The Chilcot Enquiry

Bush and Blair are democratically elected representatives of their masses and the elite. Yet, despite the loss of Muslim lives of more than a million, and several million refugees, they go free and get paid a million for every speech they deliver. Is this the democracy the West sheds tears for?

The Chilcot inquiry was commissioned in 2009 and has now, after seven years, brought out its report. The inquiry was about Britain’s role in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.It was set up six years after the unprovoked war of 2003, and has brought out its ‘deliberations’ after seven years.

In this modern age of communications taking place in seconds, what took it so long to conclude its report is nobody’s business to ask. That it pins the responsibility for the disaster brought on a stable nation, on no one, is also nobody’s business to ask.

It appears that it had to be done because of the public outcry,not to find ‘the whole truth’ and lay responsibilities, but to be brought out late enough so that ‘the public would have forgotten much of what could draw their anger. What about the ‘responsibility’? Well it was never there in the agenda.

Along with others to assist, the following were the chief investigators.

1. Sir John Chilcot (Chairman),
2. Sir Lawrence Freedman,
3. Sir Martin Gilbert,
4. Sir RodericLyne, and,
5. Baroness Prashar

Before we look into the inquiry results, it might be appropriate to know who these William Golding’s Lords are. A former British ambassador’s evaluation throws some light on the nobility of those hand-picked to conduct the inquiry. Craig Murray seems to know them at the personal level. His Website now appears to be blocked. Ours is an open world that enjoys press freedom! He writes about each of them. We have summarized his assessments:

“1. Sir John Chilcot (Chairman): In the early 1990’s I had headed the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, tasked with monitoring and preventing Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement. In 2002, I was on a course for newly appointed Ambassadors alongside Bill Patey, who was Head of the FCO Department dealing with Iraq. Bill is a fellow Dundee University graduate and is one of the witnesses before the Iraq Inquiry this morning. I suggested to him that the stories we were spreading about Iraqi WMD could not be true. He laughed and said ‘Of course not, Craig, it’s bollocks.’ I had too many other conversations to mention over the next few months, with FCO colleagues who knew the WMD scare to be false.Yet Chilcot was party to a Butler Inquiry conclusion that the Iraqi WMD scare was an ‘honest mistake.’ That a man involved on a notorious whitewash is assuring us that this will not be one, is bullshit.

“2. Sir Lawrence Freedman: is the most appalling choice of all. The patron saint of “Justified” wars of aggression, and exponent of “Wars of Choice” and “Humanitarian Intervention”. He is 100% partipris.

“3. Sir Martin Gilbert: Very right-wing historian whose biography of Churchill focused on Gilbert’s relish for war and was otherwise dull. .. Gilbert was not only rabidly pro-Iraq War, he actually saw Blair as Churchill.

“4. Sir RodericLyne: If the Committee were to feel that the Iraq War was a war crime, then Rod Lyne would be accusing himself. As Ambassador to Moscow he was active in trying to mitigate Russian opposition to the War. He personally outlined to the Russian foreign minister the lies on Iraqi WMD. There was never the slightest private indication that Lyne had any misgivings about the war.

“5. Baroness Prashar: A governor of the FCO institution the Ditchley Foundation – of which the Director is Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK Ambassador to the UN who presented the lies about Iraqi WMD and was intimately involved in the lead in to war. So very much another cosy foreign policy insider.

“It might also be noted that three of the above five had ‘been aggressive proponents of the war.’” (Murray: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=120843).”

(Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.)

Such are the credentials of a team assigned to discover the truths. We – the sheep – are required to believe in them!

At all events, a few points brought out by the Chilcot report could be taken up for discussion. It says, “The UK chose to engage in the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.”

It is another way of saying that the UK had already decided on invading Iraq and had to hurry up before the false grounds for invasion completely collapsed. The peaceful option offered by Saddam Hussein, who had indicated that he was ready to resign, was not ignored but obliterated from records. Saddam Hussein was not the problem at all. If he had killed 10,000 during his bloody regime, to bring the Western politician to uncontrolled tears, sobbing, and lamentful chest-beating, Bashar al-Asad has killed a million. Saddam had been demonized to be there as a useful pretext. He gone, the pretext for invasion would be gone.

The report says that, “the legal basis for war with Iraq was ‘far from satisfactory.’” Come on now. Whom are you kidding? Does legality weighs more than a mosquito’s wing with the West, when it is the case of Islam and Muslims? Is there a legal basis for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, construction of ten meter high wall (with Western money), cutting off Palestinian towns and villages from each other, bull-dozing of homes by the dozens every week, construction of newer and newer settlements in occupied territories – are they all legal? Do they not happen with the connivance of the West (with USA and UK in the forefront), with funds supplied by the West, and muted protests by the West? Go anywhere on the globe. If you find trouble, turmoil, wars, destruction and refugees, look behind the causes, you have a Western nation as the chief instigator, and, if it is the Muslim lands, then behind it is a grinning man in a black hat.

Chilcot also says that, “it is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessment. They were not challenged as they should have been.” How could you be so simple? The intelligence report was not ‘flawed.’ It was made so in order to allow the invasion of Iraq. For once you have to get it into your head that the invasion was decided before the inside job of the destruction of the twin Trade Centers on 9/11 took place. If you can’t get that right, if you can’t accept the testimony of 300 engineers, architects, structural specialists, high-rise building designers and others challenging the government to bring down a building with air-craft fuel, if you can’t get that into your head, then, that head will never bring out anything but which has a question mark before it.

The report also notes that, “The threat from Iraq was ‘presented with a certainty that was not justified’ by the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.” Once again, every homeless in the USA who does not read a newspaper, and every sex-worker in Britain, who too does not read a newspaper, knew that Saddam Hussein was no threat to any country in the world, except perhaps wishing to settle scores with Israel which had bombed the non-military Nuclear facility of Iraq with the connivance of France, which was actually building it for Saddam Hussein and had already taken away its initial cost from him. Saddam Hussein ruled his country with a ruthless hand, handing down the promised punishments to the enemies of the state and establishment (particularly the Shi`ah and the Kurds), but he never threatened any state in the world, nor its secret service was involved (unlike CIA, MI6 or the KGB) in any coup around the world. Chilcot should, instead, have stated that Blair was a serial liar and one of his lies was concerning Saddam Hussein’s threat to Britain. He should have mentioned that far from any threat, Saddam Hussein was a friend of the West who had for decades received arms from it, including chemicals needed to make weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, the 2.6-million-word Chilcot report does not level one accusation of criminality against Tony Blair with regard to the Iraq war. It did not even view his decision to wage the war as illegal. But rather, hides his crimes in a language that allows him time to think and make a case for himself if tried in a court. It did not hold him accountable for the death and suffering of millions, nor does it suggest investigation. Blair has been cleared of having lied to the parliament. Accordingly, Blair did not apologize for the war, but rather only for errors related to it. Chilcot then, is a chip of the same block.

One of the correspondents (a non-blue-eyed) has commented: Did any one of the Muslims vote for the outfits now in Syria, Iran and (lady Clinton’s created turmoil of) Libya? Have these outfits been democratically elected? But, by what logic are the 1600 million Muslims blamed for any terrorist attack, anywhere in the world, quite a few of which in any case are thought to be inside jobs? On the other hand Bush and Blair are democratically elected representatives of their masses and the elite. Yet, despite the loss of Muslim lives of more than a million, and several million refugees, they go free and get paid a million for every speech they deliver. Is this the democracy the West sheds tears for?

Before closing, a question that comes to mind should be dealt with. It is concerning the true reason the commission was set up. Why had the inquiry to be conducted at all? Hadn’t the decision to attack been through the House of Commons? Had it not wide British public support? Hadn’t the Media (led by BBC) played a major role in inciting the nation to aggression? Hadn’t the UNO’s weapons inspector Hans Blix (a blue-eyed man) reported that he hadn’t found any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and that, at best he might need a few more months to announce Iraq as free of WMD? Isn’t it true that Saddam Hussein had asked a British (but not blue-eyed) respected legal expert SaroshZaiwalla to contact Blair and inform him that he – Saddam Hussein – was ready to negotiate, and even to resign, to avoid war on Iraq? Isn’t it true that Tony Blair would not give a wink to it, and then to a second letter, several months before the attack, another wink?

The answer is: Islamic Caliphate. It is the rise of the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and its quick successes that raised the question: Who is responsible for their rise? The West has been working on disintegration of the Caliphate since right after the failure of the Crusades. It engineered the revolt against the Othmanians by its provinces. Then, as the broken provinces could themselves become a threat, it took great pains to fragmentize the provinces. Some twenty new states were created to assure that any Islamic caliphate would not arise again. Not satisfied with that, the resolution was that no militarily powerful Muslim state should be allowed to exist. So, when Iraq was able to fight off Iran, then a war hardened nation was a threat to the peace of the World – the whole of it. Iraq then had to be fragmented into: Sunni, Shi`ah, and Kurd.

It is the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, and its quick early successes in the battlefields that has brought out the moan, then the lament, and now the howl. Who did it? Who is responsible for awakening the dead spirits? Chilcot enquiry was launched. Although the man who wrote to George W Bush, “I will be with you, whatever,” did play a major role. He is almost beside the point. He will not be asked to give away the 60 million ‘bloody’ money he has made since then. The US or UK governments are not going to be asked to pay for the war crimes. But, the responsibility for the uncalled for invasion fixed, it is now the responsibility of the West, that, no matter the cost, they must now eliminate the group, and kill the spirit. If they slacken, that will be, a historical crime for the West.

The Chilcot noise is about this.