Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Part II of the David Aaronovitch BBC whitewash on the Blair Years was on the war leader. At least it included Joska Fischer saying that Iraq was a huge strategic mistake for which we will all pay including those who had the wisdom to oppose it.
And once again however unpleasant its stench, the glare of the whitewash was so great it became revealing. But before biting back, because it is important not to let them re-write historfy in this way without protest, it seems to me that Iraq is not going to go away from British politics, even as the UK’s troops are pulled out completely.
Recently, Colin Brown of the Independent reported on our Foreign Secretary discussing Brown’ description of himself as a heard-headed internationalist,
"Mr Miliband said the Brown strategy would not have stopped Britain going to war. Asked on BBC Radio whether the same decision would have been made under Mr Brown's doctrine, Mr Miliband replied: "In respect of the decision to invade Iraq, absolutely right." He conceded that decisions taken since the war "could have been done better" but insisted: "No one is resiling from the original decision."
To be hard-headed, it was never in Britain’s interests to go into Iraq, the entire strategy was misconceived. It created war where there was a chance of peace with Iran, it delivering a gift to Bin Laden and Islamic jihadism everywhere, and it was justified by a policy of deception which was then found out.
The deception was based on the foolish wager that it would be so easy to overthrown Saddam’s weak and broken regime and then build a client democracy in its place that the lies would be justified by the triumph. The programme was passive in its acceptance of Blair’s own version. No one from the intelligence community was interviewed. But I think it is necessary to insist on the evidence of deception. The current and justified distrust of government from Northern Rock to the discs disater, threads back to that bleak moment.
Blair was at it again on WMD. He told Aaronovitch, “The intelligence of every country in the world was more or less the same that he [Saddam] had an active programme. Massive amounts were unaccounted for. No one said, you are barking up the wrong tree, it never exists”.
This isn’t true. Many intelligence reports thought that Saddam Hussein had preserved some chemical weapons, if only to frighten his own forces and stop them rebelling. But who was confident that he was actively making them? I think you will find in both the dossier and to parliament, Blair stated categorically that Saddam was making chemical weapons. He could not have been doing so without this being observed.
The openDemocracy interview with Ron Manley, who was in charge of destroying the Iraq chemical weapons after 1991, makes this clear. It also explains why they knew that the “massive amounts” of WMD Blair refers to could not have survived in a lethal form. I'm afraid Blair and company certainly lied in that they did not want to know the truth. The Manley interview is a long one and I think fascinating. The key passage is towards the end after the question, “Why couldn’t the Iraqis have restarted their programme?”
It seems to me that Labour will not be re-elected unless it faces up to what went wrong. It is not a matter of sincerity. But of a catastrophe. Why wasn't the case against insisted on? How could a Prime Minister simply decide to follow America in the way Blair did and get away with it when so many in senior levels knew it was fundamentally mistaken, as did most voters?
Back to the programme. This indulged what are becoming familiar as the four legs of Blair’s self-worship.
- Its all my strategy (Thus Robin Cook, who attempted to create an ethical foreign policy and was an architect of Kosovo goes unmentioned as does everyone else).
- Power is personal, it is about sincerity, anguish and lonely decisions (Alistair Campbell sets this up every time).
- Its about good and evil (See George Bush for validation as well as 'sincerity' as in 2 above)
- Its about being in touch with the future (See my previous posts)
The programme refered to the Chicago speech as if he wrote it himself, as does Blair. Single handed he persuades the Americans to come round to his view! He had his John Pilger moment in Kosovo (for which we are grateful). But he has not had it in Iraq. However, this only goes to show how right he was – sorry, is - because the wicked ones are fighting back!
This creates the most fundamental struggle of our time, so we have to be in the thick of it. “Our determination has got to be stronger than theirs, our will”. This is baby-talk. George Bush provided the chorus. It is about fighting evil and we are the righteous. On full display was the banality and childishness of the Prime Minister and the President, the infantalisation of late Anglo-Saxon sovereignty. We have not seen the last of it.
