Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, has officially withdrawn the government claim that Iraq possessed mass destruction weapons in 2003. The claim that such weapons could be deployed in forty five minutes, was at the heart of a furious row between the government and the BBC, which lead to the sacking of journalist, Andrew Gillighan and the resignation of the BBC chairman.
In the Commons this afternoon, Straw said, "I do not accept, even with hindsight, that we were wrong to act as we did."
Tell that to the relatives of the twenty thousand dead Iraqis, Jack. Oh - and maybe the thousands of burned and blasted victims of the bombings.
2 comments:
I wonder what will happen now that these morons in the Commmons have approved the re-deployment of UK forces to the west of Bagdad and other flash points.
I wonder if the Brits (around 700 or so) can keep up their so very different approach, which seems to have worked well enough in Basra and the South in general. If the British would have been stationed all over Iraq with precisely this approach, I think the reality on the ground today may be very different.
I watched some politican (ex-Army) guy this morning on BBC1, who almost got his tongue in knots describing these stark contrasts without actually sticking it to the Americans. But as hard as he tried, he didn't really succeed.
The upshot of it was: we don't flatten entire neighbourhoods and call in air support, when we get a little sniper fire. The years of experience in Ireland have paid off. Now that the US fucked it up for them, I'm not so sure, if the 'softly softly approach' works.
Do you really believe Straw's comments that they'll be home by Christmas, come rain or shine?
To me it sounds like they are being used as political pawns. Straw can't make me believe for one moment that if casulties come back in increased numbers, the British army will *not* send up reinforcements; my guess is that they will get sucked in even deeper.
I see so many parallels to Vietnam that it has me stunned. Just how shortsighted and plain dumb can politicians be?
I'm just worried that the mood of the southern Iraqis towards the UK contingent too will change, once the Black Watch are forced to adopt the brutal US approach, simply by having to protect themselves in areas made hostile by US brutality. I'm not quite sure how they will enforce their intent to remain under UK command on the grounds amidst gung-ho Americans.
How this brutality and reality translates into the life of an Iraqi Christian woman living in Iraq , and that's one you don't hear very often, can be found at: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Pispas
Yes Pispas, I often read Riverbend's blog and used to read salam's. The problem now is that I think having been unwise enough to destroy the structures of authority in Iraq, and then let the place go wild, there is little alternative to rooting out the vile people who are terrorising the Iraqi population and murdering them and other unfortunates. How would it be if we were now to leave the country in the hands of people like Zachawi, Al Sadre, and the rest of the gangland figures who have risen up. This is a foul situation, but one that must be dealt with. How it will be done, I dread to think.
You are right to point out differences in the way the British and the Americans operate, but don't forget the differences in the populations they have been working with. These were different dissimilar before the invasion too, with people in the south having very good reason to want the old regime gone. Your parallel with Vietnam is a good one. I think we will be there for a VERY long time. I tried talking on IH before the war about insurgency, only to be laughed at. So confident were they that the people would throw flowers and vote in some nice mainstream people, that they derided me. I said the people they would vote for would be bearded mullahs - the absolute antithesis of what the Americans wanted.
Pispas - I'm going to send you my email address in a PM on IH. I enjoy being in contact with your thinking.
Cheers
Fred.
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