Jonathan Freedland (Guardian Utd): Yes, they did lie to us

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Wednesday June 22

Yes, they did lie to us
In the US the latest leaked memos are seen as a smoking gun on Iraq, but in Britain we are struggling to keep up
By Jonathan Freedland

Now try to work this one out. Before the war on Iraq, Britain witnessed a ferocious debate over whether the case for conflict was legal and honest. It culminated in the largest demonstration in the country's history, as a million or more took to the streets to stop the war. At the same time, the US sleepwalked into battle. Its press subjected George Bush to a fraction of the scrutiny endured by Tony Blair: the president's claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida were barely challenged. While Blair had to cajole and persuade his MPs to back him, Bush counted on the easy loyalty of his fellow Republicans - and of most leading Democrats.

Yet now the picture has reversed. In Washington Iraq remains close to the centre of politics while in Britain it has all but vanished. So the big news on Capitol Hill is the Democrats' refusal to confirm John Bolton, the man Bush wants to serve as US ambassador to the UN, in part because of suspicions arising from the lead-up to war. Meanwhile, RAF planes were involved last weekend in bombing raids in north-west Iraq - a marked escalation of their role - and British politics barely stirs. America has woken up; we are aslumber.

The best illustration of this strange reversal is the curious fate of the Downing Street memo. Leaked to the Sunday Times just before the election, it contained a slew of striking revelations. It minuted a meeting of Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon and a clutch of top officials back on July 23 2002 - when both Bush and Blair were adamant that no decision had been taken - and confirms that, on the contrary, Washington had resolved to go to war. Despite Straw's insistence that the case against Saddam was "thin", the course was set. According to the memo, Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, explained that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As if that were not devastating enough - vindicating one of the anti-war camp's key charges, that the decision for war came first and the evidence was "fixed" to fit - the leaks have kept coming. In the past fortnight, six more documents have surfaced, their authenticity not challenged. One shows that Britain and the US heavily increased bombing raids on Iraq in the summer of 2002 - when London and Washington were still insisting that war was a last resort - even though the Foreign Office's own lawyers had advised that such action was illegal. These "spikes of activity" were aimed at provoking Saddam into action that might justify war. Other documents confirm that Blair had agreed to back regime change in the spring of 2002, that he was warned it was illegal and that ministers were told to "create the conditions" that would make it legal. Other gems include the admission that the threat from Saddam and WMD had not increased and that US attempts to link Baghdad to al-Qaida were "frankly unconvincing".

Read more.

[dweller]

1. this is a MUST READ

nominating.

it is not behind us.
dp

[cal04]

2. another article that should be checked out

The US connection


On the sixth floor of the State Department in Foggy Bottom sits the recently vacated office of William Taft IV. Despite the peculiarity of his name, few in Britain will have heard of him or his distinguished Republican pedigree.

Yet The Observer can reveal that this great-grandson of a former Republican president played a critical role in persuading Goldsmith's that the war against Iraq was legal. Taft was one of five powerful lawyers in the Bush administration who met the Attorney General in Washington in February 2003 to push their view that a second UN resolution was superfluous. Goldsmith, who had been expressing doubts about the legality of any proposed war, was sent to Washington by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to 'put some steel in his spine', as one official has said.

On 11 February, Goldsmith met Taft, a former US ambassador to Nato who was then chief legal adviser to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. After a gruelling 90-minute meeting in Taft's conference room 6419, Goldsmith then met the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, followed by a formidable triumvirate including Judge Al Gonzales, Bush's chief lawyer at the White House.

Goldsmith also met William 'Jim' Haynes, who is Defence Secretary's Donald Rumsfeld's chief legal adviser, and John Bellinger, legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser. This group of lawyers is as renowned for fearsome intellect as it is for hard-line conservative politics. Bellinger is alleged to have said: 'We had trouble with your Attorney; we got there eventually.' From copies of Goldsmith's legal advice to the Prime Minister published last week, it is clear that these meetings had a pivotal role in shaping Goldsmith's view that there was a 'reasonable case' for war.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474190,00.html

[JDPriestly]

3. Taft really pulled one on Goldsmith.

The text of Resolution 1441 warns of dire consequences if Saddam did not cooperate with the previous UN resolutions and with re-entry of the inspection team, but it states, at the very end, that the UN remained seized of the matter, meaning, as I understand it, that the UN retained jurisdiction over the matter. Resolution 1441 does not specifically allow individual nations to decide whether Hussein was in compliance or not. Taft agrees with the May 2004 Vanity Fair article The Path to War in claiming that 1441 was intentionally unclear on that point.

Even if we assume Taft was right, and the US and Britain could unilaterally determine, based on reasonable evidence, that Hussein was violating 1441 and send troops into Iraq, their sending the troops in was illegal because it was unreasonable for them to determine that Hussein was not complying with 1441 in light of Blix's speech to the UN Security Council on February 14, 2003. The DSMs show that Blair was not only advised that the invasion would be illegal, but also that, even if Hussein had WMDs, they did not pose the threat that the WMDs of several other countries posed. Had the UN voted that Saddam was not complying with 1441 and been wrong, Bush and Blair would have been covered. But, they took the decision into their own hands. They were wrong. They are in trouble -- especially Blair.

[KoKo]

4. Sadly, reading this it's easy to understand why DSM's have to be

prosecuted here as "lying to Congress." Since there's no way to get around that the Invasion was manipulated to appear Legal and Bush and Blair are covered, then the *lie* itself about the reasons we invaded has to be found unconstitutional. Or, that the war was already in progress before Bush went to Congress would have to be found unconstitutional. :shrug:

We don't have any other recourse. If Blair is covered and Chimp is covered for the Invasion, then all we are left with is the lie, and possibly that they were complicit in doctoring the evidence.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. I disagree

Diplospeak for war is "all necessary means." Resolution 1441 doesn't meet that test. This point was made by Professor Vaughan Lowe of Oxford University in an interview with Cirmes of War magazine (March 10, 2003, emphasis in the original):

Lowe argued (that) even if the Security Council were to agree that Iraq remained in material breach, there would still need to be a clear statement that the use of force was now authorized. The phrase in the resolution, "serious consequences," falls short of a clear and unambiguous statement that force may be used -- for instance it does not say that "all necessary means" may be taken to disarm Iraq. It hints that the use of force may be decided on – but it does not itself give authority for the use of force . . . .

In other words, Lowe said, "It needs a Security Council resolution to authorize force, that is to say, it has to be plain from the next resolution that the Security Council itself is giving that authorization to use force. It’s not at all obvious to me that a resolution that makes a simple determination of material breach would do that."

Moreover, the British and Spanish governments obviously agreed with Professor Lowe. They introduced a second resolution to explicitly authorize the use of force and withdrew it only when it faced certain defeat.

Bush and Blair had no authorization from the Security Council to invade Iraq in order to enforce UN resolutions and no one, least of all the US, was being threatened by Iraq militarily or in any other way. It was an unjustified war of aggression whose real purpose had nothing to do with anyone's national security.

Bush and Blair are open to war crimes charges and may be tried by an international tribunal. They should not be permitted to escape.

[JDPriestly]

6. Don't give up hope.

In actual fact, a good argument can also be made that UN resolution 1441 does not authorize unilateral action. It simply does not prohibit it. I believe, therefore that a reasonableness test would apply to determine what 1441 authorized or did not authorize. Would a reasonable person have done what Blair and Bush did in their situation knowing what they knew at the time? I personally believe that Blair and Bush would flunk that test, but it would have to be decided in a court.

I have linked to Resolution 1441, the February 14, 2003 Blix report to the UN, and the British attorney general's speech to Parliament on March 7, 2003 in response to so many of these posts that I don't want to do it again. Along with the Vanity Fair article, May 2004 entitled The Path to War, they tell the whole story. Please google the appropriate words, read the documents (if you have not already done so and decide for yourself.

As for the lying to Congress charge, we would have to identify specific statements that are contradicted by the DSMs. We would need a special place to organize our suggestions. I'm not aware that such a place exists. I know that Waxman produced a report showing lies about the evidence of WMDs, but that is not exactly what we need.

The many lies in speeches would not count. We have to find testimony by top level officials. Is the Federal Register on line? That is where we might find some information, but I'm not sure whether transcripts of the kinds of committee meetings in which these matters would have been discussed would be printed there. I doubt it. Much of the lying may have occurred in closed sessions. The testimony may be secret. I don't know.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. If I may elaborate further

As you say, if the charge were merely lying to Congress, no public statement other than one made under oath to Congress, no matter how outrageous, may be taken into account.

However, the matter can and should be framed as a violation of international law. This was an attempt to gain authorization for a war against Iraq from both Congress (the attempt was successful) and the UN Security Council (where the attempt was unsuccessful) by falsely asserting that Iraq posed an immediate threat. Iraq posed no such threat and, at best, those stating otherwise did not know for certain that she did or, at worst, knew very well that she did not. The case was built on fabricated facts and dissembles intelligence reports.

Framed this way, any public statement designed to deceive the public and put pressure on elected representatives to vote to authorize on false pretenses what was in fact a war of aggression or to build pressure on foreign government to instruct diplomats for vote for authorizing force against Iraq in the Security Council is part of the bill of particulars in a war crimes indictment.

It will not be enough to impeach and remove from office and then indict, convict and imprison Mr. Bush. He could not have started this war by himself and those who assisted him in fabricating facts, dissembling intelligence and broadcasting falsehoods are as guilty of war crimes as he.

[JDPriestly]

11. I agree at least for Tony Blair

He should be susceptible to a charge of violation of international law, but I'm not sure how that would be done. I'm not sure that a protocol against aggression has been agreed to and if it has what it states. Also, as the British attorney general pointed out in his March 7, 2003 statement on this issue, it is unclear who could or would bring a charge against Blair. Any ideas on this?

[Jack Rabbit]

12. If Blair violated international law, the ICC could hear the case

There would be no question of its jurisdiction. Britain has ratified the Rome Statute.

Also, the framers of the Rome Statute were not so naive as to believe that tyrants would give their consent to being subjected to modern standards of acceptable behavior. Thus, they provided ways of bringing before the Court citizens of non-member nations whose crimes were committed in other non-member nations. Just because the neither the US nor Iraq have ratified the Rome Statute doesn't mean the neocons are off the hook.

There is always the option of convening a special tribunal. Since war crimes in Iraq involve the leaders of not one but two permanent members of the Security Council, this might be a matter best brought before the entire General Assembly in a process similar to that avoided a Soviet veto and allowed UN forces to enter Korea in 1950.

Finally, the best way to handle the matter would be in national courts. International Courts should not become involved unless the war crime suspect's national judicial process appears unwilling or unable to render justice.

[KoKo]

8. Kick....because what it says is important....but I can't even comment.

[Matilda]

9. Perhaps the memo isn't getting so much attention in Britain

because a majority of the British people always knew Blair was lying
about the reasons for war - witness the huge peace demonstrations
before the invasion.

No surprises there.

[CJCRANE]

10. Partially that

but also because the alternative to Blair, the Conservative Party, is worse. Also, it's common knowledge that Blair will step down in this Parliament and Gordon Brown is likely to take over.