The contrast between the process by which the United States and Great Britain approached the "legality" of the Iraq Invasion was both striking and discouraging. Here, it really seemed to be a non issue. The Bush Administration held the UN in contempt and did everything possible to ignore our UN Charter. Congress insisted on the […]
It need not be reiterated that George W. Bush came into office determined to unseat Sadam Hussein, backed by VP Dick Cheney – the former secretary of defense under George H.W. Bush [when we had backed off from entering Baghdad in the 1991 Gulf War]. We need not document how they used 9/11 and some […]
I personally believe in the United Nations as it is currently constructed and our own commitment to the UN Charter. The UN is imperfect, perhaps beyond its infancy but not much further than pre-adolescence. But it is at a stage that is parallel to the world it attempts to represent. I doubt it could be […]
Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry 4:30 AM-7:00 AM: I’m sure Tony Blair didn’t have to stay after school for not doing his homework – he’s a bundle of information [and vivacity]. The risk assessment of Iraq changed after 911. The options were: UK containment, UN containment, remove Saddam [UN 1409]. He says Regime Change […]
Rookie that I am, I chose to question Lord Goldsmith’s testimony that he decided to change his mind about the legality of the Iraq War by making an indirect analysis of the time line [impatience? imprudence? impudence?…]. Philippe Sand, author of Torture Team, had a better idea. Since Lord Goldsmith’s argument rested on his analysis […]
Often when one sees a person who is in some kind of acute emotional crisis and you try to take a history about what was going on around the time things began to happen, you run into a brick wall. You know something must’ve happened in their life that set things off, but they resist […]
So I googled "Chilcot" to see how the Press was reacting to Lord Goldsmith and to my surprise I found a report in the American Press – in the Wall Street Journal. I should’ve known that it would be a neocon piece diatribe against the Chilcot Inquiry as a partisan skewering of Tony Blair. I […]
The Davids Commission in the Netherlands has also investigated the Iraq War. The report is in Dutch with a section of the conclusions in English pp 529-533 [that cannot be copied as text]. Here are some of the key points [copied as an image]. I post this in conjunction with the British Chilcot Inquiry. Specific […]
As Lord Goldsmith droned on about his legal deliberations, I found my mind escaping the issue of the moment and thinking about the larger point of this inquiry in the UK. Saddam Hussein had been in non-compliance for years, since not long after the First Gulf War. Over the years, the UN had tried various […]
This morning, the Chilcot Inquiry is interviewing Lord Goldsmith, England’s Attorney General at the time [one thing I’ve relearned in listening is why I didn’t go to Law School]. Rather than detail this interview [something I’m not sure I could do if I wanted to], I’d rather address what I’ve heard about the position of […]