BBC NEWS In Pictures In pictures: Good Friday
The net is closing in on Blair. But the man is an eel, rather than a good Christian fish. He may be able to squirm through a loop hole once again.
Rowan Williams had the “thought for the day” on the BBC this morning. Sadly this slot is often pretty mindless. But our local man, who follows in the footsteps of those other fisher men, spoke of the murdered Archbishop Romero, a man who dared to confront tyranny and oppression. It shocked the world and exposed corruption, lies and deceit. But only Christ’s death could redeem it, he assured us. So he was not offering to die himself in order to get rid of Blair then!
C….y has other important residents in the news, however. Malcolm Harper lives just down the road, and it was his turn on “Today” earlier this week. He is the United Nations Association spokesperson in this country, and was invited to discuss new plans for UN reform.
On air he was very amenable to U.S. needs, post 911. But at the meeting I went to in C….y yesterday, with David Cameron, our MP, his tone was very different. Vicious neo-con red necks, was his comment on Bush and company. Very true, very true.
Cameron bowed to Malcolm’s greater depth of knowledge and understanding of the UN, but also showed a remarkable breadth of knowledge himself. He said little about Iraq. But he hoped that the toppling of Saddam would be judged a good thing in the end as democracy spreads. One thing he said was curious; the last century was about the fight between Communism and Fascism. I asked him if the Fascists had won. It had him rephrasing himself very fast. He wanted to say ideology was dead. But the Fascists are winning. Both parties want to renege on parts of the European Convention on Human Rights before the signature is fully dry on the paper.
What really matters this week is the “smoking gun,” as the Independent calls it. Goldsmith definitely did not think the war was legal before March 7. He panicked when Wilmshurst’s opinion became public, and asked the other Foreign Office lawyers to go against her. They refused.
The opinion we do know about, that a combination of UN resolutions taken together added up to a legal case for war was always dubious. If the earlier ones sanctioned taking Bagdad, why did the old coalition draw back when they could have done it. If 1441 sanctioned war, why did Britain try so hard to get a resolution that would sanction war? It is almost universally accepted that “serious consequences” does not sanction full scale invasion. Other countries breech UN resolutions without having us invade them. The Generals say they were given just three lines to give legal sanction to their shock and awe.
The key requirement Goldsmith made on Blair was proof that Saddam was still in breech of the resolutions. Blair gave it to him and then he gave it to all of us.
Then Butler made it plain that Blair had no right to make those claims. The evidence was not there. It is surely because of the importance of this lie that Blair held onto the myth of Saddam’s WMD long after every other man and woman on the planet knew it was a lie.
Blair still hides behind others mistakes. The intelligence was faulty. He acted in Good Faith.
Then there is Kelly. It was so important to use Kelly against the BBC. He was bullied into being a weapon against Dyke and Gilligan. But then he turned out to be a bullet stuck in the barrel, blowing up in their faces. What other damage could he have done them had he lived? We will never know.
For some bizarre reason we are then allowed a public enquiry into his death that is rigged from the start. Hutton never even looked seriously into the means of his death, which the great majority of expert doctors in the field think cannot have been suicide.
Hutton killed off the threat from the BBC. But the WMD problem refused to die. So Butler was brought in. But the opposition refused to be wrapped up in this red tape apart from one fat bumbling Tory, who ended up representing no one but himself.
Butler did a devastating job. But his remit did not allow him to fire the gun he was holding up. Incredibly, no one else understood the firing mechanism either. The intelligence services took the wrap.
But the problem has still not gone away. Your own Governments top legal expert has judged your war a “Crime of Aggression”, Mr Blair. The secretary General of the UN has called your war “illegal.” You have only a tiny Goldsmithed fig leaf left covering the nakedness of your big lie to the people of this country.
Yes, and we all know now that Goldsmith was leaned on by the Americans very hard, when he went over there just before the war. He seems never to have made a full legal justification for the war, beyond the one page document.
Confessions, especially confessions of a change in legality of war, when made under torture, are not legal, are they, Mr Blair? But maybe they are if it is all part of the war on terror. It was only torture-light in Goldsmith’s case. He looks like a bit of a pushover, doesn't he?
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