1 Boring Old Man

Secret papers could contradict Iraq evidence: Chilcot
The Sydney Morning Herald
by CHRISTOPHER HOPE
February 10, 2010

^{LONDON: Tens of thousands of secret documents could contradict evidence given by members of the Blair government to the inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has suggested as the former prime minister lashed out at the hunt for a "scandal" and a "conspiracy" over his controversial decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.}

^{Sir John disclosed that the panel was examining far more documents than previously thought. He said the papers would form the core of the inquiry and show "what really went on" in the build-up to the start of the conflict. He said that the inquiry team would examine the documents "over the next few months", adding: "That will enable us to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps." Sir John stressed there was no reason to believe material had been "deliberately withheld". He was speaking after a second questioning session with the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq.}

^{Sir Lawrence Freedman, a panel member, hinted that documents seen by the inquiry but not made public showed that George Bush planned to attack Iraq even if the United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein was complying with resolution 1441. Mr Straw denied this. But Sir Lawrence said: ”You might want to look through your conversations and check”…}

^{Speaking 10 days after he gave evidence at the inquiry, the former British prime minister Tony Blair told US broadcaster Fox News on Monday that Britons had a "curious habit" of being unable to accept that others might hold different views. "There’s always got to be a scandal as to why you hold your view," he said. "There’s got to be a conspiracy behind it, some great deceit that has gone on, and people just find it hard to understand that it’s possible for people to have different points of view and hold them reasonably for genuine reasons." Mr Blair sparked anger in Britain when he told the inquiry he had no regrets over removing Saddam…}

^{First, the known facts. Republican neo-cons advising Bush on his war strategy, including Vice President Dick Cheney [like Bush an inveterate oil man]had plotted for years to seize Iraq’s oil. Iraq was the first issue on their agenda when Bush came into office in 2000. Bush said "Find me a way," and his lawyers got to work, concocting the necessary legal pretext for invading Iraq. But they all knew that seizing the oil was only half the equation. The other half was transporting the oil, via pipeline, to market. Their terminal point of choice was the Israeli port of Haifa, which housed not only a large refinery that had fueled the British navy in World War II, but was the terminal point for a previous pipeline that had connected the oil of Iraq to Palestine until the Israeli war of Independence in 1948. Fast forward to April 4, 2003, only two weeks after the U.S invasion of Iraq. The Asia Times reported that "Iraqi consent [to building a new pipeline to Haifa] will be out of the question as long as the current [nationalist, anti-Israel] regime of Saddam Hussein is in power. As acknowledged by the Israeli minister [National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky] a prerequisite for the project is, therefore, a new regime in Baghdad with friendly ties with Israel."}