[Changleen]

..of Bush and Blair's illegal war disintegrates like the watery sh1t that it is.

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

PM promised to be 'solidly behind' US invasion with or without UN backing

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday February 3, 2006

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals:

· Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

· Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Blair to a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".

· Mr Blair told the US president that a second UN resolution would be an "insurance policy", providing "international cover, including with the Arabs" if anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning oil wells, killing children, or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq.

· Mr Bush told the prime minister that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not demur, according to the book.

The revelation that Mr Blair had supported the US president's plans to go to war with Iraq even in the absence of a second UN resolution contrasts with the assurances the prime minister gave parliament shortly after. On February 25 2003 - three weeks after his trip to Washington - Mr Blair told the Commons that the government was giving "Saddam one further, final chance to disarm voluntarily".

He added: "Even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament through the UN. I detest his regime - I hope most people do - but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."

On March 18, before the crucial vote on the war, he told MPs: "The UN should be the focus both of diplomacy and of action... [and that not to take military action] would do more damage in the long term to the UN than any other single course that we could pursue."

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair, attended by six close aides, came at a time of growing concern about the failure of any hard intelligence to back up claims that Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction in breach of UN disarmament obligations. It took place a few days before the then US secretary Colin Powell made claims - since discredited - in a dramatic presentation at the UN about Iraq's weapons programme.

Earlier in January 2003, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, expressed his private concerns about the absence of a smoking gun in a private note to Mr Blair, according to the book. He said he hoped that the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, would come up with enough evidence to report a breach by Iraq of is its UN obligations.

Downing Street did not deny the existence of the memo last night, but said: "The prime minister only committed UK forces to Iraq after securing the approval of the House of Commons in a vote on March 18, 2003." It added the decision to resort to military action to ensure Iraq fulfilled its obligations imposed by successive security council resolutions was taken only after attempts to disarm Iraq had failed. "Of course during this time there were frequent discussions between the UK and US governments about Iraq. We do not comment on the prime minister's conversations with other leaders."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat acting leader, said last night: "The fact that consideration was apparently given to using American military aircraft in UN colours in the hope of provoking Saddam Hussein is a graphic illustration of the rush to war. It would also appear to be the case that the diplomatic efforts in New York after the meeting of January 31 were simply going through the motions.

"The prime minister's offer of February 25 to Saddam Hussein was about as empty as it could get. He has a lot of explaining to do."

Prof Sands says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's UN ambassador at the time, told a foreign colleague he was "clearly uncomfortable" about the failure to get a second resolution. Foreign Office lawyers consistently warned that an invasion would be regarded as unlawful. The book reveals that Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the FO's deputy chief legal adviser who resigned over the war, told the Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence during the run-up to the war, of her belief that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, shared the FO view. According to private evidence to the Butler inquiry, Lord Goldsmith told FO lawyers in early 2003: "The prime minister has told me that I cannot give advice, but you know what my views are".

On March 7 2003 he advised the prime minister that the Bush administration believed that a case could be made for an invasion without a second UN resolution. But he warned that Britain could be challenged in the international criminal court. Ten days later, he said a second resolution was not necessary.

We are governed by imperialistic liars. We decieve ourselves that our intentions are in some way good. We're simply just ****ing over another country for our own ends. It's so weak. I hate it.

 

[Changleen]

Now it seems to be falling apart on our leaders. There are two problems with this:
1) The west and the US more specifically has shot itself in the legs in terms of international political clout and, as above, credibility.
2) These leaders are still in their jobs! WTF??

The slow realization of the scale of the **** up dawns on even the most hawkish, at least those with 2 brain cells to rub together:

US general maps out strategic refit for Iraq, Middle East and Asia

· Number of troops 'may be contributing to instability'
· Public profile of ground forces to be lowered

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday February 7, 2006
The Guardian

A senior US officer admitted yesterday that the presence of more than 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a "contributory factor" to instability in the region.

The admission was made by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - a key strategist in the US central command covering the Middle East - as he spelled out the American military's plan to "reposture" its forces over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Uganda in the south.

The US would "not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq" he said in a major speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Our position is when we leave we will not have any bases there."

He did not speculate when that might be, though he said the US could not stay in the region for as long as its forces have remained in Germany or Japan. American troops are still deployed there 60 years after the end of the second world war.

Nor did he say what would happen to four large air bases that the US is building around Baghdad. The implication behind his remarks is that the bases would be handed over to the Iraqis.

Although he said the US would not keep permanent military bases inside Iraq, Brig Gen Kimmitt made clear it would retain assets and enough forces nearby to protect its interests there.

He suggested that the US had learned from past mistakes and that in future it would be "more sensitive to [the] culture" of the people who lived in the Middle East.

He referred, as British military commanders have traditionally done, to the need to attract "hearts and minds". The US army was setting up a corps of officers, he added, which would "understand the Middle East".

Senior British military and intelligence officers have accused the US of "heavy-handed" tactics in Iraq and are likely to welcome any evidence that America is developing a coherent strategic approach to the region.

"Reposture" was one of a number of crucial principles that Brig Gen Kimmitt said underlined America's new approach. The other was "helping others help themselves" - a reference to "nation building", another task which, the American military concedes, has not been one of its priorities.

However, he made plain that the new strategy in America's "long war" against al-Qaida and its affiliates would ensure that US forces, when they left Iraq, would not be far away.

The US would have "sufficient forces to deter, and to protect partners and its key national interests" in the region, Brig Gen Kimmitt said.

And he said that America's preoccupations in Iraq should not lead to what he called "misunderstandings" about its ability to conduct other operations in the area. The US would "retain sufficient military capability" to strike Iran, he said. Those who believed otherwise were making a "very serious mistake", he added.

He made it clear that under America's military "reposturing", its forces would be withdrawn from army bases in Iraq and other countries in the region, although the US will keep its Bagram base in Afghanistan under a new "strategic agreement" signed by the two countries.

With that exception, the idea is to base fewer, more mobile, special forces - along with strike aircraft - further afield, where their presence would be less visible and less provocative.

US central command has its headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar and it will be able to use its air base on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia.

It could also have at its disposal the large RAF base at Akrotiri in southern Cyprus.

Brig Gen Kimmitt described the American base in Djibouti on the Red Sea as a "model for the future". He said: "Twelve thousand Americans have the ability to maintain a presence with a very small footprint on the ground."

The base covered a number of countries in the Horn of Africa and beyond, he said, including Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen.

He declined to say what role Nato would have in the "long war" against Islamist extremists and terrorists.

The European allies are locked in a debate about this - not least with regard to their role in Afghanistan, where peacekeeping and nation-building tasks could be embroiled in counter-narcotics and counter-terrorist operations.

Brig Gen Kimmitt's speech is the latest indication that the American army is planning significant reductions in its 130,000-strong force in time for the mid-term congressional elections, to be held in November.

The number of British troops in Iraq - now totalling 8,500 - is also likely to be reduced in a synchronised move.

 

[fluff]

Who cares?

 

[Reactor]

As long as he doesn't get a hummer from an Intern, Bush can lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape, pillage, maim, sell influence, ..........Because he represents good family values.

 

[LordOpie]

^lmao

 

[N8 v2.0]

As long as he doesn't get a hummer from an Intern, Bush can lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape, pillage, maim, sell influence, ..........Because he represents good family values.

and he has the US military hunting and killing ter'rists... and that's peachy keen with me.

 

[Old Man G Funk]

and he has the US military hunting and killing ter'rists... and that's peachy keen with me.

And creating more all at the same time. The more "ter'rists" he creates, the more we get to kill! Yee haw!

 

[Transcend]

and he has the US military hunting and killing ter'rists... and that's peachy keen with me.

Yup, all those Iraqi women and children have been blowing up planes since '76!

 

[jimmydean]

As long as he doesn't get a hummer from an Intern, Bush can lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape, pillage, maim, sell influence, ..........Because he represents good family values.

That was my point last night in a heated debate about "values" in the white house. As long as you don't have sexual relations in the white house, just about anything else goes.

That, and I guess you can't light up a blunt on the back steps either acording to Willy Nelson

 

[N8 v2.0]

Yup, all those Iraqi women and children have been blowing up planes since '76!

the Iraqi 'freedom fighters' are doing that all on their own...

 

[Echo]

the Iraqi 'freedom fighters' are doing that all on their own...

Wow, I wonder what all those freedom fighters would be doing if their country wasn't occupied by an invading army.

Oh yeah, they would be helping Saddam plan the next 9/11 right?

 

[Changleen]

Oh yeah, they would be helping Saddam plan the next 9/11 right?

Isn't that business as usual for these people who live in 'evil' countries? They don't work or have 9 to 5's like us westerners, their governments pay them to hatch evil plots and kill the infidel. Especially the women and children. Kids have such great evil imaginations.

That's why their clothes are always dirty and ragged. No time for laundry when you spend all your time thinking up evil schemes.

 

[Transcend]

the Iraqi 'freedom fighters' are doing that all on their own...

Right, and the US didn't ever have any of those on their own. You know, people fighting for what they believe in. What are those minutemen doing on the border states again?

Have you actually read history books, or do you just like to make it up as you go along?

There wouldn't be freedom fighters if there wasn't an invasion taking place. You know, an illegal act that breached international laws regarding sovereignty.

Someone attacked us and blew up a few building, we will fight back. Imagine that, the Iraqis are doing the same thing.

 

[jimmydean]

And what does "The Don" say about all this?

 

[Changleen]

He says "Evil, evil, terrorist, terrorist, planning, planning, evil, threat, threat, evil, terrorist, defend ourselves agins evil terrorist plot evil."

 

[BurlyShirley]

The Irakkis at school like the war. S'all I care about.

 

[ohio]

 

[Changleen]

Tell me that's a photochop... Ahh, I see now from whence it came.