Luke Akehurst effectively says that the invasion of Iraq was right because:
(a) Saddam Hussein was a bad bastard;
(b) Everyone… and he means everyone, thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction;
(c) Even if he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, the invasion was justified because… errrm, Saddam Hussein was a bad bastard who might have weapons of mass destruction in the future.
Therefore, since we now know he didn’t have them, people shouldn’t get too excited because our Prime Minister misled the House of Commons and took the country to war based on a lie.
Well… it’s a point of view.
The counter point of view was that US Intelligience agencies lied over Saddam’s possession of WMD in order to try to legitimise their invasion. The CIA reports which said that Iraq…
has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.
… was unadulterated horse shit. Their reports to Bush said that ‘Iraq had rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production’ and that ‘Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin.’
It was nonsense, and post-invasion was proven to be a nonsense. Blair used that argument to secure a majority of Labour MPs would support the resolution for war. He knew the Tories would vote for the war anyway, they always support resolutions for war. But Labour MPs needed convincing, arm twisting, and being told downright lies. Blair had failed to convince them that getting rid of a bad bastard was sufficient justification for invading another country. That was why the possession, not the potential for WMD’s was important to Blair.
Of course, none of this negates Akehurst’s view that he would want to fight (or more accurately, send other people to fight), wars against bad bastards on the grounds that they are bad bastards who might one day possess weapons of mass destruction. But let us not try to kid everyone with the continued deception that ‘we all thought he had them, but it wasn’t important even if he didn’t’. Two million people who marched on Hyde Park had seen through Bush’s lies, and had heard what Hans Blix was saying. Labour backbenchers may have been prepared to accept being sold a lie, many, many more people in the country didn’t believe it then, and they know they were right.
Spot on Bob.
For me the tragedy is the backbenchers who lacked the gumption to stand up against the lie machine.
I’d like to think we won’t get fooled again ( as a country – after all as individuals many of us weren’t fooled) but I for one am left with deep mistrust of politicians who let the country down big time.
Based on the evidence that Saddam gassed and tortured his own people, almost built a nuclear reactor, invaded another Country, fired scud missiles everywhere (including Israel, of course) and Hans Blix answering NO to the question of ‘unfettered access’, what would you have done?
You appear to come to your conclusions AFTER the invasion, AFTER we had a closer look and AFTER intelligence was proven to be innacurate.
Our MPs were not in posession of that afterthought and had no prior knowledge to the contrary.
It’s possible to vote YES to invasion and reconsider the view to a NO later on.
How did the CIA come to the real conclusion that they were about to lie? How did they gather the intelligence to promote that lie?
Gary, if we had invaded when he had gassed the Kurds, you might at least have a moral point, but ourselves, the French and the US fell over each other to sell him weapons to use against Iran. They had no moral misgivings then though, but dragged that out of the cupboard when they needed it.
Had he fired Skuds against Israel? When?
The invasion of Kuwait was 14 years earlierfor Christs sake! Let no-one say the Elsby’s don’t bear a grudge. Why don’t we invade Germany next week in retaliation for their invasion of Poland? Oh no, I forgot we did that. And we invaded Iraq over Kuwait. Had Saddam occupied Kuwait again? I missed that one.
The CIA just published a pack of lies, that’s what.
And finally, many of us wanted proff he had WMD’s before the invasion. That’s why we were fed the lies.
Saddam had a 20 year history which preceded the invasion. I’m not necessarily disagreeing wiith you on the final chapter, I’m just pondering the notion that 650 MPs had a vote for the first time on a war, and you suggest they got it wrong, or were fed lies. My guess is that the 20 year form of saddam was the clincher.
Iraq fired Scuds at Israel in 1991 and hit Tel Aviv and Haifai.
France built their Nuclear reactor and Israel bombed it. France was never going to support the coalition.
It’s not that I bear a grudge, it’s that I question the patience of this Country and our expected appeasment in the face of a terrorist Country such as Iraq. If dropping Scuds into Israel, Kuwait,Saudi Arabia and Jordan isn’t an act of terrorism, then what is?
I know all the arguments over who Saddam invaded and tortured and I also know that western Countries sell weapons to boost their exports, but I can’t defend a mad Dictator who gasses his people, fires missles into neutral Countries and tortures his own political opponents with my own conscience that requires world intervention.
UN resolutions 867, 876 and 1441 were crystal clear:
‘Unfettered access’, or face intervention by ‘all means possible’.
Hans Blix was asked the question, he replied ‘No’.
Invasion.
Regime change for the sake of it and/or for oil is against international law.
What part of that does Luke Akehurst fail to understand?
The decision to invade came first and the seeking justification for it came second.
The so-called justification has not stood up to the test of time. The invasion of Iraq was and remains a war crime.
Why do people persist with the lie that ‘everybody thought he had WMDs’ at the time of the invasion. From Robin Cook’s resignation speech in 2003 before the invasion
“Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term – namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target”.
Yes, Saddam did fire Scuds onto Israel, in the hope of drawing it into the conflict and uniting the Arab world against the Allied forces. But I still agree with you, Bob. Had our craven MPs taken their noses out of the trough and done their job we would not now be agonising over what will, I believe, be the UK’s greatest foreign policy disaster of the 21st century, and we’ve only just atarted it. What is it with New Labour – they’ve had us at war almost continuously since first getting elected!
What do you mean, ‘probably’?
Our Foreign policy towards a mad man hangs on the word of ‘probably’?
Come on!
And if Saddam Hussein had held WMDs, then would not the invasion of Iraq have quickly led to him resorting to their use? The invasion would then have been similar to prodding a mad dog with a stick. We could have been mass destroyed on the basis of Blair’s arguments. Although we would then have had a big problem about removing any real WMDs, we would have had to try to prevent Saddam from using them first – not encouraging him. Even if we had been armed with a fresh UN mandate, the WMD argument would still have made it highly problematic to invade Iraq.
Good post, Bob.
Gary, I admire your obvious passion, but that kind of reasoning is a slippery slope.
Yes, Saddam was a bad man. So is Mugabe. So is Ahmadinejad. So is Kim Jong-Il. Ditto probably another dozen guys the spelling of whose names I don’t want to look up!
Israel, as I recall, threw a few missiles of their own next door not very long ago, and there wasn’t the massed might of the World’s military powers convening on the Jerusalem road?
The argument seemed to go something like, “well, we think he may have WMD, but even if not, we’ll just feed that crap to the commons and then punish Iraq for breaking international law by… breaking international law”
The fact that we had ground troops just over the border – in Saudi, that international model of tolerance & human rights – always seemed to be a fairly good indicator that they didn’t have these battlefield WMD that could be released in 45 mins, because surely if you had them, and your land was about to be invaded, you’d use them, no?
I find this reasoning very odd.
He gasses his own people, tortures opponents, invades other ‘Sovereign Countries’(!!)and attempts to fuel a Middle East war by sending out missiles over various Countries for no apparent reason other than violence.
If Britain invades his ‘Sovereignty’(!!!), you are up in arms.
I’m struggling with the logic.
Harry, I don’t see the requirement of a further UN resolution, as 1441 actually shored up the previous attempts to reign Iraq in.
Gary… he gassed the Kurds in 1988… he invaded Kuwait in 1990… you’re right, he did Skud Israel (no casualties) in the first Gulf War…
…and the Blair/Bush invasion was in 2003!!!!
They sure took a long time to get offended.
There WERE NO WMD’s… and Blair/Bush knew that.
But 9/11 changed everything and changed the way we conduct Foreign policy.
Words were no more, and action, right or wrong, is the new world order.
It didn’t surprise me that France and co (big financial losers) did not back the invasion of Iraq, it doesn’t surprise me that Israel carries on as it does and it doesn’t surprise me that scores of Countries are involved in Afghanistan.
The world has had enough and this is why president Blair collects his US gold medal and round of applause when the inquiry is over.
Our Foreign policy is the sum of all parts and not the fractions you highlight.
I’m not dreaming this up, it is the way it is. Proactive, rather than reactive is the new method of restoring world order even if piles of innocent civilians litter the road sides.
Twin Towers was a wake up call that woke Amercia and her allies up.
Gary, the logic of my position is that even with a second United Nations resolution I would still have opposed the invasion of Iraq because of its likely consequences. Those consequences turned to be even worse than anticipated. This is not to excuse terrorists for their hideous actions. Nor is it to say that we should have done nothing to undermine Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime. There were many brave people in Iraq and in excile who opposed what he was doing. And his regime’s control was slipping – although it was aided by the way sanctions were operated.
Once the invasion took place, then people who felt as I did needed to respond to a new situation. The emphasis then had to be on protecting the Iraqi people, providing humanitarian aid and helping progressive forces in Iraq – such as their main Trade Union Movement. Unfortunately, bodies such as Labour Against the War failed to recognise they had not succeeded. I had been on their platform at their lauch in the Commons, but later resigned. At the same time some terrible errors were made by the occupying powers. These had to be criticised, but not as part of a “troops out” campaign. But as part of a programme which called for massive impovements in the tactics that were being adopted. Some who had supported the invasion also saw what the subsequent needs were.
There continues to be a need to support those in Iraq who press for a humane, decent democratic system and for protections against terrorism. There is a special responsibilty placed on the nations who were involved in the invasion. Their citizens have a special duty to press them on these matters.
“He gasses his own people, tortures opponents, invades other ‘Sovereign Countries’(!!)and attempts to fuel a Middle East war by sending out missiles over various Countries for no apparent reason other than violence.”
In other words, Bad Man.
Like many others since the drafting of the UN Charter, and before it.
This point has been covered.
“If Britain invades his ‘Sovereignty’(!!!), you are up in arms.”
That’s because the international community has made wars of aggression (i.e. those not fought on the grounds of self-defence) illegal.
The maintenance of the Rule of law, a constitutional principle vital in Britain in particular, demands that governments don’t do illegal things.
On that basis, is being angry about what came to pass really such a difficult position to empathise with?
We can deal with the death total and density, human rights abuses and what has (entirely predictably) happened in Iraq since in a different conversation, but it seems to me that the whole operation from seeds to timber represents the biggest cock up in UK foreign policy since appeasement.