1 Boring Old Man

^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: You stressed right throughout this morning the importance to you of maintaining international order and international institutions in the world that we now live in. But we were in a situation, you as a Cabinet, were in a situation, of having to go to the House of Commons and ask them to support something for which we had not got the support of the United Nations Security Council? Wouldn’t it have been much better if we had been able to prolong the diplomacy until such time as we had got the support of the Security Council, thereby strengthening international institutions?}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: If there had been any chance that the Security Council would have been prepared to come to a decision based on its merits, within a few weeks’ time, I would have supported that, but countries had made it clear that, irrespective of the merits, they were determined not to enforce the will of the international community.}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: Which countries?}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: A number of countries were making it clear that, irrespective of what actually the results of the investigation were, that although the 1441 had said that they were prepared to consider all necessary measures —}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: But which countries said that?}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: — they wouldn’t be prepared to do so.}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: Which countries said that?}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: I think it was being made clear by a number of countries in the region, and I think France and Germany was making that clear also.}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: Germany wasn’t on the Security Council. Are you really referring to France here?}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: Statements were made by President Chirac which were very clear that he was not prepared to support military action.}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: At that time.}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: He was not prepared to support military action and could give no indication that there was a time when he would support military action.}
^{SIR RODERIC LYNE: After he made his statement, didn’t the French Government immediately contact Number 10, the Foreign Office, the British Embassy in Paris to say that the British Government was not interpreting his statement in an accurate way.}
^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: That may have happened, but, you know, I wasn’t the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister. The contacts that would be had with the French would be through them. What I knew is that there was very little chance on our assessment that the diplomatic route could lead to success if a number of countries were not in themselves willing to consider the action that would flow from that. We were in a post-Cold War phase, where the tensions between Russia and America are not the paradigm within which people see what they should do as individual states around the world. There is a danger in this period that certain countries, rogue states, would be prepared to take actions that hurt the international community and certainly disobeyed the laws of the international community, and this was a test of whether the international community could hold together.}

^{Unfortunately, we could not bring all countries along, but if the international community had then decided that, after 14 resolutions and after a huge attempt at diplomacy and after trying sanctions but not succeeding with sanctions, it was going to give up on this, then I think we would be sending a message to every potential dictator around the world that they were free to do what they wanted.}

^{I think that is a very important message to learn; that nothing was going to be perfect in a situation where we were in the midst of creating the — if you like, the institutions and the practices of a new world. It was perhaps inevitable that some countries would not feel part of that process for the time being, but relationships between France, Germany and Britain and America, are stronger now than they have ever been and I think that shows our determination, as all countries working together, to create the international community that requires that international law and international rules be observed.}

^{Unfortunately, we could not bring all countries along, but if the international community had then decided that, after 14 resolutions and after a huge attempt at diplomacy and after trying sanctions but not succeeding with sanctions, it was going to give up on this, then I think we would be sending a message to every potential dictator around the world that they were free to do what they wanted.}

All of the witnesses at the Chilcot hearings want to say that the American timetable was not a factor in the British decision to invade Iraq. While it is easy to discount what they say, my own opinion about that has changed since I first started reading this chronology. For one thing, Clinton was in the regime change set before Bush ever came along. He signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. He and Tony Blair initiated Operation Desert Fox, bombing Iraq "as if" they were going to invade while claiming they were bombing just WMD sites. Blair was mighty tight with Bush, pledging support for "Regime Change" early. Blair’s government certified the phoney Niger story much longer that the C.I.A. So, this business about Britain following the US may be partially true, but, at least in Blair’s case, the "following" may have been more of a collusion than we realize.

Back to Brown. In spite of his many defensive responses, I think he is giving us the real rationale for the Iraq Invasion – a new world order. It’s hard to imagine that he doesn’t see the logical flaws in his argument – that he’s speaking for the world, yet the world never agreed. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring the fact that, by any criteria, the invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake that strengthened al Qaeda and weakened the UN. His assertion, "It was perhaps inevitable that some countries would not feel part of that process for the time being, but relationships between France, Germany and Britain and America, are stronger now than they have ever been and I think that shows our determination, as all countries working together, to create the international community that requires that international law and international rules be observed." may well be true, but it is in spite of the rash invasion rather than because of it.

^{RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: I believed we were making the right decision for the right cause. I believed I had sufficient information before me to make a judgment. Of course, I wasn’t trying to do the job of the Foreign Secretary or trying to second guess something that had happened at other meetings. I was looking at the issue on its merits and, as I have said to you before, I was convinced of the merits of our case. Equally, at the same time, we have learned about how we do these things in the future, and it was important to me that the matter went to Parliament and the matter went to a debate in the House of Commons. And we have got to remember too that the vote in the House of Commons was absolutely overwhelmingly in favour of taking the action that was necessary. And I believe that in future it will be important that a government puts this matter to the House of Commons as a matter of right; that the House of Commons vote on these matters before any country goes to  war. So I think we have learned from the process that we need also Parliamentary engagement in this and I favour a change in the constitution, which we are bringing about, where Parliament will, in all normal circumstances, vote on the issue of peace and war.}