Blair in Baghdad to boost Iraq PM

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Baghdad on Sunday to lend support to the Iraqi government, which is under pressure from Washington to do more to stem worsening violence.

Blair's visit, part of a Middle East tour, came after Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for the return of all officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army in an overture to disaffected Sunni Arabs aimed at reducing sectarian strife.

Bloodshed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion has marred Blair's final years in office, dividing the British public and his party, depleting his popularity ratings and reducing Britain's credibility in the region, analysts say.

link: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17122006/325/blair-baghdad-boost-iraq-pm.html

[Eugene]

1. Just another redoubling of effort.

We have yet another top level visit to boost al-Maliki on some new initiative
to turn the corner in Iraq. Everybody but Shrubya himself makes this trip.
This latest effort to reach out to the Sunnis is too little too late.

As long as the Bush administration refuses substantial changes in strategy,
they are simply throwing more troops and more diplomats at the problem.

[Heidi]

2. Kick.

:kick:

[autorank]

3. Reuters: Blair pledges backing for Iraqi PM in Baghdad

Blair pledges backing for Iraqi PM in Baghdad

REUTERS 3 Minutes Ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged his full support for Iraq's prime minister during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday and urged neighboring countries not to undermine Nuri al-Maliki's government.

Blair said he and Maliki had discussed the need for national reconciliation, building up Iraq's security forces and "the importance of the support of all countries in the region for this process."

"We stand ready to support you in every way that we can so that in time the Iraq government and the Iraqi people can take full responsibility for their affairs," Blair told a joint news conference with Maliki in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

"Most of all I reiterated our determination to stand full square behind you and the Iraqi people in assuring that your democracy is not destroyed by terrorism, sectarianism, by those who wish to live in hatred rather than in peace," Blair said.

Asked about concerns that Syria and Iran were not doing enough to help in Iraq, Blair said: "It's important that we exercise all the pressure and authority that we have to make sure that all countries in the region are supporting Iraq.

"There's a very strong obligation which is set out in the U.N. resolution for all countries in the region to be supportive of the Iraqi prime minister and his government ... and not undermine them," he said.

but there's more

===============================

Blair questioned on peerages for pay
For police to probe sitting premier is unprecedented
Alan Cowell, New York Times

Friday, December 15, 2006

Tony Blair, British prime minister, arrives at the Europe...
http://tinyurl.com/tr2oz

(12-15) 04:00 PST London -- The British police interviewed Prime Minister Tony Blair Thursday as a \ witness in a scandal over accusations that high honors were traded for political contributions. The idea of the police questioning a prime minister struck British journalists as virtually unheard of.

A spokesman for Blair said that the interview, lasting almost two hours, was not conducted under what is called police caution, meaning he was seen as a witness and not a suspect.

But with Blair serving his final months after promising to step down, and with his ratings savaged and his legacy threatened by the war in Iraq, the episode at 10 Downing Street added another damaging burden for a leader who took office in 1997 promising a spotless political order.

"It is yet one more straw on the back of a rather struggling camel," said Rodney Barker, a professor of government at the London School of Economics.


COMMENTARY: The BALTIMORE CHRONICLE
The Iraqi Flim-Flam: Bush-Blair Lies Confirmed Again
Was this obscene war based on lies? Yes.
by CHRIS FLOYD
http://tinyurl.com/y2cqsv

Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war (The Independent, via rebellenation). Excerpts:

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

[autorank]

4. Patrick Cockburn: Bush & Blair: The Iraq fantasy

Bush & Blair: The Iraq fantasy
http://tinyurl.com/v749h

Neither will admit that Iraq is a disaster. But while their state of denial may cost votes in Washington and London, on the frontline in the Middle East, it continues to cost lives

By Patrick Cockburn

11/05/06 "The Independent" -- -- "When does the incompetence end and the crime begin?" asked an appalled German Chancellor in the First World War when the German army commander said he intended to resume his bloody and doomed assaults on the French fortress city of Verdun.

The same could be said of the disastrous policies of George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq. At least 3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month. The failure of the US and Britain at every level in Iraq is obvious to all. But the White House and Downing Street have lived in a state of permanent denial. On the Downing Street website are listed 10 "Big Issues" affecting the Prime Minister, but Iraq is not one of them.

The picture of what is happening in Iraq put out by Messrs Bush and Blair no longer touches reality at any point. They claim US and British troops are present because Iraqis want them there. But a detailed poll of Iraqi attitudes by WorldPublicOpinion.org, published six weeks ago, shows that 71 per of Iraqis want the withdrawal of US-led forces within a year. No less than 74 per cent of Shia and 91 per cent of Sunni say they want American and British troops out. Only in Kurdistan, where there are few foreign troops, does a majority support the occupation.

Hostility to the American and British troops has a direct and lethal consequence for the soldiers on the ground. The same poll shows that 92 per cent of Sunni and 62 per cent of Shia approve of attacks on US-led forces. This is the real explanation for the strength of the insurgency: it is widely popular.

[autorank]

5. Robert Fisk: The truth of Blair's 'urgent diplomacy'

The truth of Blair's 'urgent diplomacy'

Blair and his masters regard ceasefires as a weapon, a means to a political end

By Robert Fisk
http://tinyurl.com/we886

07/29/06 "The Independent" -- -- I dropped by the hospital in Marjayoun this week to find a young girl lying in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, her beauty scarred for ever by some familiar wounds; the telltale dark-red holes in her skin made by cluster bombs, the weapon we used in Iraq to such lethal effect and which the Israelis are now using to punish the civilians of southern Lebanon.

And, of course, it occurred to me at once that if George Bush and Condoleezza Rice and our own sad and diminished Prime Minister had demanded a ceasefire when the Lebanese first pleaded for it, this young woman would not have to spend the rest of her life pitted with these vile scars.

And having seen the cadavers of so many more men and women, I have to say - from my eyrie only three miles from the Israeli border - that the compliant, gutless, shameful refusal of Bush, Rice and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara to bring this bloodbath to an end sentenced many hundreds of innocent Lebanese to death. As I write this near the village of Blat, which has its own little list of civilian dead, it's quite clear that many more innocent Lebanese are being prepared for the slaughter - and will indeed die in the coming days.

What was it Condoleezza Rice said? That "a hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing"? What was Blair's pathetic excuse at the G8 summit? That it was much better to have a ceasefire that would last than one which might break down? Yes, I entirely understand. Blair and his masters - we shall give Rice a generic title to avoid the obvious - regard ceasefires not as a humanitarian step to alleviate and prevent suffering but as a weapon, as a means to a political end.

[autorank]

6. Former PM John Major to Lead Inquiry into bLIARs Iraq War Decision

John Major leads calls for inquiry into conflict
http://tinyurl.com/yf8gl7
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 16 December 2006
Sir John Major led calls for an independent inquiry into Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq after the revelations by a former British senior diplomat that contradict the Prime Minister's case for the conflict.

The former Conservative prime minister said the inquiry was needed into the "new information" reported yesterday in The Independent from the secret report to the Butler inquiry by Carne Ross, a key negotiator for Britain at the UN.

"The more we learn about the beginning of the war, the more uncertain its rationale seems to be," Sir John said. He said there was "no doubt" that the new Democrat-dominated US Congress would hold an inquiry into the war.

"I do think it is important in due course we do precisely the same," he added. "I would like an independent inquiry that would examine all the information dispassionately."

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Your title to the above post is slightly misleading

Major isn't leading an inquiry; he's calling for one.

[autorank]

14. Oops, my mistake. This post would have benefited from sleep.

It will be interesting to see how the Conservatives handle this. Would they have supported the war had they been in power? They're going to have to say no since to do so now appears to have been a craven act of nihilism (to put it mildly).

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Their getout clause is "we wouldn't have distorted the intelligence"

It's difficult to know what they really would have done. They're not as slavishly devoted to following the American president as Blair is; but they generally support military action, so quite likely would have supported Bush, rather like Italy did, under Berlusconi. As it was, the vast majority of Conservative MPs voted for the invasion - just a few spoke and voted against it.

[CJCRANE]

8. Not sure I really trust Major.

Isn't he in the Carlyle Group? (I suppose at least he's old-con rather than neocon).

[WalcottNorfolk]

9. Like that Carlyle, Thatcher kissing Mayor can be trusted with an investigation

I smell a whitewash commission...

[rodeodance]

10. Kidnapping overshadows Blair visit

Kidnapping overshadows Blair visit

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/17/iraq.main/index.html?section=cnn_topstories&eref=yahoo

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Iraq on an unannounced stop in his Middle East tour and pledged his continued support for the new Iraqi government against those who seek to derail it.

But as Blair flew to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on a military helicopter, news broke of yet another mass kidnapping, carried out by gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms at the office of the Iraqi Red Crescent.

Blair's comments came after he held talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a visit designed to boost fragile attempts to halt Iraq's ceaseless violence.

Speaking at a joint news conference Blair said the two leaders discussed the great need for national unity as al-Maliki hosted a two-day national reconciliation conference in Baghdad. (Full story)

They also talked about building up Iraqi security forces, Blair said, an operation that is seeing some success in Basra, where most of the British troops in the country are based.

[autorank]

15. Iraq's Death Squads-Deborah Davies (iTV Great Britain)

War on Terror: Iraqs Death Squads-Deborah Davies, iTV

I don't know why but the video that this article came from was my tipping point. The video was on
google but has run it's "life" so to speak. It was the most compelling case against our involvement
I've seen. The death squads are tun by a Shia politician who has a post in the current government.
As I watched, I realized, he's only there at our sufferance. Holy cow! Simple, obvious but mind-
blowing given the actions described in the television report.

What a Bush League operation this is and deadly too boot!

[Eugene]

11. Blair: UK troops to stay in Iraq until job done - Reuters

Blair: UK troops to stay in Iraq until job done
17 Dec 2006 16:54:24 GMT
Source: Reuters

-snip-

By Ross Colvin and Katherine Baldwin

BAGHDAD, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday British troops
would stay in Iraq "until the job is done" and pledged to support the country's weak
government as it battles sectarian violence and a raging Sunni Arab insurgency.

-snip-

The visit by Blair, Washington's closest ally, comes as U.S. President George W. Bush
is rethinking his Iraq strategy following the defeat of his Republicans in mid-term
elections and in the face of mounting U.S. military casualties.

Blair defended London's plans for a gradual withdrawal of its 7,200 troops in the south,
mostly in and around oil-rich Basra, as Iraq's fledgling security forces take over.

"This isn't a change of our policy," he said. "Don't be under any doubt at all. British
troops will remain until the job is done."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17869814.htm

[OhioChick]

12. Why doesn't asshat

ever visit Baghdad? With all this "stay the course" BS, his ass should be there visiting from time to time.

[VegasWolf]

13. Bush et al struggling to keep the puppets in place. Won't work. nt

[whistle]

17. Looks like Tony Blair is going against UK voters wishes

[LeftishBrit]

19. That's the understatement of the century!

[whistle]

20. I realize it is, but why is Blair still holding office, he has lost the confidence

...of government and I believe his party and in a parliamentary form of government that means he must call an election. The longer he stays, the more damage he and those in his government who support him will cause. The British voters should be demanding he step down.

[LeftishBrit]

21. In our system, it's mainly up to the party at this stage

And the party will be replacing him within a few months - if this hadn't already been agreed, then they'd probably be throwing him out by now. They did force the issue of his retiring earlier than he would have planned to. He's a lame duck.

It's better to have him replaced by his party, than by a vote of no confidence, as the latter could result in the Tories getting in, while the Labour Party will replace him with Gordon Brown, who, though not an ideal person, is better than either Blair or the Tories.

There have been lots of protests, demonstrations and petitions against Blair; the public have certainly not just been accepting him. We don't have a system of 'recall' in the UK, nor do we have an equivalent of primary elections for party leaders, so if we have a far-right leader of our left-wing party, it's a bit difficult for the voters to get rid of him without electing someone even worse. At least he'll be out soon! Personally, I think we should have your system of term limits.

[IndianaGreen]

18. Bush's poodle is setting the stage for the upcoming US-coup

Washington pushes ahead with plans for Iraq “regime change”

By James Cogan
16 December 2006

Further evidence this week confirms that the Bush administration’s “change of course” in Iraq includes the installation of a new regime that will sanction a military crackdown on the Mahdi Army—the militia associated with supporters of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shiite fundamentalist Da’awa Party are being presented with an ultimatum: abandon the Sadrists or go down with them.

The Sadrists are currently the largest faction in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which includes Da’awa, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and several smaller Shiite formations. The US is reportedly urging SCIRI to lead a walkout from the UIA to form a new coalition with Kurdish parties, the Sunni Arab-based Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and the alliance headed by former CIA asset Iyad Allawi. Da’awa has also been invited to join. The combination would potentially have the necessary two-thirds majority within the 275-member parliament to form a new government—without the Sadrists, and with or without Maliki.

Washington then expects the green light for an assault on the Mahdi Army. The Bush administration considers the Sadrists to be one of the principal obstacles to US domination over Iraq. Sadr has mass support among the Shiite Iraqi working class and urban poor, especially in Baghdad. While collaborating with the US occupation, his movement verbally opposes the presence of American forces and US plans for the free-market reorganisation of the oil industry. Earlier this month, Sadr ordered his supporters to suspend their participation in the Maliki government until the US agreed to a timetable for withdrawal. Yesterday, the Sadrist office in Baghdad demanded the closure of the US and British embassies and the expulsion of their ambassadors and staff.

Moreover, Sadr has also opposed US aggression elsewhere in the Middle East. Under conditions where the Bush administration maintains its bellicose stance toward Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, the Pentagon views the Mahdi Army as a dangerous fifth column inside Iraq. It now has many as 60,000 fighters and thousands more within the US-trained Iraqi army and police who could launch attacks on American forces in the event of open hostilities. To create the necessary pretext for an attack, the White House and the US media are systematically demonising the Sadrists. Without evidence, the Mahdi Army is being accused of being the main Shiite militia carrying out sectarian attacks against Sunnis, and of receiving funding and training from Iran and Hezbollah.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/iraq-d16.shtml