Iraq War Inquiry, Day Four

This Inquiry is confirming, though already done but not all by the spoken words of the participants, what went on especially behind the closed doors and placing it with what's already been into the public realm. No hiding in todays world, especially when the little notes come forward like a puzzles small pieces! It's easier to keep silent if nobodies asking any questions, but there are to many involved that when questions are asked, recorded into record and on film, it's the little parts of the answers that ring out.

Like it was really interesting the other day to find out that Iraq was forth on the Brits list of worry, Libya was first, and who's the United States new good buddy now, why Libya, as made so by the cheney/bush duo!! Then yesterday in the immediate hours of 9/11, while no one knew where the bush was, and the rest should have been really worried about the people of this Country, they represented, and monitoring the devastation that occurred coordinating with others as to the needs etc., Condi was already saying it was al Qaeda {she must have paid attention? to the Clinton people? and read the Intel reports?, maybe} but also started wondering if Saddam had anything to do with these hijackings and devestating plane crashes! She would have also known that the Intel had him as not a friend or allie of bin Laden nor al Qaeda!

These are the little pieces of the already known, and more will sure surface, that have been missing and not spoken even in other investigations. Others testifying will bring more forward into the light, though you can bet that Blair won't bring any when he testifies, or will he!

November 25, 2009
Iraq inquiry hears regime change claim
British Iraq inquiry hears Bush admin. discussed toppling Saddam two years before the 2003 Iraq invasion

U.S. followed own timetable on Iraq war: UK envoy

The United States followed its own military timetable for the 2003 invasion of Iraq rather than allowing diplomacy to run its full course, the former British ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday.

Jeremy Greenstock told a British inquiry into the Iraq war that he did not think that U.N. inspectors had been given enough time to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), cited as the reason for war, before the March 2003 invasion.

Snip

In an opening written statement, Greenstock said only U.S. President George W. Bush was in a position to "switch off" the planning ahead of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

"The U.S. and the UK had, well before then, decided that the threat from Iraq, which was genuinely perceived as including the potential threat of the use of WMD, could only be terminated either if Saddam Hussein conceded absolutely everything the resolutions demanded or if his regime fell."

"If this was to be achieved through a U.N. route, that had to happen on a U.S.-ordained timing," he added...>>>>>

Read this: "Greenstock said only U.S. President George W. Bush was in a position to "switch off" the planning" as meaning the cheney had to pull the strings!

November 27, 2009
Iraq inquiry: Blair deal on regime change?
UK former ambassador to Washington tells Iraq inquiry he was excluded from Blair and Bush talks in 2002

How to Spin the Spin, i.e. freshman propaganda, you be the judge:

Iraq war based on "questionable legitimacy," says former UN envoy

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was of 'questionable legitimacy' but the momentum for action from the US was 'much too strong' for Britain to counter, London's former ambassador to the United Nations
said Friday.

Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's representative at the UN discussions in the run-up to the war, said he had considered resigning over the failure of the US and Britain to win support for a second UN resolution that would have authorized military action.

Snip

'I regard our participation in the military action in Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the UK,' he said.

'If you do something internationally that the majority of UN member states think is wrong, illegitimate or politically unjustifiable, you are taking a risk in my view,' said Greenstock...>>>>>

Invasion lacked legitimacy, Sir Jeremy Greenstock tells Chilcot inquiry

The invasion of Iraq was of “questionable legitimacy” because of the lack of international and public support, Britain’s Ambassador to the United Nations at the time told the official inquiry into the war yesterday.



Sir Jeremy Greenstock threatened to resign if Tony Blair gave in to American pressure and agreed to an invasion before a new UN resolution on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was obtained. The former diplomat was kept in the dark over a change in policy when Mr Blair agreed with President Bush to seek the overthrow of Saddam Hussein a year before the invasion....>>>>>

Pay attention spineless america a scathing call for Reality, Indictments of the Guilty:

Why I believe Blair should stand trial - and even face charges for war crimes, by General Sir Michael Rose

Without blame: The Chilcot Inquiry will not hold leaders to account

The inquiry into the Iraq War is not a court and no one is on trial. So said Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the inquiry, in his opening statement. He added that he was not there to determine the guilt or innocence of those responsible for the invasion of Iraq.

The object of the inquiry is simply to identify the lessons that should be learned from Iraq in order to help future UK governments who may face similar situations.

Snip

But although these are worthy objectives, they fall scandalously short of the crucial issue which millions of people in this country - myself included - believe this inquiry should be about.

With respect to Sir John, there is really no point in holding a further inquiry unless it does apportion blame, unless it does hold to account those who led us into this unnecessary, unwinnable and costly war in Iraq.

The inquiry should be the first step in a judicial process that brings those responsible for the disasters of the Iraq war before the courts - and could, as I shall explain, ultimately result in Tony Blair being indicted for war crimes.....Read the Rest of what General Sir Michael Rose writes

General Sir Michael Rose was commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. He is shortly to appear as a witness in the Karadzic war crimes trial in The Hague.

The World Waits, but more Importantly the Iraqi People Deserve Their Day in Court, at the very least, and the Accountability:

Iraqis' stories must be heard

Four years ago, I traveled to Iraq to talk with its besieged people. Chilcot cannot ignore them now

Four years ago this week I was kidnapped in Baghdad. My trip to Iraq had been motivated by frustration at the government's deafness to all voices of reasoned opposition to the war in Iraq. I went to meet Iraqis to reassure them that most people in Britain did not regard them as enemies. Today, the lead-up to that war is back in the spotlight with the Chilcot inquiry. This is more than just an academic exercise to many. Anyone – in Britain, Iraq or elsewhere – who had a relative killed in the conflict will feel an intense personal need to discover the truth. They will be listening to testimony that appears to gravely undermine the official justification for going to war. They will want to learn the reaction by the then government to the advice of Middle East diplomats who knew about the conflicts within Iraqi society, conflicts that Saddam had suppressed but were always likely to explode on his removal. If you are going to war, ignorance of the probable effects on the country in the aftermath is inexcusable. Why else do you have a large diplomatic and intelligence force in the area?...>>>>>

Who decides if a war is legal?

In a careful performance at the Iraq inquiry Sir Jeremy Greenstock claimed to have been ill-informed, not naive

Sir Jeremy Greenstock's questioning of the legitimacy – as opposed to the legality – of the Iraq war raises two pretty big questions of politics and international and law. Who decides if a war is legitimate? Who decides if it's legal? Are these just matters of opinion, to be determined ultimately by whoever has the most power, ie the US? In the case of Iraq, it's clear that Tony Blair subcontracted the decision to George Bush in early 2002.

Appearing at the Iraq inquiry this morning, Greenstock was less overtly critical of government policy than Sir Christopher Meyer was but both seem to have come to the same conclusion – that the diplomatic process was undermined by the military timetable and the commitment that Blair had given Bush that Britain would back regime change if it came to it....>>>>

Chilcot's Iraq war inquiry off to promising start

Sir John Chilcot and his team have started as they mean to continue

The sceptics might say the Iraq inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, is another pointless investigation, a colossal waste of time, and likely to be a whitewash.

But in the first week, some fascinating evidence has already emerged from these public hearings into the background to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It is perhaps too early to say if it will be a definitive account of the war. But for those predicting some sort of cover-up, the initial signs suggest otherwise....>>>>>

Iraq Inquiry Digest Everything about the Chilcot Inquiry in one place

Day Four, Iraq Inquiry Minute-by-minute coverage of today's session of Sir John Chilcot's investigation into the Iraq war, which is hearing evidence from Sir Jeremy Greenstock

Baghdad Garden Becomes Graveyard, Full of Grieving

An Iraqi woman at the grave of a relative behind Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque, the most hallowed place of worship for Sunnis in Iraq.

BAGHDAD — In the gardens of the living and the dead, the war goes on; not so much with enthusiasm as with resignation.

Snip

Thousands of mourners throng the headstones in what only three years ago was a community garden on the banks of the Tigris River. This is a relatively new tradition in Iraq, paying respects to the dead between morning prayers and the feast held later in the day. On this one day, the garden of the dead overflows with the living.

Snip

Now this garden, known as the Martyrs of Adhamiya since it became a cemetery in 2007, is so densely packed with graves that it is often difficult to walk between the rectangular capstones that cover each one (out of reverence, no one dares tread on top). Six months ago, the authorities counted 9,000 graves, but many more have been added since. Nearly all are victims of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence of one sort or another — terroristic bombings, sectarian killings, political assassinations...>>>>>

The Pandora's box, of an innocent country and people, we not only opened but totally destroyed that will take decades to be rebuilt, if ever!

Scott Ritter: The truth of UK's guilt over Iraq

Until Chilcot hears UN weapons inspectors' testimony, the fiction of Britain honestly seeking a WMD smoking gun prevails

With its troops no longer engaged in military operations inside Iraq, Great Britain has been liberated politically to conduct a postmortem of that conflict, including the sensitive issue of the primary justification used by then Prime Minister Tony Blair for going to war, namely Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.

The failure to find any WMD in Iraq following the March 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of that country by US and British troops continues to haunt those who were involved in making the decision for war. The issue of Iraqi WMD, and the role it played in influencing the decision for war, is at the centre of the ongoing Iraq war inquiry being conducted by Sir John Chilcot....>>>>>