Chilcot report on Iraq war

[seafoid]

. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1353c1d8-4298-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d.html#ixzz4De6nGsqd


It is hard to imagine how much more damage can be done to the tarnished reputations of Tony Blair, former prime minister, and his lieutenants, or whether any inquiry can capture the toxic mix of naivety, vanity and obtuseness that impelled this misadventure when the UK decided to go to war alongside President George W Bush.


Yet whatever Chilcot establishes, there are at least three deeper truths about Iraq — the geopolitical fiasco as well as the destruction of a state and society already brought low by tyranny, wars and sanctions — aside from the fact that the US and the UK started this war of choice with no more forethought than the Brexiters have exhibited.

First, Iraq offered the world a pitiless spectacle of the limits to US power (Britain's role was, in that sense, a sideshow). Obviously, America possesses military might in unique abundance. What it lacks is the ability to shape the broader Middle East, from Iraq to Afghanistan, or Syria to Libya. Conversely, the US and its allies do seem to possess the ability to help incubate worldwide security menaces. One result of Iraq is Isis, an even more savage iteration of jihadism than its al-Qaeda precursor, as we keep seeing, not just in Raqqa or Mosul, but from Dhaka to Medina, or Istanbul to Brussels; there is also regular carnage in Baghdad that rarely makes headlines.

It is no defence to keep repeating, as Mr Blair does, that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. Scores of little Saddams have taken his place. The casual upending of a millennium-old balance of power between Sunni and Shia triggered a sectarian bloodbath across the region and beyond.

Second, Iraq led to Syria. Sure, the Syrian civil war was detonated by region-wide uprisings against Arab despots, most of them aided and abetted by the west, leaving dissidents little space except the mosque to regroup — a chemically pure formula for the manufacture of Islamists and jihadis. But the sectarian parameters of Syria were set by Iraq. And western policy of outsourcing support for Syrian rebels to Turkey and Saudi Arabia not only helped create the vacuum into which Isis stepped but has helped pulverise Syria and Iraq, creating a real risk of regional implosion.


In depth

Syria crisis

TOPSHOT - A young Syrian shepherd leads his flock on June 14, 2016 as smoke billows from a farm following a reported airstrike in Sheifuniya, near the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the capital Damascus. / AFP / Abd Doumany (Photo credit should read ABD DOUMANY/AFP/Getty Images)

News, comment and analysis about the conflict that has killed thousands and displaced millions

The frequent comparison of Iraq to the Suez crisis of 1956, the last hurrah of French and British colonialism, falls short. While Americans and Europeans have no plan to put a brake on the proxy warfare between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran that Iraq set in train, they have managed to make Vladimir Putin's Russia, a predatory if subprime superpower, look surprisingly good.

Third, the recklessness of Iraq followed by the fecklessness of western policy towards Syria has led to other inescapable if unintended consequences — not least for the UK and EU. It is obvious not only in retrospect that the surge of refugees out of Syria, and the deal struck with Turkey to control it that appeared to offer visa-free travel in Europe to millions of Muslim Turks, were going to pump up the Brexit vote.

[Asal Mor]

What do people think of Tony's tears?
Crocodile tears, genuine remorse or self-pity?
Personally, I was unmoved and still feel he is a pr!ck. And I'm generally willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

[imtommygunn]

He has been raking in money for years on the back of things like this. Sorry my ass.

[seafoid]

What do people think of Tony's tears?
Crocodile tears, genuine remorse or self-pity?
Personally, I was unmoved and still feel he is a pr!ck. And I'm generally willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

he is an arsehole of the order of the British empire
God knows how many Iraq veterans have taken their own lives

[thejuice]

He has been raking in money for years on the back of things like this. Sorry my ass.

And he will continue to do so for years to come. Maybe he was crying out of fear his golden goose would be taken from him.

I wonder how he and Bush (and all the neo-cons) sleep at night. Sadly since I doubt they have a conscience probably pretty well. In fact they probably meet up regularly to tell each other they did the right thing.

[Olly]

For years I thought it was Tony Blair who played Worzel Gummidge on the TV. Then I found out it was Lionel Blair and felt very foolish. Apparently it was John Pertwee which is even madder. Didn't Blair and the girl who played Aunt Sally have a connection?

[armaghniac]

Iraq = Brexit. Brought about by lies, the people responsible took no interest in the aftermath and there was 13 years of civil war.

[StGallsGAA]

"Up to 150,000 Iraqi civilians died during the war and thereafter" - Even Chilcot can't help himself perpetuating the lies - when the UN and most other independent monitors set the figure in excess of 500,000.

[SkillfulBill]

What a load of crap and hypocrisy from the British media and public. This report has been dominated by the poor British soldiers who lost their lives and limbs fighting a war for Queen and Country. Hardly a mention of the devastation these poor soldiers created on behalf of their Queen and Country. I have relatively little sympathy for them they joined an army for a country soaked in the blood of many nations across the world for hundreds of years. The same country that went to war to insist that they be allowed to continue to devastate another country with a supply of opium its hardly surprising then that they would get involved in another unjustifiable slaughter.

[johnneycool]

What a load of crap and hypocrisy from the British media and public. This report has been dominated by the poor British soldiers who lost their lives and limbs fighting a war for Queen and Country. Hardly a mention of the devastation these poor soldiers created on behalf of their Queen and Country. I have relatively little sympathy for them they joined an army for a country soaked in the blood of many nations across the world for hundreds of years. The same country that went to war to insist that they be allowed to continue to devastate another country with a supply of opium its hardly surprising then that they would get involved in another unjustifiable slaughter.

Corby apologised to them on behalf of the Labour party who were in power back then, I don't recall any other commentator mention the Iraqis but certainly more attention was put on the 178 service men and women who chose to join an army and put themselves in harms way!

[seafoid]

What a load of crap and hypocrisy from the British media and public. This report has been dominated by the poor British soldiers who lost their lives and limbs fighting a war for Queen and Country. Hardly a mention of the devastation these poor soldiers created on behalf of their Queen and Country. I have relatively little sympathy for them they joined an army for a country soaked in the blood of many nations across the world for hundreds of years. The same country that went to war to insist that they be allowed to continue to devastate another country with a supply of opium its hardly surprising then that they would get involved in another unjustifiable slaughter.

Corby apologised to them on behalf of the Labour party who were in power back then, I don't recall any other commentator mention the Iraqis but certainly more attention was put on the 178 service men and women who chose to join an army and put themselves in harms way!

It is far higher than 178 if you count suicides

[johnneycool]

What a load of crap and hypocrisy from the British media and public. This report has been dominated by the poor British soldiers who lost their lives and limbs fighting a war for Queen and Country. Hardly a mention of the devastation these poor soldiers created on behalf of their Queen and Country. I have relatively little sympathy for them they joined an army for a country soaked in the blood of many nations across the world for hundreds of years. The same country that went to war to insist that they be allowed to continue to devastate another country with a supply of opium its hardly surprising then that they would get involved in another unjustifiable slaughter.

Corby apologised to them on behalf of the Labour party who were in power back then, I don't recall any other commentator mention the Iraqis but certainly more attention was put on the 178 service men and women who chose to join an army and put themselves in harms way!

It is far higher than 178 if you count suicides

Probably, and 20 or so of them were "blue on blue" killings as well!

[NAG1]

What a load of crap and hypocrisy from the British media and public. This report has been dominated by the poor British soldiers who lost their lives and limbs fighting a war for Queen and Country. Hardly a mention of the devastation these poor soldiers created on behalf of their Queen and Country. I have relatively little sympathy for them they joined an army for a country soaked in the blood of many nations across the world for hundreds of years. The same country that went to war to insist that they be allowed to continue to devastate another country with a supply of opium its hardly surprising then that they would get involved in another unjustifiable slaughter.

Corby apologised to them on behalf of the Labour party who were in power back then, I don't recall any other commentator mention the Iraqis but certainly more attention was put on the 178 service men and women who chose to join an army and put themselves in harms way!

+1

Also why so much coverage for the Ballyfermot soldier? Seems strange on so many levels.

I think the report should have been more focused on the devastation on the ordinary people of Iraq.

[seafoid]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dabbd16a-445b-11e6-9b66-0712b3873ae1.html

July 7, 2016 6:32 pm

Chilcot report lists British humiliations in Iraq
Henry Mance and Andrew England

When Sir Hilary Synnott took charge of southern Iraq in June 2003, the Foreign Office instructed him to send back "at least a report a day".
Unfortunately, they did not equip him with a phone or a computer.

This was one of many occasions when British officials realised that the challenges of occupying Iraq after the joint invasion with the US had been severely underestimated by their bosses in London.

The Chilcot report, published on Wednesday, lays bare how UK forces tried to bring peace and democracy to southern Iraq before withdrawing after eight years and still "a very long way from success".
Among the final humiliations was a secret truce with the Mahdi Army, a Shia militia responsible for killing several British soldiers. Sir Hilary ended up borrowing a computer from American officials and setting up a Yahoo account to send his confidential reports.
Other problems proved less tractable. Douglas Brand, a police adviser in 2003-04, described plans to create an Iraqi police force as "ridiculous".
"We recruit 30,000 in 30 days, call them police, label them police, give them weapons and say, 'you are now in the police'," he recalled thinking.
For Major General Andrew Stewart, a military commander, the moment when he realised hopes were running ahead of reality came when he was speaking to a washing-machine salesman in a souk.
"He was selling 20 a day . . . we were never going to meet that expectation [for electricity, water and sewage treatment]. That is something that we never really came to terms with."
The most chilling cause for reassessment was the violence. In late 2003, the mainly Shia area of south-east Iraq, controlled by British forces, was viewed as "relatively calm" by the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Then on April 6 2004, there were 35 shooting incidents and attacks in Basra before 7.30am, and the city of Nasiriyah was taken over by the Mahdi Army. "It was like a switch had been flicked," recalled Maj Gen Stewart. "I think it was then that we realised the scale of the task ahead of us," said Sir John Sawers, a senior civil servant.

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Belatedly acknowledging the problem was one thing, addressing it was another. The Chilcot report does not just criticise the lack of prewar planning.
After the invasion there were strategies without practical steps, a lack of commitment from Whitehall departments and a need for a cabinet minister with overall responsibility for Iraq.
Britain also lacked influence over key decisions taken by the US, such as the de-Ba'athification of the civil service and the disbanding of the army.
Iraqis wanted jobs, water, electricity and security. But in Whitehall a "circular analysis began to develop in which progress on reconstruction required security to be improved, and improved security required the consent generated by reconstruction activity," the Chilcot report said. Tony Blair, whose decision to go to war was much criticised by the report, is judged to have correctly tried to focus attention on security.
Iraq was the first time since the second world war that the UK had taken part in an opposed invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign state, and the inexperience showed. Iraq needed 7,000 police trainers; it took the UK five months to muster 100. Military chiefs exacerbated problems by lobbying for the UK to shift troops to Afghanistan, where they saw greater prospects of success.
In 2006, the UK was reducing its troop numbers, even though basic services were not being delivered in Basra and the department of international development had withdrawn from the city. A spiral of kidnappings, murder and intimidation took hold.
By the spring of 2007, after a constant barrage of deadly attacks, UK officials began making contact with the Mahdi Army, the militia that had been fighting troops and was nominally loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric. The talks eventually led to a deal under which the Mahdi Army agreed to allow British forces safe passage to withdraw from Basra Palace — which had been their base to the city — to the airport outside of Basra.

In return, the British agreed to release a number of Mahdi Army detainees, while effectively handing the key southern port over to Shia militias in the absence of an effective Iraqi government force. Lieutenant General Graeme Lamb, Britain's senior military representative in Iraq, warned that it would be seen as "a hollow victory, gained for fixed British rather than strategic interests," according to Chilcot.

The report described the deal as "humiliating", saying Britain should have been able to increase troop levels. Attacks against the coalition forces reduced because they were no longer in the city. But the violence and intimidation against Basra residents increased. Businessmen were kidnapped, intellectuals fled and women were murdered for dressing or behaving in a way the militia deemed immoral.

A semblance of stability finally returned to Basra after the Charge of the Knights, a 2008 Iraqi military operation backed by US air and ground forces. The operation came as a "surprise" to British forces, the Chilcot report found — indicating just how secondary their contribution had become.

Britain in Basra

April 2003 British troops enter Basra and prove unable to prevent outbreak of looting.
October 2003 The Joint Intelligence Committee says situation in the area is "relatively calm".
April 2004 Spike in attacks by Mahdi Army militia on British forces. Publication of Abu Ghraib photos.
May 2006 UK becomes responsible for Helmand province, Afghanistan, reducing resources for Iraq. Separately, Iraq declares state of emergency in Basra following violence.
August 2007 Deal with Mahdi Army reduces attacks on UK forces in Basra
March 2008 Charge of the Knights operation, led by Iraqi government, pushes Mahdi Army back.
April 2009 Britain ends combat operations in Iraq.