http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36724704
Told you so
Iraq war was wrong
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36724704
Told you so
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Hope is the denial of reality
No, I told you soOriginally Posted by earthJoker
Congratulations America
Can we settle on 'we told them so' ?
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Ok, we told them so.
Congratulations America
Highlights:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...chilcot-report
Not sure what, if anything, the UK will learn from the findings of this report. It seems fair to say that Blair's conduct was a model of RB-ian leadership in the matter of the Iraq war and the UK's current and future leaders seem to have similar styles. Not sure if we can hope for better leaders in the US either.
Does anyone think there will be any legal action taken based on the report?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Generally valid lessons, but this one:
What's that based on? It sure as hell would have damaged ties with the US. I don't know what "fundamental" or "lasting" means in the context of international relations (made up terms as far as I'm concerned), but making this kind of a claim is indefensible.Chilcot rejects the view that the UK would have lost diplomatic influence if it had refused to join the war. “Blair was right to weigh the possible consequences for the wider alliance with the US very carefully,” the report says. But it adds: “If the UK had refused to join the US in the war it would not have led to a fundamental or lasting change in the UK’s relationship with the US.”
Hope is the denial of reality
Rather confused by the legality portion. How would it not have been legal? Is it suggesting that Tony Blair could not authorize war according to UK law? That would seem rather odd and you'd think we would of heard something about that during the course of the war. Last time I checked the Brits were a sovereign nation, so unless that changed somewhere how could the war be illegal?
The report elaborates that “The UK’s relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interest or judgments differ.” I believe it also mentions past disagreements such as the Vietnam War and Suez. Not sure that either of those cases are applicable to the Iraq War and to Dubya & Co. Would be interesting to see if he elaborates on this in the report, but, at the same time, I dunno if this is the most important aspect of the report even if his claim isn't substantiated.
Let's assume that refusal to join--or, more likely, playing a different role in the war--would have incurred a diplomatic cost. How great would the cost have been? How great would it have had to be to change the findings of the inquiry to a substantial extent?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ory-tony-blair
I think it's pretty clear that many British politicians, like most politicians in most civilized countries, believe themselves to be bound by international law at least to some extent.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Last I checked, Suez did significantly weaken US-UK ties. Not sure about Vietnam, though I don't recall Americans praising a special relationship with Britain at the time. This isn't a case of an honest disagreement; it's a case of US desperately needing British diplomatic (and to a lesser extent, military) support for an issue that was viewed as being of utmost importance in the US. A failure to support the US would have devastated US-UK relations. The British probably could have gotten away with contributing far fewer troops, but the report is talking about British support for the war rather than that aspect of it.
I have no idea how great the cost would be. There would certainly be a large immediate cost, but it's hard if not impossible to determine how high or whether that would extend to the long-term. But I'm not the one making huge claims. Claims of that magnitude demand evidence of the same magnitude, and that seems to be entirely absent. Do we have interviews with key British and US officials from that time period corroborating this claim? That's the least I'd expect.
Hope is the denial of reality
The UN might ban "aggression", but no one's been prosecuted for that since the Nazis. And we know they weren't really prosecuted for aggression. Furthermore, since the Security Council gets to decide what aggression is (and not some court), it's pretty clearly a political question much more than a legal one. A political question that could only be answered a certain way given the British veto at the Security Council.
Hope is the denial of reality
International Law only exists if a country willingly abides by it. In effect it has no real teeth. Laws don't exist in a practical sense when they can't be enforced. The UN security council is about the closest thing we would get to enforcing international law. Without enforcement it doesn't exist. In any event NO ONE needs to gain permission from the UN to start a conflict, it is silly to pretend otherwise.
I supported the war and still do think it was right to remove Hussein. However it was done dreadfully. The shocking thing for me yesterday was not learning that the decision to act had been taken in 2001 after 9/11 (that was obvious) but that there was such little operational planning especially for what would happen afterwards.
Instead we get a year and a half of PR planning to try and build support for the war, without bothering to think what would be done next in some areas until only a week before bombing starts. Blair was terribly obsessed with PR at the best of times but going to war is deadly serious not the best of times. Having taken the decision to risk people's lives, we could and should have had 18 months of planning as well as purchasing all necessary equipment etc instead we get Alastair Campbell and a terrible dereliction of duty then a last minute panic.
Shameful.
Are you referring to me here and if so I'm not sure what you mean.
That's all nice and everything but that wasn't the stated goal.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
There were a lot of stated goals, and that was certainly one of them. One of the ways that Bush managed to get so much support for the war is by emphasizing different reasons for the war to different audiences.
Hope is the denial of reality
Reason may have been the wrong word here. Saddam had been there for years and want exactly doing anything new or worse that warranted an invasion. The alleged WMD program (the infamous mushroom cloud) was the reason to actually invade. And the 'legal' reason, too.
Besides, we do business with regimes no better than Saddam, rather than invade those.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
The "legal" reason was one of many. And Bush argued that Hussein should have been removed a long time ago, so the timing issue doesn't apply here.
That's simply not true. The only regime worse than Hussein in terms of violence perpetrated against their own people was North Korea. There were (and are) a handful of more authoritarian regimes, but none them use violence to the same scale. Assad is obviously approaching that same level today.
Hope is the denial of reality
I'm not disputing this, I'm saying that's one of the things they were referring to with "legality" and it was viewed in the same way by the people who made the decisions in question.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
It's a silly accusation given that aggression is defined by the Security Council, in which the UK has a veto.
Hope is the denial of reality
Afaict the question of legality centered, in the minds of the people making the decisions about the upcoming war, around whether or not Hussein was in breach of his treaty obligations and violating any relevant UN resolutions as well as on whether or not a new UN resolution was required to authorize the war. No more, no less. They ultimately decided that he was in breach of his obligations and that no further resolutions were needed. The process through which they determined this was criticized in the report, not the conclusion itself.
The article I linked to provides a small amount of this information. For more information on the views of one of the people involved, the attorney general at the time, see:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/apr/24/uk.iraq
and
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...ection2005.uk1
The matter was also discussed in cabinet meetings, eg:
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/...search=Cabinet
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/...ns-extract.pdf
For further details we'll have to look at the relevant part of the report. I wasn't there, I didn't make the decisions, so my role in this is only to read whatever bits interest me and learn more about what happened and how.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I agree that the legal case for attacking Hussein on the basis of those UN resolutions was an incredibly weak one. That says nothing about the question of aggression though. And the opposite of having a legal basis is not having a legal basis, not necessarily illegality.
Hope is the denial of reality
Yeah, the report doesn't seem to add anything new to the question of whether or not the war was illegal wrt the ban on wars of aggression, so even if The Guardian is right about the report leading to renewed accusations along those lines nothing is likely to come of it as long as the system is set up in such a way that the accused get to be both judge and jury, and certainly not this long after the fact. There are guidelines for determining whether or not something should be considered to be an act of aggression that is in violation of the UN charter but obv. these are guidelines that are in no way binding and can be ignored arbitrarily, at will.
I guess in theory someone might be able to get an advisory opinion/judgement from the ICJ but if it hasn't happened yet I don't see why it would happen now. It wouldn't change anything either. I guess it would be interesting to learn, in retrospect, whether or not the war would have been deemed an unacceptable act of aggression in violation at least of the spirit of the UN charter.
In the future it will be interesting to see if the UK will be party to the amended Rome statute. My guess is that the UK will continue to do everything it can to avoid being bound by any prohibition on wars of aggression.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
What does the ICC have to do with the question of aggression?
Edit: just saw that there is an amendment to that effect. What a great way to delegitimize the ICC and ICJ at the same time.
Hope is the denial of reality
I guess there is a statute of limitations on chemical warefare? :0 How about the fact it was a state sponsor of terror? He was a horrible monster that led a brutal regime. WMD was 'a' reason, the smoking run to get the public behind it but there were several.
This is a real walk down memory lane...
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/9/12123022...ource=facebook
Wonder how long-lived this renewed interest will be.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
It's already becoming passé here. I think the fact that everyone has responded basically "yeah knew that already" while so much fresh interesting stuff is happening makes it hard to keep interest.
A little tragic, but maybe they'll be able to look back on this the next time their leaders ponder going to war and call for more scrutiny. Or not #Trump2016
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Trump has called for war? I thought Trump's shtick was isolationism?
Yes, the Iraq war was wrong. It was based on false intelligence. And who was using that false intelligence to get other nations to become part of a "coalition"? The US.
That makes the UK (and other coalition members) mistrust the US, with good reason. It's the same kind of political alliance bullshit that kept the Viet Nam war going on, long after it should have ended.
And yet we expect the greatest military nation would admit going to war in Iraq was wrong....when we can't even admit *or agree* that going to war in Viet Nam was wrong?
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