Iraq war was worth doing: Hague

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/181396.html

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says that Iraq war has made it "a better place," as the British troops finally departed from Iraq.

"It is a much better place than we found it. Remember it was a ruthless dictatorship, and a menace and a danger to the peace of that region and the wider world,” Hague said regarding the end of British army's eight-year presence in Iraq.

"It has been worth doing what we've done," he added.

Britain has played a key role in the US-led invasion of Iraq which began in 2003, in which 46,000 British personnel were engaged.

The large number of British combat troops left Iraq in July 2009, but scores of the Royal Navy officers stayed at the port of Umm Qasr in order to train the Iraqi navy.

The remaining 81 sailors left Iraq on Sunday and formally put an end to the operation.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair had also said at his second appearance at Iraq Inquiry that the war had made the world safer, saying he had no regrets about the war that removed the Iraqi “monster.”

New evidence; UK sought Iraqi oil

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180177.html

Britain's decision to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was made 18 months before the invasion in exchange for an oil “prize”, newly revealed documents say.

The secret documents - now released - shed more light on the UK government's motives behind joining the intervention.

British foreign intelligence service MI6 had said nearly 18 months before the invasion that the "prize" for removing the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam was "new security to oil supplies," said the newly declassified documents published by The Daily Mail on Friday.

According to the papers, master spies at the MI6 had talked out the issue with the then cabinet ministers, to which they openly supported “regime change” in Iraq. The plan included a coup to topple Saddam's regime, the secret papers said.

The documents, which Sir Richard Dearlove, the then head of the MI6 had discussed with then Prime Minister Tony Blair's top foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning on December 2001, even included plans, which could “head off” the US government from pursuing regime change in Iraq.

These documents add credibility to critics arguments that the real motive of the United States and Britain to go to war with the Iraqi regime was to control the country's vast oil deposits.

A Middle East expert at MI6 identified only as 'SIS4' had written one of the reports.

"At our meeting on 30 November we discussed how we could combine an objective of regime change in Baghdad with the need to protect important regional interests which would be at grave risk," Dearlove wrote to David.

The MI6 report also admitted three months after the 9/11 attacks on the United States that there was “no convincing intelligence (or common sense) case” that Iraq supported extremists, The Telegraph reported.

Without UN authorization, Britain joined the US in March 2003 in invading Iraq to topple the Saddam regime based on claims of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

More than eight years after the invasion, no trace of WMDs has been found, with hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and millions more got sick or dislocated from their place of birth.

'Blair created pack of lies on Iraq war'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180045.html

The new-documents released by the Iraq war Inquiry has confirmed that Tony Blair and his communications advisor Alistair Campbell made up a pack of lies to involve Britain in an illegal war.

Following the revelation of the top military intelligence official, Michael Laurie, that Iraq dossier was written to make case of war, analysts said that the Iraq Inquiry is aimed at finding errors which have been made by the UK officials in invading to Iraq, has been leading depressing affair.

They believed that the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq war has already cost millions of pounds, and lasted for two years and exactly when the key witnesses stood at the Inquiry to give evidence on the disastrous Iraq War, the inquiry officials started asking imprecise and inadequate questions.

The devastating evidence by Major General Michael Laurie proves that Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell were slippery, unashamed and able to mislead not only the Inquiry but the families of about 200 British soldiers who laid down their lives in this illegal bloody war.

In a statement published on Iraq Inquiry website, General Michael Laurie who was in charge of commanding and delivering raw and analyzed intelligence, said, "I am writing to comment on the position taken by Alastair Campbell during his evidence to you … when he stated that the purpose of the dossier was not to make a case for war; I and those involved in its production saw it exactly as that, and that was the direction we were given."

The evidence openly contradicted the claims of the former government about the dossier and perhaps more considerably, what the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Campbell said at the time it was published right seven months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Laurie said he could remember that the chief of defense intelligence, Air Marshal Sir Joe French, was "frequently inquiring whether we were missing something" and was under pressure.

"We could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to WMD [weapons of mass destruction], generally concluding that they must have been dismantled, buried or taken abroad. There has probably never been a greater detailed scrutiny of every piece of ground in any country."

Despite the uncovered lies, the treachery and corruption, the increasing violence of the state, the broken promises, breaking the law and order, collapse of the economy, there still remains a group of loyalists who have closed their eyes and speak sweetly of the so-called warmonger.

Iran calls for intl. court to try Blair

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161692.html


Iran's top security official Saeed Jalili has called for an international tribunal to put former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on trial for war crimes.

The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council told a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey that Blair should be tried as a war criminal at an international court for his complicity in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq.

In his second appearance at the Iraq War Inquiry in London on Friday, Blair unleashed an all-out attack on Iran, accusing the Islamic Republic of posing a “looming challenge” to the West by pursuing its nuclear activities.

The Iranian official reacted to the allegations, noting that “Blair should first save himself at the trial.”

“A dispute arises at this point over the fact that why some people allow themselves to violate the rights of other nations and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, but nobody neither issues a resolution against them nor questions them in this regard,” Jalili said.

Bringing up the question that why the UK government is the only nation that tries Blair, the top Iranian official stressed that “he attacked Iraq without United Nation's authorization, an act that contributed to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. But nobody questions him today.”

The former British Prime Minister and the then US president George W. Bush are complicit in the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Blair made all the crucial decisions that led Britain to become the second-biggest contributor of troops to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Dozens of anti-war protesters gathered outside the Chilcot Inquiry venue to demonstrate their mounting outrage over Blair's decision to take Britain into an illegal conflict.

British Press: 'Blair lied, thousands died'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161535.html


British newspapers have unanimously blasted former Prime Minister Tony Blair for acting as a pawn in the hands of the former US President by invading Iraq on March 2003 under his command.

Blair was grilled, for the second time on Friday, by the official Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war where he insisted he was deeply regretful for the loss of life in the conflict, sparking angry shouts of "too late" from dead troopers' families.

The Independent said Blair's "gung-ho" attitude showed the "folly" of his position on Iraq, adding that the "disastrous consequences remain clear for all to see."

The Guardian said "for the most part, the old stager belted out familiar tunes" in a display of "chutzpah".

"It is not a trial, but the inquiry must nonetheless settle whether the former prime minister swept three particular things away -- the truth, the law and proper decision-making. Of these three, Blair yesterday acquitted himself with least damage on the last," it added.

The Daily Mail said it was "a predictably polished, slippery" performance, full of "self-justifying claptrap".

"Mr Blair agreed in secret to wage the Iraq war -- then lied, cheated and manipulated to make it happen," the daily said.

"To this day, his actions stain the national conscience."

The Sun said "nothing divides Britain more than our part in the war against the evil regime of Saddam Hussein".

The Daily Telegraph said "so relentless is the chorus that the public has given up trying to listen to what he has to say, assuming that it is all glib self-justification".

The Times sketch writer Ann Treneman said "the whole place was a "virtual floatation tank of emotion".

According to the Times, Blair's expression of regret over the lives lost in front of bereaved relatives seemed "like some sort of reckoning. Imperfect and messy, yes. Dysfunctional, certainly. But a reckoning, nonetheless".

The Daily Mirror said nobody's mind would be changed by the inquiry.

"It is the process which was at fault rather than any preconceived mendacity on the part of Mr Blair, a politician motivated by good intentions who made a catastrophic error."

The Daily Express agreed, decribing the inquiry as "pointless".

"Everybody by now must have reached a settled view. Clearly Blair massively overstated the case for believing Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Equally there was always a case for removing the monster on human rights grounds and for staying close to America."

"As it happens, the negatives heavily outweighed the positives," it said, adding "that is really all anyone needs to know."

Blair rebukes Iran to own benefits

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161397.html


During a fresh grilling at Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, ex-UK Premier Tony Blair has claimed that Iran considered a democratic Iraq an “existential threat”.

In the recently-held session of the Inquiry, Blair claimed that some states in the Middle East region believe the US-led invasion of Iraq made Iran more powerful.

The former British Prime Minister made the allegation irrespective of the fact that Iran owes its weight in the region to its support for democratically-elected governments of Muslim countries against those installed by foreign hands.

He said his response to such criticisms is that Iran needed to be dealt with differently than it was the policy in the 1980s, which was erecting a Saddam-style dictatorship to wage war on the country.

He did not name Britain, though, as one of those pursuing the 'policy' of provoking Saddam against Iran leading to an eight-year war, which began in 1980 early after the Islamic revolution there, and lasted until 1988.

However his comments did ring a bell with the audience as how can a country like Britain which backed a dictator like Saddam just years ago could probably now be the harbinger of democracy in Iraq and how can someone conceive a similarly swift change of position by Iran to opposing democracy.

Blair seemed to imply Iran did prefer the dictatorship under Saddam in Iraq despite the fact that the dictator had imposed a devastating war on the country, and supported and accommodated one of the most notorious terrorist groupings, behind assassinations of leading Iranian prominent figures and officials, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).

The MKO was blacklisted by the US government as a terrorist grouping for masterminding the assassination of former Iranian president Mohammad-Ali Rajaee, and several other officials, yet the British lawmakers wrote to US President Barrack Obama in 2009 to follow the EU example and remove the group from the US' terror list.

The MKO terrorist members are now freely living and working in the UK.

Blair did not stop at that in his accusations when be blamed Iran for acting like what the al-Qaeda extremists are doing in Iraq.

He acknowledged Iran's influence in the Middle East, but not as a major Muslim nation which is leading efforts to curb the influence of bullying powers including Britain in the predominantly Muslim region.

The former premier claimed Iran's influence 'he is seeing everywhere' in the Middle East is “negative and destabilizing” and opposed to the peace process.

This comes against the backdrop of remarks made earlier this month by Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani in which he who called for “vigilance and solidarity” among Iraqis to safeguard the sustenance of their unity government of Shiites and Sunnis against the divisive plots of the occupiers.

Larijani's point was echoed by Blair when he said they believed before the invasion that extremism was an “encrustment” in Iraq but later they came to know that the 'ideology' by which he meant Islam had “a far greater reach than we like to accept”.

That was the point where Blair let the cat out of the bag by equating extremism, which should be fought in Iraq, with Islam and by extension implying that the very faith is the source of his hostile remarks toward Iran.

He further strengthened such an impression when he said Iran is opposed to the western way of life, and not the do-called democracy in the western world.

Iraq War Inquiry website deletes memo

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161252.html


In yet another blow to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's credibility, the Chilcot Inquiry into the war on Iraq has released several declassified documents which open the door to quite serious evidence about the build-up to the US-led invasion of the country.

The Iraq War Inquiry has found out that the private secretary at No 10 routinely deleted any mention of Blair's correspondence with the US President Bush from the government minutes at the time.

Meanwhile, it was reported that after talks with Blair, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has refused to declassify the letters, written in the run-up to the 2003 invasion between Bush and Blair.

One of the declassified documents and the most important one, maybe, was the transcript of the minutes of a private hearing attended by former chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir John Scarlett, and former chief of the assessment staff, Julian Miller.

Scarlet has admitted his team were 'bulldozed' into drawing conclusions about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction 'by the military time-table' which created a rush to war.

This document was immediately deleted from the list of the released declassified documents, but to our readers' fortune we managed to download a copy of the transcript which is attached to this article.

You can download the file here
http://217.218.67.244:8181/video/britain/ScarlettandMiller-2010-05-05-1.pdf

If link doesn’t work contact me and I will send a pdf file.

Tony Blair's remarks at Chilcot Inquiry

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161271.html


Tony Blair's remarks on his second appearance at Chilcot Inquiry have sparked different reactions across the political spectrum.

Followings are summarized version of his remarks.

On UN resolution

America and England had tried to obtain the second UN resolution. Chile and Mexico "caught between a rock and a hard place" since they wanted to give a support but France had warned a veto. French had informed that they would veto any resolution. Then American/French relationship had turned into "very scratchy" relation.

On complying with the UN resolutions

France asserted that Saddam Hussein had toed the line partly with weapons inspectors. However, it was not wise to permit the weapons inspectors the further time as Saddam was not straight about complying with the UN resolutions.

On Saddam Hussein

The Iraqi president Saddam had made the threats of killing the families of who complied with weapons inspectors. This is not considered as a logical compliance.

The Former Prime Minister said that Saddam Hussein would probably be the president of Iraq if America and England had stepped back from Iraq.

On Goldsmith legal advice

Regarding his ignorance to the legal advice of Lord Goldsmith, his top adviser, Tony Blair has admitted that he wished he had welcomed Goldsmith's warning and he had been more engaged with the UN Resolution 1441.

On assuring Bush

Tony Blair had convinced American president George Bush to close the eyes to his own government's guidance. Blair had pledged the American president that Britain would support US in the invasion. Blair told Bush “You can count on us, but here are the issues and difficulties” which he later sketched out privately to President Bush.

On changing the Iraqi regime

The fact of changing the Iraqi regime was not considered as the UK policy Iraq but to deal with the WMD issue. The US president desired a change in the Iraqi regime.

On dealing with Iraq

The principal subject of the British cabinet had been the problems of Iraq. The Iraq threat had needed to be dealt with. The former Labour party leader has been proud of rooting out Saddam Hussein.

Tony Blair refuted the idea of preparing for the outcome of the Iraq war, saying that it was left to the American president.

On September 11

Tony Blair has argued that the Britain government had acted side by side with the American government after the terroristic attacks of September 11.

Blair deceived Britain into Iraq war

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/160727.html


Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had given false evidence to the parliament in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, says a top former official.

Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair's top legal advisor at the time, told the Iraq War Inquiry that the prime minister misled parliament by claiming that Britain could legally attack Iraq even without a United Nation's approval, British media reported.

In evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, the former attorney general said, he had told Blair two month before the invasion that an attack on Iraq would not be legal without a fresh UN mandate.

But, Goldsmith said, the former Labor prime minister told the MPs in a statement on 15 January 2003 that there were “circumstances” in which an attack could be legal without UN approval.

"There are circumstances in which a [UN] resolution is not necessary, because it is necessary to be able to say in circumstances where an unreasonable veto is put down that we would still act," Blair said during the speech.

Lord Goldsmith said he believed that UN resolution 1441, which was passed in November 2002 and declared Iraq in “material breach” of its obligations to disarm, was not sufficient to sanction war by the UK and United States.

In the new evidence to the inquiry, Lord Goldsmith said in his statement that the phrasing of resolution 1441 was "problematic".

He was not actively consulted on the final drafting of the resolution after telling Blair in October that the text as it stood did not authorize the use of force.

"I was not being sufficiently involved in the meetings and discussions about the resolution and the policy behind it that were taking place at ministerial level”, said Goldsmith.

"Much of the later difficulties could have been avoided if my view had been sought on the drafts that were developed during the later stages of the negotiations, particularly bearing in mind the fact that I had not been persuaded that the early drafts achieved our objectives", he said.

The revelations will mount criticism of Blair, who will appear before the inquiry on Friday.

The reasons for the invasion of Iraq, as claimed by former US president George W. Bush and Tony Blair, were “to disarm Iraq of Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs)”.

The claims were revealed afterwards to be empty slogans as the invading governments failed to discover any kinds of WMDs and the US government later confirmed that there were not the weapons for which the US mobilized its allies and went for war.

The war on Iraq killed thousands of people, including more than 4,400 US troops, and devastated the country infrastructure to the extent that its reconstruction would takes many years while the consequences of the invasion would plague the Iraqi people forever.

Blair Iraq grilling sparks protests

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159477.html


Britain's anti-war activists are to launch protests as former Prime Minister Tony Blair returns to Iraq war inquiry for a fresh hearing in the coming weeks.

Campaigners, among them the members of the families that have lost loved ones in the war, will rally in central London in time with Blair's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry, which will be held sometime between January 18 and February 7.

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), which has organized the protests, has also planned media briefings and street theatres against Blair's rush to war in Iraq based on a “sexed-up” dossier on the Middle Eastern country's weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair is believed to be grilled for a second time on the legality of the war in Iraq and the build-up to the invasion in 2003 along with 10 other former British officials including former foreign minister Jack Straw in the upcoming inquiry session.

Blair appeared before the investigative committee for the first time in January 2010 and the committee members now want him to answer questions regarding the new evidence that has come to light since then.

Based on documents declassified in June, Blair appeared to have ignored a warning by former attorney general Lord Goldsmith that invading Iraq would be illegal just one day before the Prime Minister secretly assured former US President George W. Bush of London's support for the invasion.

Goldsmith told Blair in January 2003 that the UN Security Council had not issued an “express authorisation” for resorting to a military option against Iraq.