Leaked data reveal reasons for increased bombing raids were a sham

[evermind]

LEAKED DATA REVEAL REASONS FOR INCREASED BOMBING RAIDS WERE A SHAM

(Sunday Times, July 31, 2005)


<snip>
... the minutes of a meeting of Tony Blair’s war cabinet on July 23, 2003, leaked to The Sunday Times, record Hoon saying "the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime".

Ministers have since insisted that the stepped-up attacks, which began in May 2002, were as a result of increased Iraqi activity and were not an attempt to provoke a response that would give the allies an excuse for war.

The figures do not support those claims. In the first seven months of 2001 the allies recorded a total of 370 "provocations" by the Iraqis against allied aircraft. But in the seven months between October 2001 and May 2002 there were just 32.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, who obtained the MoD data in a Commons written answer, said it reinforced the need for an inquiry into ministers’ conduct in the run-up to war.

This little story appears as a footer to another interesting story about conflicting advice Blair received on the desirability of following the US into war on Iraq, which focuses on the updated version of a biography of Blair by Anthony Seldon, and the insider accounts he has had access to, also worth a read at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1715005,00.html

[bemildred]

1. No shit? They lied? To get a war started?

Why that's just unbelieveable.
Were they on the grassy knoll?
:sarcasm:

[goforit]

9. LOL!!!..........You're hilarious!!

[merwin]

2. Murdoch is letting his little newspaper get away with a LOT.

He must hate Blair much more than he likes Bush.

[AuntiBush]

4. Where's Our Murdoch? Anyone Care To Step-Up To The Plate?

We have a better chance of hitting the lottery, huh. What a shame Murdoch can't rev-up his hatred 'cross the ocean a bit more. We could use bunches of help.

[evermind]

6. Since Murdoch owns Fox, he "revs up his hate" quite a bit in the US

but the Sunday Times supposedly has editorial autonomy, by virtue of the contract he bought it under (along with The (London) Times).

Mostly it is a RW paper, but it has been commendable in leading the pack on the "Downing Street Memo" revelations. I sincerely doubt that Murdoch is owed any of the credit for that. Just how much he keeps his hands off the paper's stories has been questioned, but I just can't see him actually pushing the DSM line and at the same time taking Fox in the direction it has gone (where there is no contractually based editorial independence) unless for some barely conceivable sales-driven motive.

[AuntiBush]

8. What Was I thinking...

I am having 1 of those weeks that just won't end as I bang self in the head. I know this. (Murdoch)! Sorry!

What they hey is with him, anyway? He is tossing crumbs, or mouthing for *? I almost get the distinct feeling * is ticked w/bLIAR for letting the leaks drip.

Thanks for the reminder.

[punpirate]

10. In the US, Blair's reputation amongst the left...

... is pretty bad (for more than just the war, btw), so it's no wonder that the Times is seen, here, as doing real journalism if it's exposing Blair's manufactured reasons for going to war.

But, in the UK, this could easily be seen as a means of trying to bring down a Labour government, with the further hope on the part of the conservatives of gaining politically from it. In that sense, the motives of the various Murdoch enterprises are consistent--propping up Bush here, destroying Blair there, are all of a piece.

Cheers.

[evermind]

12. Yeah, except that Murdoch's main UK press outlet (The Sun)

has consistently backed Blair at the last 3 elections. (The Sun, widely known in Britain as a bottom feeding tabloid, with such execrable editorial standards that "Sun Reader" is a synonym for "moron" amongst many, is Britain's highest selling tabloid with (I think) a circulation about ten times that of the Times.)

Dunno, it's tough trying to work out what goes on in that twisted mind.. ;-)

[punpirate]

14. Murdoch has his sights set on...

... getting the BBC privatized so he can scoop it up (and I think he's given well over a million pounds to Blair's campaigns, toward that very neo-liberal end). Murdoch is, first of all, about who can make him the most money.

His general editorial view in this country is decidedly conservative, and that fits his needs here. Blair's neo-liberalism--as evidenced by his support for all things Bush--is hardly progressive by US standards (or by European standards, for that matter).

I suppose I insist on seeing everything Murdoch does as somehow being self-serving and sleazy, in one way or another. :)

Perhaps owning both the Times and the Sun offers him a means to influence both major parties in the UK and push both toward his own aims.

Cheers.

[cal04]

3. Some older articles

Tour of Villages Reveals Human Cost of U.S.-Led Sorties in 'No-Fly' Zones
Friday, June 16, 2000

U.S. and British warplanes enforcing the zones were heard almost daily crisscrossing the skies, although they were invisible flying at more than 20,000 feet. The Iraqi air defense command says it has detected penetrations into Iraqi airspace by more than 21,600 U.S. and British warplanes since December 1998, when Iraqis started opposing the patrols with antiaircraft fire. The sustained military operation results in bomb or missile attacks on an average of once every three days. The Pentagon says more than 280,000 sorties have been flown in the near decade since the no-fly zones were imposed, without a single loss of aircraft to hostile fire. The mounting toll--averaging one civilian death every other day by Iraq's count--has prompted France to freeze participation in enforcing the no-fly zones. It has generated growing protests from Russia and has left neighboring Saudi Arabia and Turkey increasingly uneasy about continuing to provide air bases for the U.S. and British enforcement aircraft.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A1243-2000Jun15¬Found=true

During his debate with then-Vice President Gore last October, Bush criticized the Clinton administration for allowing the coalition assembled against Iraq during the Persian Gulf War to deteriorate and said he wanted to persuade voters he would do a better job. Asked directly if he believed Iraqi policy was a failure of Clinton, Bush replied, "I do." At least once during the campaign, Bush was forced to clarify his policy after a comment left the impression that, as president, he would use evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to try to eliminate Hussein himself. Later he said he was speaking only about taking out the weapons, not the Iraqi leader.

While some top officials, including Vice President Cheney and Rumsfeld, have urged a more aggressive policy built on supporting the Iraqi opposition's campaign to overthrow Hussein, Powell has spoken mainly of strengthening the sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Another indication that the administration's Iraq policy is taking shape was a meeting called yesterday by Edward S. Walker Jr., assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, with Ahmed Chalabi, a leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi said he was given the green light to proceed with the arrangements for spending more than $30 million in American aid previously promised to the opposition, much of it for activities inside Iraq.

http://www.nci.org/iraq/iraq-2-wp21701.htm
Saturday, February 17, 2001

[creeksneakers2]

5. These are amazing facts

I hope there is a thorough follow up.

[msongs]

7. murdoch will let his media do anything if it makes $$ eom

[dbt]

11. Tonnes of shit head for the fan.

WHEN will it hit?

:freak:

[librechik]

13. thank you, UK! (DSM, the gift that keeps on giving)

they can run, but they cannot hide...

[lovuian]

15. We have been in a Propoganda Machine for quite awhile

the News Media is just a tool of the dictator!!!

[peacetalksforall]

16. Do you think the Queen is leading the Cheney regime or is the

Cheney regime leading the Queen. How do you think they make decisions about who does what and when.

When Blair visits Bush to plan strategy, who is behind Blair? What are the parallel organizations to PNAC, Fed Society, AIE, JINSA.

[evermind]

17. Heh, I don't think the Queen wields much executive power. As to

"who is behind Blair" - apparently a lot of people from his own office saying "No! Don't do it!", whom Blair mysteriously ignores:

“Prior to the most important of his (Blair’s) frequent phone calls to Bush, in the run-up to the Iraq war and on other issues, pointed briefing notes would be prepared for Blair, urging him to tackle the president directly. ‘We’d then read the record of the conversation and see that Blair had gone off at a tangent,’ said one insider. ‘He just seemed oddly reluctant to confront Bush head-on.’” Reports began to circulate round Whitehall that Blair did not read his briefs, and that he shied away from tough one-on-one encounters.

Seldon writes that during the autumn of 2002 British diplomats and politicians were involved in tense negotiations at the UN, but it seemed that Blair was being bounced into war. Dick Cheney, the vice-president, was hostile to Blair and the British and sat in meetings “like a lump”, according to one official present. However, Blair was told by diplomats, thought to be Meyer and Greenstock, that he could have stopped America invading Iraq had he been prepared to use his influence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1666029

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1715005,00.html

Parallel organizations to PNAC, etc.? If you're conspiratorially inclined you might like a look at "BAP": http://www.bilderberg.org/bap.htm#Tom

Let's start with the easiest question: what do George Robertson, Chris Smith and Marjorie 'Mo' Mowlam have in common? They are, of course, all strong Tony Blair supporters in the new Labour Cabinet. And what about Peter Mandelson and Elizabeth Symons? Not yet quite Cabinet members, but both are key figures in the 'modernising project' in Blair's 'New Labour' government: Mandelson as Minister without Portfolio having a roving brief to monitor, coordinate and brief the press on all areas of government activity and Symons, the former leader of the union for top civil servants, the First Division Association, is the Foreign Office Minister in the House of Lords.

Symons shares her unelected status with two other key figures in the new Blair administration, Jonathan Powell and Michael Barber. Powell, a former British diplomat in Washington, is now Blair's chief of staff at 10 Downing Street and Barber is special adviser to Education Secretary David Blunkett. And what do these two and the four ministers in the new government share with Ms Symons? They are all members of the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP for short) - an elite transatlantic network launched in 1985 with $425,000 from a Philadelphia-based trust with a long record in the US of supporting right-wing causes.

Its membership reaches beyond formal politics to include rising figures in finance, industry, academia, the military and the civil service. Media members include Economist political editor David Lipsey, Independent economics editor Diane Coyle, Times Educational Supplement editor Caroline St John-Brooks and BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman, Isabel Hilton, Trevor Phillips and James Naughtie.

[peacetalksforall]

18. Thanks for enlightening me. I will read the Bilderberg also because

I always find nuggets of missing pieces. I find it challenging to figure out what is plausible. The potential for believing the darkest agendas rises in parallel to the proof of acts against the people.

The lists of names help make it possible to fit pieces.

Thanks.