Chilcot’s Inquiry – Stranger Than My Own Fiction

After waiting 7 years we finally have Sir John Chilcot’s Inquiry report on the lead up and prosecution of the Iraq War based on the inquiry he lead. For the grieving and wounded I doubt it will bring much closure, whatever that means?

As those of you have been kind enough to read, I too have used the background to the Iraq war for my own scribblings in the Demise Trilogy (available at all good book stores – well Amazon and Lulu anyway)  The backdrop to the story is how a conspiracy manipulated data to make the dossiers used to justify the war more compelling. Little did I know that that was close to what the report has unearthed. Of course, we already knew much of this. The farcical claim of a 45 minute of WMD attack on the UK was just that. Anyone who looked at weapons capability in Iraq knew this was a joke. In my view, a criminal misrepresentation of the capability of weapons. To claim the UK was at risk was so far wide of the mark it beggar’s belief that anyone in Intelligence or Senior Military allowed such rubbish to be proposed in a Parliamentary document. In this respect, I would not expect the political leadership to know. They are not experts, they depend on advice yet the rubbish was allowed to stand unchallenged.

During a previous life I had the opportunity to be involved in some of the work used to monitor Iraq after the end of the first Iraq war. This was led by UN weapons inspectors and was part of the cease fire agreements put in place after that conflict.  Part of my role, was to assess Iraq’s weapons capability, and to then brief my colleagues on their remaining weapons systems.  When the claim came out in 2002/3 as a support for the war I was personally astounded. I was out of the military by then but nevertheless that assessment seemed amazing, given the state of their weapons complexes. They were bombed every time Saddam threw the Weapons Inspectors out of the country.

At the time of the war I used to state, the right war for the wrong reasons. I meant that Saddam had to go, because he was in constant breach of the ceasefire obligations and certainly intended to get WMD back, not that he had it right then. He continuously threatened his neighbours vowing revenge. Blair has defended himself by stating that Saddam had to go and he would do it again. That may be true but he did not have to go then, nor in that manner, and certainly not for that reason. We were already fighting a difficult war in Afghanistan, and to redeploy troops to a different theatre was madness and again should have been challenged. Saddam was not going anywhere.

I say back about WMD because he had used chemical weapons against Iran and then against his own Kurdish minority. He had had not used them in the first war simply because he was threatened by the USA of the consequences if he did. Not that that stopped the deployed military being issued with NBC suits and medication in case they were used. During and after the first Iraq war, for the liberation of Kuwait, chemical weapon sites were attacked and stockpiles destroyed. Even after the second war, some small residual caches were found left over from the Iran Iraq war which were mostly rusting artillery shells which were unsafe to fire. By the time the second war came around there was virtually nothing left to attack.

The fighting of that war leaves a sour taste due to the tactics employed. Many have concentrated on the failings in equipment and strategy of the British forces and the lack of planning for after the war.  It is not the military’s job to plan peace. Their job is to win a war as quickly and effectively as possible. There were major errors in this plan. In particular the destruction of main infrastructure which caused so many problems after the war. For example destroying whole power stations when sub-stations would have created the same effect. Useless destruction of main bridges. The Iraqi military was pitiful, especially after the first Gulf war. Their ability to fight as an Army was so degraded I’m surprised the war lasted as long as it did. The liberating armies became oppressive conquerors and subject to guerilla warfare because the hearts and minds cannot be won when there is no security, no water and no power.  From a military assault point of view overwhelming force is the key to win quickly but that is where civilian control comes in.

I have previously commented on the lack of military experience in Government on both sides of the Atlantic and in all political parties. Actually it is not just military experience but experience of anything other than politics.

There were 650 MPs in parliament who had a vote on going to war. The action was approved 412 to 149. As you can see not all MPs voted. Currently, approximately 50 have served in the Armed Forces. As decisions are normally taken primarily in Government, and directly, supposedly, in Cabinet, it is interesting to note the Chilcot findings. These are on the lack of wider decision making outside the Prime Minister’s office, and the failures of the senior military and Intelligence chiefs. MoD Procurement needs culling – perhaps a few days on the front-line with the equipment they procure would get their priorities right. As for the treasury, Brown was far more interested in undermining Blair than he was in ensuring that the UK’s forces had the right equipment, size and funding to carry out government, Blair/Bush policy.

As I have written on previous blogs, Parliament is sovereign it really is time that our MPs not only served their party, but their country. There is no bigger decision then going to war, or not. I would like to think that some of the MPs might actually know what they are arguing about. The evidence suggests they do not, and cannot be bothered to find out. After all it is far more important to spend time briefing against your enemies in your own party than planning for real enemies and threats to the country. For evidence, look at the Blair/Brown actions also going on at this time. The evidence before the war was out there. The distrust of the dossier was known, yet we went to war on a false promise.

The pitiful state of our current armed forces is for another day’s writing except – We have Aircraft Carriers being built with no aircraft. Our contribution to Syria, is barely a squadron of planes. Our Royal Navy, once the commander of the seas, has barely enough ships to patrol a harbour. Our response to Putin, is to send 500 troops to Eastern Europe two years after the events. We’ve even stopped allowing the Red Arrows to display at our primary Air Show. Let’s hope we never face a real threat. If we did, someone else could take seven years to write a report that will change nothing.

Brexit and Democracy

I have managed to not blog on the EU Referendum result or the lead up to it for a couple of weeks. The Brexit and Democracy issue remains. I remained undecided until I walked into the voting booth. I was as amazed as anyone else when the result went through. Even more amazed by the reaction of some remain supporters. Yes, there were some foolish potentially racist comments posted in the aftermath although I was not aware Polish was a race, nor Muslim.

Accusing leave voters of being racists, Nazis, stupid, working class idiots also does not hold good for democracy either. Scotland’s histrionics just add to the noise. Clearly the SNP does not understand what democracy is. Scotland voted to stay in the UK, the UK voted to leave. To claim that the Scottish referendum would have been different if the EU result was known is a great way of re-writing history or wishful thinking. It’s not as if the Conservative Party’s promise to hold an EU referendum was a secret.

Perhaps instead of blaming England the SNP leadership had spent more time in England convincing English voters to Remain the result might have been different; but that’s a lot of votes (1.3m) to change. Isn’t democracy an awful form of government except all the others, to misquote Churchill I think. Could someone please give Donald Tursk and Claude Junker a lesson in how democracy really works. Again, perhaps if they had spent time trying to persuade the UK how great the EU was rather than trying to scare the living daylights out of the electorate the result might have been different. Same for Merkel, Allande etc.

The argument on young people wanting to remain is also difficult to substantiate. Given information is opinion poll based i.e. a good guess, it appears that 65% of the so called 18-24 year old surveyed could not be bothered to vote. Then again 28% of the electorate did not bother either. Compulsory voting anyone?

Yes, I can also calculate that 52% of 72% of the 39.5m voting population of 65m UK (and Gibraltar) total population is not a majority but neither is 48% of the same numbers. The rules were passed in Parliament. Did you campaign for any decision to require 66.6% majority to change or a 75% turnout. Are you aggrieved that a Scottish golf course voted to keep women out because it also had a two-thirds majority rule.

Should we have a two thirds for a new referendum on staying in to reverse this advisory decision? How about two thirds for Scotland to leave UK? I don;t mind but don’t try to change the rules afterwards. I personally think that the England football team should be given a two goal head start for every game and only blind players should be allowed in the opposition team. Unfortunately, those are not the rules. Perhaps I should approach FIFA to get them changed or cheer Iceland on.

Anyway what is done is done, and that is democracy, however flawed – sorry BBC, parliamentarians and so on – so lets have some facts. Could have done with some of these in the debate.

  • The UK has not left the EU, the single market or anything else – yet.
  • It has carried out an advisory referendum which will require a formal notification to the EU Council of Ministers invoking Article 50. According to constitutional experts, to do this will require an Act of Parliament in the UK. No such Act has been added to the Bill list – yet. This is because the EU treaties are enshrined in UK law therefore to break them will require one or more different Acts of Parliament
  • It is for the UK to submit this notice not for the EU other heads of state, or the bureaucrats to demand it as soon as possible or any other time. By having meetings without the UK present you are acting as if it has happened when it has not.
  • The Prime Minister at least for the next few weeks remains David Cameron
  • The leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal opposition at at 2nd July 12:00 BST, remains Jeremy Corbyn
  • The Conservative Government still holds a majority of 12 in the House of Commons
  • George Osbourne is still The Chancellor – doom, gloom, disaster and inaccurate economic forecasts since 2010
  • The UK is still one nation by treaty – and the UK does not consist of London Westminster bubble and Nicola Sturgeon trying to leave it.
  • The UK is still a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council
  • The UK is in, and is the 2nd largest contributor to NATO. Some members of the EU are not in that organisation – so much for helping security
  • The UK has the 5th or 6th largest economy in the World
  • The UK is also a key member of the IMF, WTO, WHO etc.
  • The UK has multiple separate treaties with many if not all EU members most of which pre-date the EU. The immigration treaty with France covering Channel Tunnel etc, is newer but it is not an EU treaty it still applies unless the UK or France wish to cancel it. We have treaties with lots of other countries to
  • London’s financial centre is still the biggest in the world and London is amazingly still in the UK
  • There are 27 other countries in the EU but 180 outside including some not insignificant countries like the USA, China, India etc. The EU has no trade agreement with these. It spent 7 years getting a minor agreement complete with Canada. The UK with Canada could probably agree one in 7 months.
  • The UK is the largest importer of German manufactured auto-mobiles and French Champagne – shall we tariff that?
  • Half of the UK’s net immigration is not from the EU and one of the candidates to be Prime Minister has been in charge of that for years. Net population growth remains the issue, not where the growth comes from.
  • In other news
    • Donald Trump might win the US presidency
    • Migrants are still dying off the coast of the EU
    • IS is still carrying out terrorist attacks
    • The Syrian civil war is going on – still
    • Wales are still in Euros (congrats and please advise England how to play football)
    • Its been raining – a lot – yes I know Wimbledon is on
    • We still pay tax – clearly global companies and the very rich are excluded from the comment – some of them in London finance – they might move
    • We will all die – sometime
    • The sun will rise in the East and set in the West

By the way it was a secret ballot but I will confess to voting out the first and only time I have ever stated who I actually voted for. I am clearly a working class, racist idiot who does not understand anything. I have never voted for Boris as I am not a Londoner or in his constituency, nor can i or could I vote for Corbyn or Cameron as MPs. I could have joined the parties and voted for them but I have better things to do with my life. – like most of the population.

Or maybe I think that the UK Parliament is sovereign for the UK, not 27 other countries who have different legal systems and cultures. I never got to vote to go in, nor did anyone else. I was too young to vote to stay-in, so this was my first ever opportunity to have a say – yours too unless you were over 18 in 1975 . No mainstream political party (ignoring UKIP) has offered this change at a General Election since Labour changed policy at the last referendum (Corbyn has as well despite being an out campaigner for decades).

Is the sun out yet?