April 15, 2006
Malcolm Kendall-Smith and the legality of the Iraq War
Malcolm Kendall-Smith, an RAF medical officer who refused to serve in Iraq, has just been court-martialed. He was given an 8 month sentence, a dishonourable discharge and a legal bill for GBP 20,000.
The RAF prosecution made a statement that:
“British troops are operating in Iraq under a United Nations mandate and at the invitation of the Iraqi government. The judge advocate ruled that the court would not accept his defence that the war was illegal and a panel of his peers have convicted him on that basis.”
Many people would not recognize that version of the situation in Iraq. I hope we hear more from Kendall-Smith.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=567932006
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 13, 2005
Attorney-General's advice III
The information Commissioner is now investigating the continued non-publication of the Attorney-General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq War, but he is unlikely to report before the election (assuming it is on 5 May) (see also 24 February, 28 February).
This is an epic saga if ever there was one. I don’t think anybody now believes that Lord Goldsmith’s formal advice, on 7 March 2003, was unambiguously in support of the legality of the war.
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1436080,00.html?gusrc=rss
Posted by Simon Holledge at 12:01 AM | TrackBack
February 28, 2005
Attorney General's advice II
According to the Guardian, the government are now reviewing their decision not to release the Attorney General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq War. An announcement of some kind is expected on March 11 (see also February 24).
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1426842,00.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4296887.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:12 AM | TrackBack
February 24, 2005
Attorney-General's advice I
The Attorney-General’s unpublished advice on the legality of the Iraq War has long been at the top of the list of unfinished political business relating to the war.
Now according to the Guardian there is new evidence, from a book by Philippe Sands, that Lord Goldsmith was reluctant to commit himself on the issue, and the ‘advice’ was in fact cobbled together in 10 Downing Street by Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan.
So we still need to ask: what was the full advice that Lord Goldsmith gave to the prime minister in March 2003? Was it accurately conveyed to the cabinet and parliament?
politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1423304,00.html
politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1423038,00.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4290031.stm
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2836
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:30 PM | TrackBack
January 30, 2005
Exit from Iraq
Robin Cook, Lord Hurd and Menzies Campbell, writing in the Times, agree that Britain should withdraw its troops from Iraq within a year, and leave the Iraqis to sort out their political problems themselves.
Perhaps this is an indicator that we are finally reaching the point where we can all agree that Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster, caused, like Vietnam, by ignorant politicians who failed to do their basic research. Politicians who failed to read their history books, who failed to look at their maps, who failed to examine the social, economic and political systems of the country they imagined they were going to change for the better.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4218793.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 12:03 AM | TrackBack
January 01, 2005
Guardian demands Iraq advice under FoI
The Guardian will test the new Freedom of Information Act, which comes into operation today, by asking for the advice given by the Attorney General on the legality of the invasion of Iraq by the USA and Britain, which the Labour government have up to now refused to make public.
www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,2763,1381215,00.html?gusrc=rss
Posted by Simon Holledge at 12:42 AM | TrackBack
December 08, 2004
Iraq body count inquiry demand
It’s a measure of our progress away from tribalism that we recognize the suffering that war brings to nations other than our own. For that reason it is important that we know both the number of our own casualties in Iraq and those of the Iraq people.
Unfortunately the government are refusing to make public its own estimates (if any) of Iraqi deaths, and are referring enquiries to the published figures of the Iraqi Ministry of Health as the source for the information. (The Ministry give the very low figure of only 3,853 deaths for the period of April to October, a figure that does not relate to the conservative baseline number published by the Iraq Body Count site now at 14,668 to 16,853, or indeed the Lancet study which suggested, based on fieldwork, more than 100,000. )
A new group of ex-diplomats, military men and academics are demanding that the Prime Minister set up an independent inquiry into the number of civilian deaths in Iraq since the invasion. This would be good providing the inquiry actually does its work on the ground in Iraq. (The one thing we don’t need is another foolish Whitehall effort.)
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1403832004
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4079059.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:12 PM | TrackBack
November 21, 2004
Iraq: the Blair Body Count
The Labour government are claiming that only that 4,000 civilians have been killed in the Iraq War. The information was given to Alex Salmond in response to a parliamentary question.
How did they arrive at this figure?
The Iraq Body Count (IBC) site (21 November) indicates 14,454 to 16,604 civilian deaths. Based on carefully collected official and media reports, The IBC figure is regarded as a minimum.
The field survey published by The Lancet, which didn’t include Fallujah, suggested that there were more than 100,000 probable deaths, including combatants but also large numbers of civilians randomly killed in bombing.
Who produced the figure released by the government? The Ministry of Defence? Do they really think anyone will believe them?
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2622
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:45 PM | TrackBack
November 13, 2004
32 Pro-war Scottish MPs
Thirty-two Scottish MPs voted for the Iraq War on 18 March 2003. Their names are listed below. These men and women are responsible for our Iraq war policy. If they (and their English friends) had not voted for the war, we would not be in Iraq now.
Some are ministers or would-be ministers, some are MPs who have never voted against their party ever (i.e. just lobby fodder). As far as I know none of them have since repudiated the war or shown any remorse for it.
These pro-War MPs should be targeted during the next general election. I hope the anti-war parties will cooperate in getting them voted out, if necessary by supporting a single anti-war candidate and withdrawing others likely to come third or fourth in the contest.
Irene Adams (Paisley North)
Douglas Alexander (Paisley South)
Gordon Brown (Dunfermline East)
Desmond Browne (Kilmarnock & Loudoun)
David Cairns (Greenock & Inverclyde)
Lynda Clark (Edinburgh Pentlands)
Alistair Darling (Edinburgh Central)
Brian Donohoe (Cunninghame South) *
Peter Duncan (Galloway & Upper Nithsdale/Conservative)
George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley)
Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh South)
Tom Harris (Glasgow Cathcart)
Adam Ingram (East Kilbride)
Eric Joyce (Falkirk West)
Helen Liddell (Airdrie & Shotts)
Tom McAvoy (Glasgow Rutherglen)
Calum Macdonald (Western Isles)
John MacDougall (Fife Central)
John McFall (Dumbarton)
Anne McGuire (Stirling)
Rosemary McKenna (Cumbernauld & Kilsyth)
Lewis Moonie (Kirkcaldy)
Jim Murphy (Eastwood)
Martin O’Neill (Ochil )
Anne Picking (East Lothian)
John Reid (Hamilton North & Bellshill)
Ernie Ross (Dundee West)
Frank Roy (Motherwell & Wishaw)
Jim Sheridan (Renfrewshire West)
Rachel Squire (Dunfermline West)
David Stewart (Inverness East, Nairn & Lochaber)
Brian Wilson (Cunninghame North)
- Brian Donohoe (Cunninghame South) voted against the government on Iraq on 26 February 2003 (Division 96) however he supported the war on 18 March 2003.
Posted by Simon Holledge at 06:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 11, 2004
The Vietnamization of Iraq
Iraq had little in common with Vietnam, but the style of American politics and warfare is turning it more and more into that kind of conflict.
Democracy cannot be enforced through the barrel of a gun. Forcing people to take part in political processes leads to the creation of a dictatorship. Once the killing starts, positions become entrenched and people are no longer interested in voting against each other. One side has to seize power. This is what happened in Vietnam. That is what is happening in Iraq.
Robin Cook claimed yesterday that the problems in Falluja dated back to the month after the US-led coalition had invaded Iraq: “A number of parents complained their school had been occupied by the American military and 20 of the [unarmed] protestors were shot dead … From then on the heavy-handed operations in Iraq have bred resistance and these operations will increase the resistance again… This really has got to be the end of the strategy of trying to pacify Iraq by bombing it.”
The Americans have the firepower to destroy Fallujah several times over, but they don’t have the ability, the necessary local knowledge and intelligence, to do anything positive there - and that includes capturing real terrorists.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3998425.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 01:59 AM | TrackBack
November 09, 2004
Two-thirds of Britons against the war
Populus polled the following question for the Times (November 5-7):
“Thinking about the build-up to the war in Iraq and everything that has happened since, was taking military action the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do?”
Some 31 percent of Britons answered it was ‘the right thing to do’ (in support of the war), 57 percent said it was ‘the wrong thing to do’, and 13 percent didn’t know.
Support for the war has fallen steadily since June 2003.
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:08 PM | TrackBack
The battle for Fallujah: freedom fighters and terrorists
The BBC have a reporter in Fallujah (‘Watching tragedy engulf my city’). He reports:
“I was with some of the Falluja fighters earlier. They looked tired - but their spirits were high and they were singing. Recently, many Iraqis from other parts of the country have been joining the local men against the Americans.”
Blair apparently believes that the Fallujans are fighting against democracy not against an army of occupation. This will no doubt delight the American government, but it might surprise the Fallujans. He said:
“Defeat of terrorism in Iraq is defeat for this new and virulent form of global terrorism everywhere.”
During and after the Second World War, we regarded the anti-fascist resistance in France, Yugoslavia, Greece and China etc. as heroic. Now I suppose they would be regarded as terrorists.
The form that resistance can take varies from ‘Ghandian’ non-violence to the abhorrent tactics of the suicide bomber and hostage taker. The latter are horrible and must be opposed in every possible way, but the freedom fighter defending his own city or village is a different matter. We should be trying to talk to him.
The danger now is that the action in Fallujah, ordered by a Shiite prime minister against a Sunni population, will not lead to a peaceful election in which political adversaries can agree to a peaceful system of resolving differences, but to civil war.
The events in Iraq underline the urgency of impeaching Blair, otherwise there may be even worse to follow.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3996111.stm
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1346750,00.html
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3993277.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 03:31 PM | TrackBack
November 08, 2004
Fallujah and the Black Watch
The Black Watch are well-known in America. Dean Rusk specifically mentioned the regiment when the American Government asked for a British force to take part in the Vietnam war. Harold Wilson refused.
Tony Blair didn’t refuse. The Black Watch are now participants in what the US Marines are describing as their biggest battle since Hue (1968). The Black Watch are not peace keeping, they are supporting an aggressive operation which will involve the deaths of many innocent people - as well as some of the Scottish soldiers themselves.
The Black Watch should not be taking part in this.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3994027.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3989639.stml
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3987641.stm
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1345991,00.html
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2586
Posted by Simon Holledge at 06:11 PM | TrackBack
November 01, 2004
The number of deaths in Iraq 2
Alex Salmond is pursuing the question of the Iraqi death toll with admirable tenacity - in complete contrast to the weakness now being demonstrated by the Liberal Democrats. He writes:
“It is a disgrace that the Government appear to have no idea about the numbers of civilian casualties. That kind of moral ambivalence at the very heart of government reflects the way in which they have carried out the war in Iraq.”
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2567
Posted by Simon Holledge at 05:02 PM | TrackBack
October 30, 2004
The number of deaths in Iraq
From time to time, I have looked at the Iraq Body Count site
www.iraqbodycount.net/. This website has played an important role in tracking the number of civilian deaths announced in the media. Currently they are giving minimum/maximum figures of 14,181 to 16,312 people ‘reported killed by military intervention in Iraq’.
Like a number of other people, I have been assuming a total figure of around 20,000 (or even 25,000) dead including soldiers. This figure would represent a bloody, incompetently executed removal of the Baathist dictatorship, but would not necessarily mean that Iraq was worse off than it was under the personalized terror of Saddam Hussein.
This has to be reassessed with the publication in the Lancet of figures based on a survey of 33 areas of Iraq by doctors led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. This study suggests a death toll of 100,000 or more. Given the sound methodology of the study, it seems clear that we have seriously underestimated the loss of life in Iraq. Whether the toll is really above 100,000 may or may not be proven, but it seems likely that the total is very much higher than 20,000 to 25,000. The situation in Iraq may well be worse than it was under Saddam.
Where does that leave Blair? Getting rid of Saddam has been the one remaining justification for the invasion left to the PM. Even that is now undermined.
Where does that leave the Labour Party, formerly the party of the social conscience, the party most supportive of the United Nations? Labour are morally bankrupt - probably for a generation.
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html?gusrc=rss
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3962969.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3964311.stm
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2562
Posted by Simon Holledge at 01:25 AM | TrackBack
October 20, 2004
Black Watch to Iskandariya?
The request for British troop support in the Sunni triangle two weeks before the American election has to be political.
Blair and Hoon probably think they can once again disregard with impunity demoralized Labour back benchers, ambivalent Tories and impeachment-shy Liberal Democrats - but why is it so important for them to move 600 troops north and out of their normal theatre of operations now? Just to spite Kerry and make the war look more of team effort?
Maybe Bush is hoping for some good news out of Iraq just before November 2? Perhaps the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? That might explain the activity around Fallujah. Could the Black Watch be part of this scenario in some obscure way? Maybe to free up American troops for a special pre-November 2 push?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3757910.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3755358.stm
thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1213332004
thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1213002004
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2526