Iraq war inquiry to focus on Blair's "lies"

27 November 2009
Britain is currently engaged in a government-sponsored enquiry into the circumstances surrounding Britain's engagement in the war in Iraq and the justification for its decision to send Brtish troops to occupy the country and force a change of regime.

The committee's work is still in its early stages and has been interviewing the senior political and military figures who played a major role in the decision-making process. Its findings are not expected to be before June 2010 since it expects to speak to hundreds of key people from the security establishment, government ministries, and armed forces and will have to consider hundreds of thousands of secret documents.

The main focus is on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's role in embroiling his country in this war and whether he was honest in presenting the case for military action to parliament, the press and the British people.

For the past two days, British newspapers have been full of reports confirming that Blair persistently lied throughout the months leading up to the invasion, that he deceived and misled Parliament and the British public when he reiterated that the decision to go to war had not been taken and that Britain would not take part in any war against the Iraqi president as long as the UN commission did not present irrefutable documents confirming the presence of weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. But the documents reveal that the US administration was planning an aggression against Iraq before 9/11 events and that Blair agreed to launch the war on Iraq nearly one year prior to the first attack.

The popular British Daily Mirror newspaper yesterday asserted that Blair was informed by his intelligence services 10 days before the war that Iraq did not possess any WMD at all. It cited Sir William Ehrman, the former Foreign Office undersecretary and current ambassador to China, as saying that the intelligence services confirmed to then Prime Minister Blair that Iraq did not possess any WMD and that Iran, North Korea, and Libya were more dangerous than it, Iraq, to Britain's security and interests. They also asserted that there were no relations between Iraqi President Saddam Husayn's regime and al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist groups.

Blair, who is at present the Quartet's envoy for peace in the Middle East, insisted on pressing ahead with the war on Iraq despite all this information. He lied to the British public and to parliament and has persisted with these lies to this very day in order to cover up the crimes against humanity he committed by invading a country that did not have WMD, did not have relations with al-Qa'idah, and did not pose any danger to Britain or even Iraq's neighbouring countries.

The EU countries refused to appoint Blair their president because they know he is a liar and cannot be trusted because of his lack of moral integrity. But, regrettably, he is still warmly received in most Arab capitals as if he were a respectable personality worthy of their support and esteem.

Blair should not be welcomed, but tried as a war criminal. Together with his partner and friend George W. Bush, he caused the death of one million Iraqis and the displacement of 4 million others and rendered four million Iraqi children orphans now living with their widowed mothers.

Dr Fadil Chalabi, the noted oil expert and former Iraqi Oil Ministry under-secretary, told this newspaper's chief editor that Iraq was not invaded and occupied because of oil but because of its principled stand against Israel. Saddam's regime wholeheartedly supported the Palestinian people in their fight agaist Israeli invasion, occupation and aggression and backed their intifadah. Besides being a respected figure, Dr Fadil Chalabi was never a Ba'thist and was classified as one of the former Iraqi regime's foremost archenemies.

Iraq is paying the price for its honourable moral, pan-Arab and humanitarian stance and for siding with the Arab's foremost cause in Palestine. This explains the silence of many of its new leaders who are not uttering a single word in support of this cause. Some of them were even involved in the deportation and expulsion of the small Palestinian community in Iraq and even killed as many Palestinians as they could, despite their having lived in Iraq for almost 60 years; regrett ably heir brothers in several Arab countries have served the Palestinians likewise.

Blair and Bush hate the Arabs and Muslims and totally side with Israel, its aggression, massacres, and occupation of Arab territories and therefore agreed on destroying and occupying the only Arab country, Iraq, which confronted the Israeli project. It was considered essential to Israel's survival to disarm Saddam and end Iraq's regional and strategic military superiority.