The absence of ground forces was an obvious flaw in Cameron’s bombing plan. For him to try to allay concerns by such a huge and blatant lie may prove to be a very poor tactic. Indeed this is so shockingly bad that not only are many Tories privately saying it is difficult to vote for bombing, even some of the still more right wing Blairites are concerned too.
The Guardian in 2011 on Scarlett. Michael Laurie is mentioned.
Memo reveals intelligence chief’s bid to fuel fears of Iraqi WMDs
Sir John Scarlett wanted dossier to strengthen case for war http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jun/26/intelligence-chief-iraqi-wmds
‘The disclosure supports the evidence of the former intelligence official Michael Laurie, who told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war that it was widely understood that the dossier was intended to make a case for war and misrepresented intelligence to this particular end.’
Cyril Smith was mentioned by name in the Judge Goddard’s statement so collapse of trolls’ whingeing.
Doug. I really thought that there had been a cover up of the Rock case. Thanks for the info. If the allegations are proved, you couldn’t find anything else like it so close to the seat of power, ie No 10.
The UK Government is trying to avoid the inescapable fact, a fact which seems clear to even the village idiots of the world, that the only way to defeat the Jihadists in Syria is to ally with the Syrian Army (and to have a treaty between all the relevant parties).
Without those two keystones in place, all the airstrikes in the world will achieve zilch and will probably be counter-productive. Indeed, it is exactly what ISIS wants – it is precisely why they attacked Paris in spectacular fashion, just as it was why Al Qaida attacked new York City in 2011. The Russians have been working the Syrian Army – and now I note that a senior French politician has suggested that France might do the same.
Was this the reason the Moazzam Begg trial was abandoned? It seems likely.
NATO – esp. the USA and UK – along with the regional stooges, are primarily responsible for the bloodbath in Syria over the past 4-5 years, for the rise and rise of Jihadist military forces and death squads. And now, NATO wants to ‘intervene’ to further its own agenda and divert Russian strategems.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq
“Indeed, it is exactly what ISIS wants – it is precisely why they attacked Paris in spectacular fashion, just as it was why Al Qaida attacked new York ”
.
Very little evidence that ISIS attacked France.
(Apart from lots in Israeli controlled newspapers, that is).
More likely is that some Syrians or Libyans, pissed off at France attacking them for years, took action.
As for the Saudis attacking New York? Maybe.
MerkinScot, as 1:21 am today.
For some years, France (and the UK, USA et al) has been supporting the Islamists/Jihadists (or whatever one wants to call them) in Libya and Syria. You’d expect, if it – Paris attack – were a simple revenge attack of the sort you are suggesting, the Syrian Baathist regime or Gaddafi supporters would have done something like this. We destroyde them. But they didn’t. Our allies did it. It was very well organised. It was not the work of random angry men.
The fact is, we – NATO – have been supporting, arming, financing, training Islmaist militaries/paramilitaries/death squads righ across the meta-region as a prolonged structural and tactical instrument and we absolutely know that they will attack us if they get the chance (they are supremacist clerical fascists, and over the past 50 years, we and our postcolonial pimps in the regional – GCC – have made them and continue to make them). Look at MI6 – supporting these killers in Syria and closing down trials in the UK to hide the fact! It’s all grist to our war mill. Hollande, Cameron, Obama, Putin… ignore the individuals and hot air and crocodile tears – as a class, they don’t give a toss about civilian lives lost here, there or anywhere, except insofar as they can instrumentalise those massacres to further NATO’s geostrategic agenda. These political entities behave with amorality. That is normative.
Now, it is clear that there needs to be a regional peace treaty and a military campaign but we are not insterested in destroying the Islamist/Nativist/Jihadist/clericla facsist/whatever arnies we have created. We simply want to ensure that they continue to facilitate our strategic agenda. As with, say, the Pakistani military-security regime, ‘blowback’ even against its own bases/institutions, is accepted as a necessary part of the continuing quest for power, wealth, control.
Correction para 2, above: Putin furthers Russian agenda, not NATOs, obviously.
According to Cripsin Blunt, MP, on BBC Radio4 this morning, the 70,000 figure was provdied by Saudi Arabia!
What a bloody joke (and I use the word, ‘bloody’, in both senses).
1) Anyone who believes anything the Saudi regime tells them is in serious need of… a new brain. Crispin Blunt is not stupid. How could he possibly sit there on live radio and say this and expect people not to fall over in hysterics?
2) Saudi Arabia has not exactly been the purveyor of ‘moderate’ forces anywhere in the world at any time in their entire history. If such ‘moderate’ forces ever existed, Saudi Arabia would obliterate them.
FFS. FFS. FFS.
Corbyn is the voice of sanity. I note that one of the other Tory MPs on the programme was questioning the figure. The ficure is a lie. A plain blood lie. Again. Are we stupid? Are we a stupid nation?
2003, redux.
No doubt these 70,000 lovely friendly moderate troops can be deployed within 45 minutes.
“ Are we stupid? Are we a stupid nation? ”
Yup.