The Iraq culprits!

The Conservatives have lost the Commons vote concerning the application of an inquiry into the Iraq War. With a shifty Miliband in charge, no inquiry will be held for some time. There were some excellent speeches, but I thought Robert Marshall-Andrews was an exceptionally well spoken advocate of such an inquiry. He said during the debate -

"The first is what was revealed in the Downing street memo of July 2002, reported by The Sunday Times in an unusual contribution to the debate. It was recorded that at that meeting in Downing street in July 2002 Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of secret intelligence, or “C”, as he was known, had reported from America to the War Cabinet, which included Jonathan Powell, that: “There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
In the same minute, it is recorded that the then Foreign Secretary, now the Lord Chancellor said that it was clear that “Bush had made up his mind to take military action…But the case was thin.”

The then Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, to whom I shall return in just a moment, is recorded as warning that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult. That secret memorandum, of limited circulation and ordered to be destroyed thereafter, will become, I predict, one of the seminal documents when the history of warfare comes to be discussed. Not one single word of that document reached this House; not one single word reached the British people. Indeed, this House was told precisely the opposite: until the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, the case was made that there was still time to avert war and catastrophe. That was a lie, and a black deception to this House and to the British people.

I do not entirely agree with the palliative statements in the excellent speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in opening the debate. The real point of the debate, and of any inquiry that may be held, is not to learn lessons so that we do not make mistakes again. That is one reason, but I want an inquiry to be held into the Iraq war because I want those responsible to be brought to book and to justice. If necessary, they should be brought to international justice, but I want us to be the ones who bring them to it."

It will happen one day that Blair, Hoon, and Straw will be lumped together in a dock pleading ignorance to such a terrible connivance. Maybe not tomorrow, next year or in the next decade, but it will happen. Of that, Marshall-Andrews is correct, I believe.

More here

Posted in: David Miliband,Geoff Hoon,Iraq,Jack Straw,Robert Marshall-Andrews