From the independent:

...

For Mr Blair, the journey will not end on Friday, or when the inquiry publishes its findings. However damning these appear, however transparent the intent to cast him as a deceitful warmonger, they will be written in the language of euphemism, thus allowing each side to claim a victory of sorts. For Mr Blair, in fact, the trek can never end. Even if he is as canny in his choice of foreign destinations as he is with his answers on Friday, and avoids any Pinochet-type indignity, much less a war crimes trial, he is must trudge through his remaining days as a pariah.

This, it seems to me, is justice. It isn't a modern form of quick-fix justice, as would be evidenced by front-page pictures of him being led into a Dutch courthouse, and then led out of it to a cell. Erich Segal, who moonlighted as a professor of classics, might confirm that this is justice ancient Greece style, in which the offence of Olympian arrogance – of confusing one's puny self with a deity – was punished by something even more agonising than global humiliation or a lengthy spell in jug. The penalty from which death alone can free Mr Blair is soul-crushing futility. For the rest of his life, he must push the boulder of his self-proclaimed innocence and self-protested good intent up the hill, aware that he cannot reach the summit but powerless to evade the pointlessness of trying.

On the surface, he couldn't care less. The only rational purpose to his interview with Fern Britton, when he pretty much admitted that regime change motivated him all along, and that he'd have been just as happy dreaming up justifications for that if required, was to trumpet his insouciant unconcern. He was giving the finger to the notion of legality itself. I wanted Saddam removed because I judged it right, ran the subtext. Petit bourgeois notions such as international law are for the little people, where I was a Titan. But then so was Prometheus. Mr Blair also played with fire, and so there will forever be eagles pecking at his liver.

---------------

Catholic psycho toon at top...

From the BBC

Lord Goldsmith has admitted he changed his legal view of the Iraq war but said it was "complete nonsense" to claim he did so because of political pressure.

Until a month before the 2003 invasion, the ex-attorney general believed it was "safer" to get a fresh UN resolution.

But he gave the "green light" after deciding force was justified by UN accords on Iraq dating back to 1991.

In a day-long Iraq inquiry session he also said he was surprised the cabinet did not want to discuss his advice.

Asked why he left it as late as 13 March to issue a definitive statement that war was lawful, he said that was when the military had sought a "yes or no" answer.

'Reasonable case'

The military deserved an "unequivocal" judgement on the legality of its action before troops went into battle, he said, although in the past such statements had not been needed.

"They were entitled to have a clear view. They weren't to be put in the position of being sent off, maybe it is, maybe it isn't lawful'.

"There was no other way of anybody answering that question but me. It was my responsibility... I reached the view that, on balance, the better view was that it was lawful.

--------------------

"force was justified by UN accords on Iraq dating back to 1991?" Not even the Yanks pulled that one out of the bag!!!... That is a cheap trick... Beyond this, Goldsith had to secretly know — unless he's a dummy — that there were no WMDs in Iraq... He had to know For two reasons: First, the military deserved an "unequivocal" judgement on the legality of its action before troops went into battle... AND second, the military would not have attacked Iraq the way they did without knowing clearly and simply there were no WMDs there,. Bush, Blair and Howard lied beyond contempt to the people they served. They deserve to be charged. That on balance, "the better view was that war was lawfull" is rubbish. Lord Goldsmith must have read the telephone directory instead of looking at the resolutions of the UN. It had been decided to go to war and "legalise" it no matter what. Attack started 6 days after shonky advice had be "given".

Note: creating an advice to go to war based on a 1991 UN resolution that had been superseeded by new UN resolutions, especially in 2002 and 2003 (UN resolutions based on fake information, from the CIA, disputed by a few other nations such as the French and the Germans) is the work of a legalese stupid monkey — or a contortionist with deliberate intent to provide an illegal legal paper to go to war. Caught out.

--------------------

from wikipedia

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was passed by congress with Democrats voting 58% in favor in the Senate, and 61% opposed in the House. Republicans supported the joint resolution 98% and 97% in the Senate and House respectively.[82][83] The resolution asserts the authorization by the Constitution of the United States and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism. Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement. The resolution "supported" and "encouraged" diplomatic efforts by President George W. Bush to "strictly enforce through the U.N. Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" and "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been challenged since its inception on a number of fronts, and several prominent supporters of the invasion in all the invading nations have publicly and privately cast doubt on its legality. It is claimed that the invasion was fully legal because authorization was implied by the United Nations Security Council.[84][85] International legal experts, including the International Commission of Jurists, a group of 31 leading Canadian law professors, and the U.S.-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy have denounced both of these rationales.[86][87][88]

On Thursday November 20, 2003, an article published in the Guardian alleged that Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, conceded that the invasion was illegal but still justified.[89][90]

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Bush, Blair and Howard told porkies about the WMDs. Simple truth.

COCK UPS in the "intelligence" — deliberate and idiotic, to suit a specific AGENDA, including the forced removal of the "weapons inspectors" who could not find WMDs since ther weren't any.

Cock ups including the initial bombing!!!.

-----------------

The early morning of March 19, 2003, U.S. forces abandoned the plan for initial, non-nuclear decapitation strikes against fifty-five top Iraqi officials, in light of reports that Saddam Hussein was visiting his daughters and sons, Uday and Qusay at Dora Farms, within the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of Baghdad.[117] At approximately 05:30 UTC two F-117 Nighthawks from the 8th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron[118] dropped four enhanced, satellite-guided 2,000-pound Bunker Busters GBU-27 on the compound. Complementing the aerial bombardment were nearly 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from at least four ships, including the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, and two submarines in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.[119]

One missed the compound entirely and the other three missed their target landing on the other side of the wall of the palace compound.[120] Saddam Hussein was not present nor were any members of the Iraqi leadership or Hussein family.[117] The attack killed one civilian and injured fourteen others, including nine women and one child.[121][122] Later investigation revealed that Saddam Hussein had not visited the farm since 1995.[119]

-----------------

None of the US and UK "authorisation of force" against Iraq were legal under the international rule of law. Even with the lies about the WMDs from Bush, Blair and Howard. The UNITED NATIONS HAD NOT AUTHORISED THE RULE OF FORCE to resolve the "trumped up fake conflict".

Lord Goldsmith should be commoneered and tried for deliberate "bad advice"...

Steve Richards: Those looking for a hidden scandal will be disappointed

Blair had come to regard the removal of dictators as one of his causes

Tomorrow Tony Blair faces a reckoning on Iraq. Or to be more precise, Blair faces a reckoning on Iraq again. He has spoken at length on every issue in relation to the conflict during the three other inquires and in countless interviews. There is no question the committee can ask that has not been asked before. There is no answer Blair can give that he has not delivered in some form or other in the past.

-----------------------------

One needs to be a psychopath of high degree to assume the removal of dictators by force and by lies. Blair has shown his duplicitous attributes by switching church allegiances as well...

G'day Gus,

Your posts on this and many other subjects are so fair in their presentation that it is understandable why the MSM controlled by "the powers that be" would never agree to such journalistic honesty.

You and John continue to rekindle my faith in the written word.  What a shame that your area of distribution is so small.

I particularly like your methods of taking a point of view and either agreeing or not but - with proof; logic; and/or reasoning and - no axe to grind.

Gus, you know how deeply I feel about what is happening in Palestine - and yet - you have agreed with some points that I have made even though it must infringe on the justice as directed by your heart.

Never doubt that I enjoy being able to speak out at blatant breaches of the most basic "rule of law" or even of civilised behavior that the US/Zionist alliance is currently performing as the  major terrorists in the entire world.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers Ern G.  God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

In my 79 years I have seen and experienced many things but, the behavior of the US, subsequent to WW II removes any respect that I may have had for people who claim to "defend" their country's "values" while denying, by force, the same privilege to others.  "In God we Trust" indeed.

I cannot help but feel that I am only repeating the obvious facts of the 21st century with the hope that the people of this nation of ours will show a little bit of independence with respect to the Terrorist US.

IMHO I cannot understand why all of the principles for which millions of service personnel and civilians have died, is selectively forgotten to accomodate another monster, even more evil due to its propensity for unbelievabley cruel methods of killing.  And leaving their killing "footprint" behind them.

Let us be fair dinkum here.  Many high ranking US military people have stated, as far back as Reagan, that their DEFENCE system can handle any type of attack on the mainland - so why must the people accept that their youth are dying overseas to keep the "monsters at bay" who "hate us for our values".

And what are those values?

America has destroyed any credibility that they may have had for world control (without resistence) when they showed their "Stars and Stripes" colours in so many pre-emptive strikes on innocent people and thei nations, simply to feed the lust of their Military/Corporate.  America - to defend yourselves from what?

Recently, war criminal Netanyahu declared that no one will ever hurt the Jewish people again". This God-like statement was made while, (when I last checked) that there where Jewish people in some 20 different countries!

Even as an excuse for their extreme cruelty in occupying Palestine, that has to be the most arrogant result of a "back room" deal with the terrorist regime in the US.  And Russia?

While everybody ducks and weaves in the southern hemisphere, there has to be a limit to the servitude to the Military/Corporate of the US. Do we really them to defend us from who? And with their history, who will they support.

"A Nation is only entitled to the freedom that it can defend".

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

 

 

Yes Ernest

It is our unstated duty to spruik our wares as close to the truth as possible. We are mostly recipient of second hand information via journalists who see the present inquiry first hand. But we have to rely on our common sense and our sixth sense of history. From day one all the reality pointed to a trumped up deck with which Blair, Bush and Howard cheated to achieve an outcome. We had to read between the lines to push the bullshit away...

Now we have to wait for more bullshit coming our way:

At times, the inquiry has not helped itself. This is from the "frequently asked questions" section of the Chilcot website: "Why is the inquiry being held now? Governments decide the timings of ­inquiries . . . Who picked the members? The prime minister.The inquiry is not a public authority . . . so the Freedom of Information Act does not apply. Will the inquiry be able to apportion blame? The inquiry is not a court . . . nobody is on trial. When will the report be published? Late 2010 and possibly later." Does the inquiry have a freedom of information policy?

Then there are the inquisitors themselves. None of them is a lawyer, despite the Iraq war being a minefield of legal ­issues. All are peers, and four out of the five are men; the sole woman is Baroness Usha Prashar. What is more, all four men seem to have pro-government ­elements in their biographies.

The chairman, Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, was part of the Butler inquiry panel which, in the eyes of most observers, was robust in its detailed judgments but too charitable in its conclusions. Sir Martin Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill; in 2004 he wrote in the ­Observer, "George W Bush and Tony Blair . . . may well, with the passage of time . . . join the ranks of [Franklin] Roosevelt and Churchill [as war leaders] when Iraq has a stable democracy."

Sir Lawrence Freedman is another grand British historian – professor of war studies at King's College London since 1982 – with less than neutral past views on Iraq. In the lead-up to war, he repeatedly wrote hawkish articles for British newspapers about the strategic threat allegedly posed by Saddam ­Hussein.

----------------------

It is possible that some of the ardent supporters of the war in this inquiry feel thay have been misled by the political riraff...

How do we know that Bush, Blair and Howard bullshitted about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction?
-----------------------------
From early on , Bush and Blair created a vast system of misinformation. Howard happily followed on.

— The summit of this grand deception was reached when General Colin Powell, US secretary of State, pleaded at the United Nations the case for war with "evidence" that was obviously crap.

Powell was showing pictures of "mobile biological and/or chemical weapon manufacturing trucks" that no proper analyst could believe even if they tried. There was no way that these mobile units could produce an ounce of whatever, in the desert conditions where temperature could shift between zero and fifty degree C overnight and over seasons. There was no protection apart from opened wind-flapping canvas that would let sand and dust inside the truck. Anyone operating such delicate "chemical warfare units" would have been dead within two minutes. The French and the Germans had their own knowledge of these trucks... and it publicly transpired later on, they were weather-balloon trucks that had gas cylinders to pump the balloons, no more no less. Colin HAD TO KNOW THAT. But one could sense at the time that Colin knew he was bullshitting and that he could get away with some of the representatives, but the French and the Germans were unmoved. They did not think war was necessary. They knew Saddam. They were dealing with Saddam and he sold them oil for Euros. The Russians did the same and bought oil from Saddam in Roubles.
 
But prior to this momentous bullshit presentation by Colin Powell there were many other telltale signs that indicated a "double cross", or strings of constructed fibs designed to make the populace at large believe in the existence of Saddam WMDs — and let's beat the Bush here, he wanted war... and he and his Administration fabricated a reason(s) for it. The Wolfowitz's, the Cheney's and many other psychopaths were also dedicated to war with Saddam anyhow.

In mid 2002, I fell upon a "European" website (possibly run by one intelligence agency) that exposed in detail the way the hoax was to be played out. The WMDs saga was going to be a fake argument to go to war. The website was shut down within days. No links, no tracks, no google.

— "Defectors" from Iraq were spilling the beans on Saddam's WMDs. No evidence of the WMDs' existence though. In order to make some of these "defectors" credible, they spilled the beans in countries such as Germany who eventually passed the defectors over to the US for further interrogation. The Germans sensed a rat. They did not believe the defectors. They knew more. It is most likely that these defectors, who have vanished into thin air since, were coaxed by a secret department of the CIA as part of the misinformation construct. Other sections of the CIA would "buy" (accept) the dubious information.

— Not so covertly, Ahmed Challabi  — a refugee Shia Iraqi himself — was paid $350,000 a month to source "defectors" from Iraq who could spill the beans on Iraq WMD program. No evidence of WMDs were produced by any of them. All the WMDs information was only unconfirmed hearsay. But through the channels of "intelligence" and to the US Administration, the dubious information was transformed into certainty for political hubris.

— In the US, in 2002, Bush was doing his utmost to blame 9/11 on Saddam. We all knew by then that Saddam had nothing to do with it and that Saddam hated Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
But Bush pushed the porkie as far as he could nonetheless.

— Before the war, the UN weapons inspectors were given the merry-go-round by Saddam who for a while protested it was an invasion of sovereignty, but eventually decided to let them roam freely, including in all of his secret bunkers in his palaces. But the UN weapons inspectors were given a far greater merry-go-round with the CIA that provided them with location maps of non-existent WMDs. Some of these maps were so bad that the weapons inspectors complained at one stage. Eventually, the US Administration decided to say that the weapons on mass destruction were on trucks and being shifted around Iraq in position they did not know where, or too late for the weapons inspectors to get there... Really, I ask you... This led to the Colin PowerPoint presentation at the United Nations — a very low point in his career.

— Three month before the war, Saddam provided to the United Nations a document of 10,000 pages outlining with precision the record of the destruction of his previous weapons of mass destruction and making-facility (all mostly provided by the US and German firms in the 1980s). The report was truncated immediately by the US Administration as it provided sources of supplies, which the Administration deemed either confidential (US firms had provided oodles of WMDs to Saddam for his war against Iran in the 1980s) or the publication of which was not in the national interest.

— An Anthrax scare and five deaths in the US were blamed on Saddam. A quick investigation by the FBI showed that the Anthrax strain CAME FROM WITHIN THE US and not from strains previous acquired then destroyed by Saddam. But even with this exposure of origin, Bush still blamed Saddam for it for months. It took another six years to "prove" who did it within the US, but so far NO REAL MOTIVE HAS EVER BEEN PROPOSED.

— Meanwhile in the UK, David Kelly, a chemical weapon expert, knew that the reality and the hubris did not match. He had come to know well the Iraqi experts in chemical warfare who told him the truth. There were none left in Iraq and that the dossiers on Iraq by the Brits were being sexed-up for war. David Kelly was not a fool and knew the Iraqi WMD experts were telling the truth. His assessment was that the dossiers were frothed up. He secretly told a journalist about it after having told a few of his friends that things were not what they seemed. We know the rest.

— When newspapers (mostly Murdoch's) "revealed" that Saddam had missiles that could be launched within 45 minutes and could hit as far as Cyprus, the UK government knew it was false, but, as Alastair Campbell admitted: "it was not for him to dispel this erroneous news." So where did the newspapers get this information, with graphics and detail maps and all that jazz? The reporters had government "sources" or made up the story.

— Meanwhile in the US, another fake motive for war was blown out of the water when fake documents were used to prove that Saddam was buying uranium ore from Nigeria. This blew the cover of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent. She had nothing to with the fakes but her husband had discovered the hoax. In retaliation the Administration exposed his wife as a CIA agent.

— Meanwhile, in Australia, a security analyst with the ONA, army officer Andrew Wilkie, resigned as a protest to the FLIMSY evidence being used to prove Saddam's WMDs and promote war. As a proper analyst, he knew that unconfirmed hearsay could not pass as proper intelligence information. Other analyst should have been in the same boat but few were prepared to take the plunge which would amount to a career suicide.

— Some interviews with "defectors" by daring journalists in search of the truth were actually secretly staged managed by shop-fronts for the CIA.

— Most media around the major English speaking hegemony, reported the news of WMDs as per information supplied by their respective governments. Little or no checks were made of the value of this information. Only The New York Times so far has apologised to its readers for promoting false information, which they believed to be true at the time. Say that then too many pointers were showing the WMDs information was FALSE.

— Meanwhile, the military brass wanted two certainties: The legality of the aggression on Iraq and the assurance that there were no WMDs there. On the latter, no generals in their good mind would go to war without knowing if and where the WMDs were. Since the "reason" to go to war was that "we did not know where nor how much there was", it would have been foolish for the military to attack the way they did. A military analyst could predict a loss of at least 50,000 troops should Saddam had the West-tooted arsenal of WMDs at his disposal. On the first proposition, the UK attorney general had to admit he based his hurried latter assessment on a 1991 UN resolution, when many other resolutions had superseded this one. In the US the Congress unashamedly passed a resolution of aggression — regardless of UN approval or not.

— Meanwhile, in Australia, Alexander Downer, mouthpiece for the Howard crap, was spruiking at least ten times a day that "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction". If you say it often enough, long enough, people start to believe it.

— The weapons inspectors found that Saddam had rockets that did not meet UN sanction regulations. They could shoot beyond the 150 km set limit, by a few kms (5/10) downwind... These rockets were destroyed. Saddam also had reconnaissance drones (oversized model planes with cameras) that were deemed illegal and destroyed.

— The weapon inspectors were not allowed to finish their inspections and ordered out of Iraq by the US as the US were going to war. This was done to prevent the weapons inspectors announcing that after having scoured Iraq with a fine tooth-comb, there was no WMDs in Iraq. This news would have ran contrary to the bullshit promoted by Bush, Blair and Howard.

 

— ALL THIS WE KNEW BEFORE THE WAR.

 

— Very little post war preparations were made apart from Bush landing on an aircraft carrier annoucing "Mission Accomplished". By then about 60 US troops had lost their lives. By now about 4,500 have died.

Britain's attitude towards the risk posed by Saddam Hussein "changed dramatically" after 11 September 2001, Tony Blair has told the Iraq inquiry.

The former PM said that the policy up to that point was one of "containment".

Mr Blair is facing questions in public for the first time about taking the UK to war against Iraq.

Sir John Chilcot began the six hour question session by saying Mr Blair could be recalled to give further evidence if necessary.

Sir John stressed that Mr Blair was not "on trial". He will be quizzed by the inquiry on the build-up to the 2003 invasion and is expected to give a spirited defence of his actions.

'Risk assessment'

Mr Blair said British policy towards Saddam was transformed by the terror attacks on America in September 2001.

--------------------

What a lot of rot... As if "his" views where that of "Britain"...

Mr Blair also denied he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had thought Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD), as he appeared to suggest last year in a BBC interview.

What he had been trying to say, he explained to the inquiry, was that "you would not describe the nature of the threat in the same way if you knew then what you knew now, that the intelligence on WMD had been shown to be wrong".

He said his position had not changed, despite what reports of the interview had suggested.

Throughout the morning session, Mr Blair was at pains to point out that he believed weapons of mass destruction and regime change could not be treated as separate issues but were "conjoined".

---------------------

Just changing the story enough to suit the moment. Remember, there was no WMDs in Iraq and he had to know that, although he will deny it.

Before Sept. 11, Mr. Blair said on Friday, referring to Saddam Hussein, “We thought he was a risk, but it was worth trying to contain it. The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed.”

“The point about this terrorist act was that over 3,000 people had been killed on the streets of New York and this is what changed my perception of risk: if these people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000, they would have.” Discussing America’s plans after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Blair said: “I didn’t want America to feel it had no option but to do it alone.”

At a meeting with Mr. Bush in April 2002, Mr. Blair testified, “What I said to George Bush was that we are going to be with you” in countering the perceived threat from Saddam Hussein.

------------------------

So, like his "cousin" Bush, Blair decided to merge the "Saddam problem" with 9/11. Remember that 9/11 had NOTHING TO DO WITH SADDAM and attacking Saddam was actually going to be a diversion away from the real culprits and totally illegal. Declaring war to achieve regime change is banned by the UN.  We knew all that before going to war, that is why Blair (with Bush and Howard) invented the WMD hoax, although he will deny it was a hoax "and he firmy believed" Saddam had WMDs... Pox on his porkies, we knew there was not any and he had to know there were none for him to send his armies. HE HAD TO KNOW THERE WERE NONE.

Please note too that no plane debris of any sort was ever found at the Pentagon after being "attacked" on the same 9/11 morning... Please note that the Anthrax scare came from within the US. 

Only psychopatic megalomaniacs would associate the wrong of some with the possible "wrongs" of others, to justify doing wrong and claiming it's for good. Blair is thus confused about the reality then and tries to confuse us about "conjointed issues" which were not. That is unforgivable...

Committee chairman Sir John Chilcot asked Mr Blair at the end of the session if he had any regrets about the war, but Mr Blair said that although he was "sorry" it had been "divisive" he believed it had been right to remove Saddam.

"It was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office and I do genuinely believe the world is a safer place as a result."

He told the inquiry if Saddam had not been removed "today we would have a situation where Iraq was competing with Iran" both in terms of nuclear capability and "in respect of support of terrorist groups".

"The decision I took - and frankly would take again - was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction we should stop him."

-----------------------

Boy, is this man delusional? Does this man believe in his own shit? Isn't it the sign of a psychopath gone totally bonkers who deserves to be wrapped up in a white straight-jacket?

And what about Greenspan's comment that the war in Iraq was "moslty" about oil?

SECRET - STRICTLY PERSONAL

FROM : DAVID MANNING
DATE: 14 MARCH 2002

CC: JONATHAN POWELL

PRIME MINISTER

YOUR TRIP TO THE US

------------------

Dino Boffo was forced to resign as editor of Italian Bishops' Conference daily Avvenire last September after an article by Vittorio Feltri, the Rottweiler editor of Il Giornale, claimed Boffo was a "renowned homosexual" who had been fined for harassing the wife of a man he was pursuing.

Mr Feltri later admitted the claims were based on bogus documents, which he said were sent to him. Although it emerged that Mr Boffo had made an out-of-court settlement with someone he had known 10 years earlier, Feltri apologised. By then relations between the church and Mr Berlusconi's government had gone into deep-freeze. Now, however, it has emerged that during a fence-mending lunch in Milan last week, Mr Feltri told Mr Boffo that "a very authoritative, and institutional source at the Holy See" had sent him the bogus dossier. Mr Boffo repeated the claims to another Catholic publication, Il Foglio, on 30 January. "A person in the church... contacted me and let me have the photocopies," he said.

Italian newspapers yesterday reported that the pope was concerned about the claims and that daggers might once again be drawn over the Boffo affair. Other senior church figures expressed alarm that the church may have been the source of the malicious documents. Monsignor Domenico Mogavero, Bishop of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily and head of judicial affairs for the Italian Bishops Conference, told La Repubblica he was "alarmed" by events.

----------------

read more at the Independent and see toon at top...

see toon at top...

From the Guardian

Tony Blair descended into such a deep depression after the Iraq war that he told Gordon Brown and John Prescott he would quit No 10 the following summer – only to renege on the pledge within months, a new book by the Observer's Andrew Rawnsley reveals.

The former prime minister's physical and mental decline was so profound that he confided to friends that he "spaced out" several times during Prime Minister's Questions and often woke up in the middle of the night with sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

Rawnsley's explosive account is in The End of the Party, which is published on Monday , extracts from which appear in tomorrow's Observer. It lays bare, for the first time, how Blair was haunted and tormented by the deepening chaos and bloodshed in Iraq at the same time as being worn down by the constant psychological warfare being waged by Brown, his next-door neighbour in Downing Street, who was increasingly desperate to take his job.

While Blair's gift for presentation helped him hide his depression from the public and most of his staff, his private turmoil was so severe that he decided there was nothing for it but to hand over to Brown midway through his second term.

---------------------

Poor petal... Lying about the dossiers, having Dubya for best friend, going to war on a whim, being anglican — no wonder he was  depressed. But nothing that could not be cured by a big dose of private-sector money, such as banks and becoming a catholic...

From the Independent

An invasion of Iraq was discussed within the Government more than two years before military action was taken – with Foreign Office mandarins warning that an invasion would be illegal, that it would claim "considerable casualties" and could lead to the breakdown of Iraq, The Independent can reveal.

The extent of Whitehall opposition to the policy eventually backed by Tony Blair emerges just three days before Gordon Brown will appear at the Iraq Inquiry, where he will be asked to explain his role in the Government's decision to invade.

Secret Foreign Office strategy papers drawn up by senior civil servants at the end of 2000 have been obtained by this newspaper and are published for the first time today. The Iraq: future strategy document considers options for dealing with the belligerent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It is one of the key documents that Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry has declined to release.

from the BBC

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the 2003 war was "right", as he gives evidence to the UK's Iraq inquiry.

"I believe we made the right decisions for the right reasons," Mr Brown told the inquiry hearing in London.

But he said there were "lessons to learn" about decision making, international cooperation and how to build a "just peace" after wars.

He paid tribute to the servicemen and women killed in the conflict. He is expected to be quizzed for four hours.

Mr Brown, who was chancellor at the time of the war, is giving evidence weeks ahead of the UK general election, which is expected to be held in early May.

'Diplomatic route'

The session began with him being asked if he thought the decision to go to war had been the right one.

He replied that he thought it was, adding: "I was given information by the intelligence services which led me to believe that Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with by the actions of the international community."

------------------

Guilable, a dork or a liar... It was the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. as Mr Greespan said "It was ALL ABOUT OIL..."

 

Six reputed doctors are due to go to the High Court next week as they battle to force an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.

The group is arguing that there is insufficient medical evidence to prove the Government weapons inspector committed suicide.

They want Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, to open a new inquest, claiming the files into his death have not been discussed publicly and that it is an unusual step not to have one.

It comes just days after Mr Grieve, QC, made a dramatic U-turn and ordered the secret files containing medical reports and post mortem notes over Dr Kelly's death.

However, Mr Grieve - the only person with the authority to ask the High Court to order a new inquest - has said he could not order a probe without sufficient evidence to justify holding a fresh investigation.

Campaigners say Dr Kelly could not have taken his life by cutting a small artery in his wrist, which was the verdict reached by the Hutton Inquiry set up by then prime minister Tony Blair in 2003.

Unusually, no inquest was held - it was opened then adjourned but never resumed - because the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer ruled the public inquiry would suffice.

Dr Kelly's body was found in a wood near his Oxfordshire home shortly after he had been exposed as the source of a BBC report which said the Government had exaggerated the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

Frances Swaine, the solicitor acting for the doctors - all experts in trauma and vascular surgery - told Time Times they were acting 'on a basis of professional integrity' that the evidence did not support the finding that Dr Kelly killed himself.

'They think it outrageous that this view has simply been accepted without examination,' she said.

Doctors take battle for inquest into Dr Kelly's death to the High Court

How did this happen? Lord Hutton turned out to be a brilliant choice for the inquiry, not because of any lack of integrity, but because of an unworldliness that led him to give the Government the benefit of every doubt and the BBC of none.

A brief intended to focus on the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death was narrowed and changed to focus on the BBC. And while in a narrow sense Dr Kelly was responsible for his own death, it was not the BBC's actions that contributed to his disturbed state of mind, but the threats and bullying of the Ministry of Defence.

The intelligence community allowed themselves to be manipulated in a wholly unacceptable way. Major-General Laurie refers to "the direction and pressure being applied to the JIC and its drafters." When asked what he would have done in Sir John Scarlett's position, he said: "One has to have courage and stand up and say, 'I can't sign up to that'." Nobody stood up.

The newspapers generally were ambivalent, torn between a healthy scepticism about the Government's manipulation of the media and schadenfreude at the extreme discomfiture of the BBC, although it was arguably The Independent's brilliant blank "Whitewash" front page that did most to turn the tide of the debate. Within the BBC, internal rivalries meant that Panorama's and Newsnight's coverage of the whole affair was remarkably unsympathetic to the Corporation.

The BBC was at the centre of a storm that it had helped to create. The tragedy was that while almost no one now doubts the essential truth of their story, that the intelligence had been embellished to strengthen the case for war, the serious error in Andrew Gilligan's early broadcast both undermined the BBC's central case and provided a distraction that Alastair Campbell was able to exploit to the full. Suddenly the BBC, not the Government, was in the dock.

What was that error, was it significant? "What I have been told is that the Government knew that the claim was questionable even before the war, even before they wrote it in their dossier." Thus Andrew Gilligan; this was not a trivial accusation. It implied that the Government in general, and Tony Blair in particular, were deliberately misleading Parliament and the country. Lord Hutton correctly decided that the allegation was unfounded. Gilligan's words went out at 0607 on the Today programme, and were subsequently and safely watered down in the later piece at 0732. But the damage had been done.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/christopher-bland-a-gross-media-manipulation-that-has-eroded-public-trust-in-government-2283896.html

see toon at top and see double-crossed in regard to David Kelly... Please note the link to J.C. Masterman (at beginning of article) has dropped out. Here it is...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cecil_Masterman...

The editor of the BBC's Today programme at the time of its controversial 2003 report which claimed the Government had "sexed up" an Iraqi weapons dossier said last night that evidence provided to the Iraq Inquiry by the former intelligence official Michael Laurie proved that his team had been right all along.

Kevin Marsh described Maj-Gen Laurie's evidence as "devastating for [Alastair] Campbell", the former Downing Street communications chief, whose furious response to the Today report led to the Hutton Inquiry and ultimately to the resignations of the BBC's director general and chairman. "The thing that rankles with me a little bit is that I thought at the time when [the Today reporter] Andrew Gilligan came with the story was that it wasn't just broadly correct, it was 100 per cent correct," Mr Marsh said.

"Here's the guy at the very top of the [Defence Intelligence Staff] saying, 'we knew we were being pushed to find a certain bit of evidence and it was being presented in a certain way' and that's exactly what Andrew said in his story."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/iraq-evidence-vindicates-bbcs-dossier-claims-2283878.html

 

And of all things, Blair is coming soon to (or is already in) Australia to promote his bullshit...

The revelation that a mystery helicopter landed at the site where the body of Dr David Kelly was found has breathed new life into conspiracy theories surrounding the apparent suicide of the UN weapons inspector who apparently committed suicide in 2003 after being unmasked as the whistleblower behind claims that the Tony Blair government lied in order to make the case for war in Iraq.

The Daily Mail reports that flight logs for the helicopter, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, are heavily redacted - to the extent that the purpose of the flight and who was aboard has been totally obscured.

What is clear is that the helicopter was hired by Thames Valley police and landed 90 minutes after Dr Kelly’s body was found on Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire on the morning of July 18, 2003.

The existence of the helicopter was not mentioned in the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, which concluded in 2004 that the government was not guilty of any wrongdoing. The report was widely criticised at the time as a "whitewash".

Dr Andrew Watt, a clinical pharmacologist who has previously raised doubts over the official version of events, said: "If the purpose of the helicopter flight was innocent, one has to ask why it was kept secret." He has written to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, who is currently considering whether an inquest should be held into Dr Kelly's death.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/78943,news-comment,news-politics,mystery-helicopter-casts-more-doubt-on-dr-david-kelly-suicide-conspiracy-theories#ixzz1MV9wxQrY

see toon at top and also promoted bullshit article above and double-crossed...

Above:

The revelation that a mystery helicopter landed at the site where the body of Dr David Kelly was found has breathed new life into conspiracy theories surrounding the apparent suicide of the UN weapons inspector who apparently committed suicide in 2003 after being unmasked as the whistleblower behind claims that the Tony Blair government lied in order to make the case for war in Iraq

 

see also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/11276