Chilcot and the Fog of War
Here are two opinion pieces on the Chilcot Inquiry which are sensible and worth a read in my view - from David Aaronovitch writing in The Times and James Kirkup in The Telegraph.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/its-easy-for-chilcot-to-be-wise-after-the-event-q7hkn73xl
It’s easy for Chilcot to be wise after the event
By David Aaronovitch - The Times
Yes, many mistakes were made in Iraq but a greater tragedy will be if this stops us ever again intervening against tyrants
It is some kind of irony that Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, managed to respond to the Chilcot report’s 2.6 million words within 45 minutes of publication. He claimed that it endorsed what he’d said all along about illegality and lies, despite the fact that it didn’t, really.
At least it doesn’t appear to have done. Given that it’s about five times the length of War and Peace, it may be days before anyone can genuinely claim to have read the whole thing. So far what we have are the picked cherries. Bear that in mind.
It’s hard to resist, though, Sir John Chilcot’s suggestion that we use his report to ensure that “it will not be possible in future to engage in a military . . . endeavour on such a scale . . . without really careful challenge, analysis and assessment”.
My inclination in 2003, after havering for several months, was to support the removal of Saddam Hussein. The next year I went to Iraq and saw for myself how bloodily far it was from the rosy expectations I’d had for it. And then things got worse. In 2007 I helped to make a series of programmes about Tony Blair that involved interviewing most of the key players in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion. These included Blair himself, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, our UN ambassador, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, Hans Blix, the weapons inspector, and even George W Bush. Most of what we discovered then seems to be borne out by Chilcot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/06/even-chilcot-admits-the-iraq-war-would-have-happened-with-or-wit/
Even Chilcot admits the Iraq War would have happened with or without Tony Blair
By JAMES KIRKUP - The Telegraph
Blair felt Britain's participation was necessary to preserve the 'special relationship' CREDIT: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS
One single fact stands out from the Chilcot Report, a fact from which every decision and consequence follow. Oddly though, this central fact is never quite stated explicitly, merely implied.
That fact is this: America was going to war to remove Saddam Hussein, regardless of what Britain did.
At that point, British policy on Iraq was to contain and if possible disarm Saddam, not remove him. The story of Britain's war in Iraq is, to a large degree, the story of Tony Blair's attempts to reconcile the difference between those two policies.
But the big picture is that once George W Bush resolved in late 2001 to remove Saddam, all that remained for Mr Blair and Britain was to decide whether to oppose or support that policy. Changing it was essentially not an option; Chilcot seems not even to consider the possibility that British opposition to war could have stopped that war. Mr Blair decided to back the war in hope of influencing US policy for the better.
One single fact stands out from the Chilcot Report, a fact from which every decision and consequence follow. Oddly though, this central fact is never quite stated explicitly, merely implied.
That fact is this: America was going to war to remove Saddam Hussein, regardless of what Britain did.
At that point, British policy on Iraq was to contain and if possible disarm Saddam, not remove him. The story of Britain's war in Iraq is, to a large degree, the story of Tony Blair's attempts to reconcile the difference between those two policies.
But the big picture is that once George W Bush resolved in late 2001 to remove Saddam, all that remained for Mr Blair and Britain was to decide whether to oppose or support that policy. Changing it was essentially not an option; Chilcot seems not even to consider the possibility that British opposition to war could have stopped that war. Mr Blair decided to back the war in hope of influencing US policy for the better.
