27 QUESTIONS CHILCOT WILL PROBABLY NOT ASK ANTHONY BLAIR:    AN IRAQ PERSPECTIVE

Based on Extracts from the  film: “ The Iraq War”  In support of Tony Benn’s Submission of December 2005 to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan illustrating various breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and in support of a petition signed by 7,000. Also based on a subsequent letter to the United Nations sent in Oct 2009 signed by Derek Jacobi,  Bruce Kent, Naom Chomski, and 5,770 other signatories.

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1:Concealed intent: Carne Ross (UK  First Secretary to the UN 1998- 2003 ) was publicly saying, on your instructions, in the UN that regime change was not an option, while privately he knew that regime change was your object.

QUESTION: Do you deny this?
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2: Bugging in the UN:

QUESTION: Do you deny that bugging was used in the UN to help obtain a Second UN Resolution early in 2003?
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3: A Conspiracy: In Washington in March 2002 there had been a discussion at the British Embassy with Condoleezza Rice how sending back the inspectors might be used to trigger an invasion. Sir Christopher Meyer UK ambassador to Washington sent  you an account of that discussion.

Sir C M  “ We backed regime change. The plan had to be clever, and failure was not an option.“

BBC Voice over: “The clever plans involved getting the UN Security Council to pass a tough new disarmament resolution”

Sir C M“ The US could go it alone if it wanted. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action.     I then went through the need to wrong foot Saddam on the Inspectors. “ 

QUESTION:  Do you deny the existence of this memo which represents a conspiracy contrary to the United Nations Charter  ?
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4: JIC Reports Ignored: John Morrison (Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence 1995 -1999)  has said on the BBC , “ All the evidence was, and this is what the Intelligence Community also have  said, that Saddam had absolutely  no links with Al Qa’ida, and had actually rebuffed their approaches. “

Six weeks before the war  on 10 February 2003. The JIC advised you in a printed document that??  not Iraq but :”Al Qa’ida and associated groups continued to present by far the greatest terrorist threat  to Western interests.”

“ That threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq“

QUESTION: Why did you not heed these JIC reports?
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5: Disagreement with  Hans Blix, Executive Chairman UNMOVIC  2000- 2003 interviewed by BBC about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

HB “ The further we came in January February the more sceptical I became, in particular when we found no weapons of mass destruction in about 3 dozen sites that had been given to us by Intelligence.  And then we said to ourselves, if that is the best what is the rest? He ( Blair) said if I remember rightly, that it was until the end of the month was an expression that he used, that action was fairly imminent.”

HB, “ As we got closer to the war, the will to go to war went up like this but the evidence went down in the other direction.” “ Al Samood missiles were being destroyed”

PM said, ” The moment I heard, earlier in the week that Saddam was not going to destroy these weapons I knew that later in the week Saddam would agree to destroying these weapons when the Inspectors arrived. But this is not a time for playing games “

BBC: Was Saddam playing games?  HB “No he was not. Lethal weapons were being destroyed “

BBC:“By the end of the month at the UN the Head of the Weapons inspectors did not share Mr. Blair’s certainty that the dictator was still playing games. Until now Iraqi cooperation had been limited, but by early March it improved dramatically as these pictures, never before seen, show. Iraqis allowed Inspectors to destroy Al Samood Missiles. Number 10’s clever plan was not going quite to plan. By the end of the month at the UN the Head of the Weapons inspectors did not share Mr. Blair’s certainty that the dictator was still playing games,”

HB speech to  UN “One can only conclude that after a period of somewhat reluctant cooperation there has been an acceleration of initiatives from the Iraqi side. We are not watching the breaking of tooth picks, Lethal weapons are being destroyed. ”

PM responded in Parliament,“We are asked now to seriously accept that in the last few years, contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence, he decided to unilaterally to destroy these weapons ,I say these claims are palpably absurd.”

BBC to HB“ Was it palpably absurd? “HB“ No it was not, and the inspectors had not really asserted these things existed. They had calculated material balances and they said there are a lot of things not accounted for and it wasn’t absurd that they had destroyed them.”

QUESTION:     Why did you not accept that Hans Blix was telling the truth?
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6: Second Resolution: President  Chirac TV broadcast (translation) “ My position is, regardless of the circumstances, that France will vote no, because   she considers   this evening that there is no ground for waging war in order to achieve the goal we have set ourselves to disarm Iraq.”

BBC Voice over: In his interview, the French President mentioned “this evening” no fewer than 4 times to stress that he didn’t think war was justified as of that moment.  But the  PM seized on only the first half of President Chirac’s statement. 

On 26 February 2003 PM said “ If France or any other country says we will veto come what may, Well  that's obviously a very difficult position”

BBC Voice over: In fact President Chirac had not said “no matter what” as if forever. He stressed that, if Iraqis ceased to cooperate with the weapons inspectors, war would become inevitable, it just wasn’t today.

The Sun news paper headlines which PM and Alistaire Cambell approved said :- “ Squirm worm “ wriggly wobbly Chirac” President Chirac was “Like a cheap tart who puts price before principals”

QUESTION: Why did you willfully misrepresent what the French President said?
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7: Iraqi Father mourns son.  “ He was  killed on the day he passed his exams for no reason  at all. This is not just my catastrophe. It is now that of all Iraqis. They talk of mass graves’ Now they are creating more mass graves.”

QUESTION: As an ally, you agreed with Brigadier General Mark Kimmit that, “ It is not productive to count the Iraqi dead”. Do you realize that, by being unable to assess proportionality of response on the battlefield,  you have committed a war crime? . __________________________________________________

8: Indiscriminate attack on Fallujah. Channel 4 showed Pentagon gun film footage of FI6   32 second indiscriminate attack on 30 persons including children in Fallujah.

QUESTION: Do you realise that, in law, The UK shares responsibility for the actions of its ally?

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9:Torture. Two weeks after the Abhu Ghraib photos of torture were revealed you said we stand “shoulder to shoulder “ with our US allies. You said in Parliament that, while you did not approve of Guantanamo, “ it was complicated by the fact that information is still coming from the people detained there.” As you will know Rumsfeld suggested in 2 Dec 2002 that prisoners be held in a stress position  of standing for longer than 4 hours, and suggested 8 to 10 hours.

QUESTION : What is your attitude to torture?
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10: A Holy war: In the briefing soldiers for US  attack on Fallujah in Nov 2004 , Holy Communion was given to troops, and the marines were described  as “agents of wrath” Their Commander said “ The enemy has got a face, it is called Satan”

QUESTION: Have you at any time regarded the Iraq War as Divinely inspired?
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11: The Homoudi Family . A retired surgeon from UK  lived in a house in Basra which was bombed in the first weeks of the war, killing 11 of his family because it was mistakenly assumed  that Chemical Ali was holding a meeting there.

QUESTION: How would you consider the bombing of 29 Connaught Square and its occupants by a Foreign Power because they did not like the cut of your jib, and do your realise that under  article 3 of 1907 Hague Convention both you and the UK may be liable to pay compensation to the Hamoudi Family and a lot of other Iraqis?
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12: Looting in Basra: In the first stage of the war looting became endemic. Initially your Defence Minister Geoffrey Hoon did not discourage looting, and your ally Donald Rumsfeld said “ Stuff Happens”.

QUESTION: Do you realise that standing back from looting is a war crime?
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13: Burning of libraries and destruction of museums, the cultural heritage of Islam, despoliation of Archeaological sites, and the use of Babylon as an army camp:

QUESTION : Do you regard this as a small price to pay for the removal of Saddam Hussein?
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14: Unemployment: One Iraqi said in an interview  “ Everything  has to come by water. This is the destruction of a nation, no petrol , the bridges bombed . No jobs, no work.  We don’t want a democracy like this. “

Ba’ath party members were sacked from, their jobs. This effectively destroyed middle class civil servants  employment because they all had to be Ba’ath Party members.

QUESTION:  Do you realise that it is contrary to the Geneva Conventions to cause widespread unemployment?
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15: Brigadier Binns (Commander of 6th British Armoured Brigade ) said preparations for the aftermath of  the occupation of Basra were totally inadequate. “We needed professional engineers, we needed water engineers, We needed bank managers.”

QUESTION: Do you agree with Brigadier Binns assessment of the inadequate post invasion preparation which is contrary to the Hague Conventions ?
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16: “ I don’t care about collateral damage “A  US Officer  said of the Initial incursion into Baghdad “This is not Northern Ireland.” and the  US Marines  receive briefing:- “ If it moves it gets destroyed. I don’t care about collateral damage at this point.”

Another officer said, “ Good people stay home. If people that are out there watching you, they don’t need to be out there.   They’re not typically innocent people. ”

As a result of this attitude many civilians were killed including

Wasan Juwayid’s  sister hit straight away in a blue minivan full of civilians. Blood spurted onto back seat. Wasan said,” They would not let me bury my sister.  I sat all night long (in the van). I begged them to let me bury my sister. I thought they were coming to bring freedom and democracy.”

QUESTION: How do you regard the shooting up of innocent civilians, and refusal to allow them to bury their dead?
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17:  UK Aggressive patrols:Sam Kiley a film journalist: recorded a vist to a home raided by the British. An old woman was grabbed by soldier and forced into a door. Sam Kiley  shows  dent in the door : He was told a mother and three young children hid in the lavatory.   Soldiers smashed their way into the lavatory with rifl butts.

QUESTION: Do you deny that in Parliament you supported the use of  ‘ Aggressive Patrols’ against the Iraqi population.
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18:Al “ Qa’im Maternity Hospital was completely bombed by US forces. An ambulance on emergency call out was destroyed , killing its driver.

QUESTION: How do you regard the destruction  of fixed and mobile medical units?
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19: Cluster bombs in Kerbala.  Sam Kiley reported  that Hamsa, a 23 year old  ex Iraqi soldier, volunteered, unpaid, to pick up 5,000 American cluster bombs clearing a path to the school. He was blown up. He sacrificed his life for the sake of the children.  Some cluster bombs don’t explode and are very, very dangerous.

QUESTION: Do you think cluster bomblets scattered  on a path used by children going to school would have been approved of by Christ?
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20: Lack of medical supplies:    98 UK  doctors wrote to you in Jan 2007 about lack of medical supplies for children in Iraq, and that they were dying for want of cheap oxygen masks and canullas.  On your behalf, your Minister for DFID replied it is not responsibility of the UK, but of  the “democratically elected Government of Iraq”, in spite of the UK being an invader in 2003 and this point in time  an “Occupying Power,” subject to the Geneva Conventions).

In a Channel 4 Documentary clip of Diwaniya Maternity Hospital, Doctors have no cannulas of the right size. Babies suffer from dehydration due to diaarhoea.

Baby needs re hydration ( a simple procedure with correct needle) the baby screams; Mother cries. Incubators are shown made in 1970s all broken and unhygienic, have to hold up to three babies each with danger of cross infection

 Mary Paterson (Iraq health expert) says Iraq used to be star of the Middle East as far as health care was concerned. The present (2006) situation should never have happened.  Channel 4 voice over) Doctors have a lack of basic equipment: no ventilators, no adrenalin, no Vitamin K. Doctor tries to ventilate a newborn baby, Zara, but  has no child breathing mask. There is no vitamin K to treat baby Zara Zara deteriorates. dies.

QUESTION: Are you aware of Article 55 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions IV ( provision of medical supplies) ?
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21: Prisoners held without proper justice. Sam Kiley reported hearings re alleged offences are held in secret just as in Saddam period. There are no proper records of captured prisoners including those held in Basra region. Corrupt internal police scare relatives of prisoners who are looking in vain for them.

In a separate  Channel 4 Documentary:  Sarah a little girl, 8 years old, is  held for 3 months away from parents by Americans with no notification to parents who assume she is dead. The Americans  had attacked a van and kill all occupants save Sarah Rafee and her father; Sarah is taken to American Hospital. She is repeatedly asked to identify dead Iraqis’ photographs but  refuses. She is eventually found by her grandfather. Sarah is still shaken.  She screams and hides at sound of tanks and cries for her lost father. 

QUESTION: Do you realise that the failure to keep proper records of prisoners held by an occupying power is contrary to the Geneva Conventions?
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22: Hooding and plastic handcuffs: Sam Kiley reported Iraqi civilians describe a wrongful arrest and being abducted, beaten and harmed with plastic handcuffs. They show injuries and produce a letter from British Officer with public apology to whole town.

QUESTION: How do you regard the use of hooding and plastic ties that cause injury?
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23: Depleted Uranium:  Professor Albrect Shott  reports chromosome damage to Kenny Duncan ( Gulf War Veteran) and children (one child born with webbed feet and suffering from immune system dysfunction and extreme headaches). Prof Schott considers this a grave war crime. Kenny Duncan received compensation from the MOD because he handled tanks containing DU radioactivity.  Jenny Moore ( Gulf War Veteran )  also received compensation from MOD  for aborted grotesquely deformed baby and miscarriage with child born without eyes caused by her handling DU shells for loading into tanks.

QUESTION: Do you continue to deny that depleted uranium weapons cause cancers and birth defects even though there is now widespread reports of  massive increase in such very long term chromasome destruction in Iraq?
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24: DU blowing everywhere: Dr. Michael Kreuscher : Lahntal Calden Germany: Tests at Frankfurt University on samples from cattle in Arbil district and water samples and DU contamination reading from car air filter and information  show desert dust storms have spread DU particles from the Basra region to Arbil.  Cattle in Arbil are suffering genetic malformations. Children suffering rates of Leukaemias 40 times normal.

QUESTION: Do you think DU dust can ever be contained? _______________________________________________________

25:Child cancer and birth deformities in Fallujah Tiba was born with a massive growth spreading across her face.  Her mother had said “ I can’t have another baby like her again , she makes me depressed. She makes me hate the whole world when I look at her. She started getting angry and crying and I feel like I am having a nervous breakdown. , She is suffering. Sometimes I wish she would die.”

Dr Jenan Hassan of Basra Maternity Hospital shows pictures of seriously deformed babies without heads, limbs or eyes . Reports that mothers no longer ask if their baby is a boy or girl, but “is it normal or abnormal?” Prof Günther says that most children on the ward have no hope, and will be taken by their parents home to die. He asserts that in the search for weapons of mass destruction, the allies have created weapons of mass destruction themselves, and that this is a war crime.

Sky TV reports on Sep 1 2009 Mahmood Houmadi, an undertaker working in a cemetery since 2004 in Fallujah , buries 4 or 5 new born babies a day and most of them are deformed.

QUESTION: Do you think the fact that women in Iraq are now fearful of  pregnancy because they may produce grossly deformed children is a price worth paying foir the removal of Saddam Hussein ?
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26: QUESTION: Would you mind your own children playing in burnt out tanks in Iraq?
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27: QUESTION: Did you ever visit Iraq before the war?

 


Signed, Felicity Arbuthnot and Nicholas Wood 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/29/tony-blair-chilcot-iraq-inquiry

Blair: truth and lies

As Tony Blair appears at the Iraq war inquiry, a raft of evidence suggests he misled parliament, the public and the press

Mehdi Hasan

guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 10.00 GMT


Did Tony Blair tell the truth about Iraq? Or did he deceive us? As the nation prepares for the former prime minister's testimony at the Iraq inquiry, one ex-adviser to Blair tells the New Statesman this week: "There is a little bit of rhetorical exaggeration in what Tony said at the time, though he always believed that there were WMD in Iraq, as did I, so it was exaggeration rather than lying."


Seven years on from the invasion of Iraq, this myth persists – even amongst critics of the war. It doesn't make sense to call him a liar," Sir Rodric Braithwaite, the former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, tells me. "I think he convinced himself."


Blair himself is a keen purveyor of this self-serving and self-deluding nonsense. ""I have never told a lie. No. I don't intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq," he told Sky's Adam Boulton in 2005.


Sorry, but I don't buy it. Call me a cynic but I have no doubt in my mind that the former premier lied over Iraq, Saddam Hussein and WMD – and did so again and again. He knowingly, deliberately and consciously misled parliament, the public and the press. In the under-reported words of Lord Butler, speaking in the House of Lords in February 2007, Blair was, at the very minimum, "disingenuous".


However, to borrow a phrase from the ex-premier himself, I happen to believe the evidence for his mendacity and dissembling on Iraq is "extensive, detailed and authoritative". Here's a sample of 10 such lies, deceptions and half-truths in no particular order.


1. "Stockpiles"

Lie:


We know that he [Saddam Hussein] has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons…

– Tony Blair, interview on NBC News, 3 April 2002


Truth:


Intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy... From the evidence available to us, we believe Iraq retains some production equipment, and some small stocks of CW agent precursors, and may have hidden small quantities of agents and weapons.

– Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assessment on 15 March 2002


2. Regional threat

Lie:


However, there is no doubt at all that the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein poses a severe threat not just to the region, but to the wider world.

– Tony Blair, House of Commons, 10 April 2002


Truth:


Saddam has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbours.

– "Iraq: Options Paper", secret "eyes only" Cabinet Office paper, 10 March 2002


3. Nuclear weapons

Lie:


Q: Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear – new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?

THE PRESIDENT: We just heard the prime minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied – finally denied access, a report came out of the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Absolutely right. And what we – what we know from what has been going on there for a long period of time is not just the chemical, biological weapons capability, but we know that they were trying to develop nuclear weapons capability. And the importance of this morning's report is it yet again it shows that there is a real issue that has to be tackled here.


– Transcript of remarks made by Tony Blair and George Bush at Camp David news conference, 7 September 2002


Truth:


There's never been a report like that issued from this agency… There is no evidence in our view that can be substantiated on Iraq's nuclear-weapons program. If anybody tells you they know the nuclear situation in Iraq right now, in the absence of four years of inspections, I would say that they're misleading you because there isn't solid evidence out there.

– IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky, 26 September 2002


4. "Beyond doubt"


Lie:


What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme.

– Tony Blair, foreword to the intelligence dossier on Iraqi WMD, 24 September 2002


Truth:


Intelligence remains limited and Saddam's own unpredictability complicates judgements…

- Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assessment, 15 March 2002



"We believe that this uncertainty should have been highlighted to give a balanced view of Saddam's chemical and biological capacity."

- Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report, 11 September 2003


5. "45 minutes"


Lie:


It [the dossier] concludes… that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population.

– Tony Blair, House of Commons, 24 September 2002


Truth:


The exchange is recorded in my diary on March 5 2003. Tony Blair gave me the same reply as John Scarlett, that the battlefield weapons had been disassembled and stored separately. I was therefore mystified a year later to hear him say he had never understood that the intelligence agencies did not believe Saddam had long-range weapons of mass destruction.

- Robin Cook, the Guardian, 12 July 2004


6. Regime Change


Lie:


So far as our objective, it is disarmament, not regime change – that is our objective… I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the United Nations is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, it is not regime change.

- Tony Blair, interview on Radio Monte Carlo, 14 November 2002


Truth:


I said [to Condoleeza Rice] that you would not budge in your support for regime
change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States.

– Foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning's memo to Tony Blair, 14 March 2002



We discussed whether the central aim was WMD or regime change. … TB felt it was regime change in part because of WMD but more broadly because of the threat to the region and the world.

– Alastair Campbell's diary entry for 2 April 2002, after meeting with Blair in Chequers


7. Weapons Inspectors


Lie:


In respect of Iraq we have the clearest possible evidence, both because of what they have done before and what is left over from the previous inspections when the inspectors were kicked out in 1998…

– Tony Blair, House of Commons Liaison Committee, 21 January 2003


Truth:


I received a telephone call from US Ambassador Peter Burleigh inviting me for a private conversation at the US mission... Burleigh informed me that on instructions from Washington it would be 'prudent to take measures to ensure the safety and security of UNSCOM staff presently in Iraq.'... I told him that I would act on this advice and remove my staff from Iraq.

– Richard Butler, executive chairman of the UNSCOM weapons inspectors, in his book Saddam Defiant


8) Saddam's son-in-law


Lie:


It was only four years later after the defection of Saddam's son-in-law [Hussein Kamal] to Jordan, that the offensive biological weapons and the full extent of the nuclear programme were discovered.

– Tony Blair, House of Commons speech, 25 February 2003


Truth:


All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missiles, nuclear were destroyed.

– Hussein Kamal, speaking with UN weapons inspectors in 1995, and first reported by Newsweek on 24 February 2003


9. International opinion


Lie:


On 8 December he [Saddam Hussein] submitted the declaration denying he had any WMD, a statement not a single member of the international community seriously believes.

– Tony Blair, 25 February 2003


Truth:



Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

– Vladimir Putin, Moscow news conference with Tony Blair, 11 October 2002


10. Mass graves


Lie:


We've already discovered just so far the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.

– Tony Blair, 20 November 2003


Truth:


Downing Street has admitted to the Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

– Peter Beaumont, the Observer, 18 July 2004