[A-List] UK state: Iraq, the ICC and the Blair succession

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The "crimes of America" are legion, but I think it's only fair that we are
as prepared to face up to the crimes of Britain. Northern Ireland alone is
enough to keep researchers busy. That the invasion of Iraq was a plot
hatched in the US and dictated to Britain by the Bush administration is not
in question. But "only obeying orders" lost any credibility at the Nuremberg
trials. It's time for "Britain" to face up to its responsibility, which, in
this case, is recognition of its voluntary prostration before the
steamroller of US imperialism. It's not about Blair, although possibly he
could have played a better hand. The truth is that without the will to
weaken, if not sever, the Atlantic link, Britain will always answer for the
"crimes of America", one way or another. There is simply no easy way out.
Resisting US diktats will always provoke the wrath of the hegemon, but the
price of compliance is far worse -- something with which even the
irredeemably imperialist Blair may yet concur.

----

How Britain could answer for the crimes of America
Iain Macwhirter
The Herald, May 12 2004

Britain arraigned for war crimes? Donald Rumsfeld sued by Iraqi torture
victims? Tony Blair in the dock at the International Criminal Court?
Fantasy, perhaps. But you wonder where the Iraqi war crimes scandal is going
to end. The way things are going, when Saddam Hussein finally comes to trial
next year he will be able to argue, with cause, that the coalition leaders
should be in the dock with him.

Yesterday, in the High Court, 12 Iraqi families were given leave to
challenge the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, over the killing of their
relatives by British soldiers. This could open the way to compensation
claims from others in Basra who have lost relatives.

There is mounting evidence of unlawful killing by coalition forces. Amnesty
International yesterday published a report claiming that British troops
killed 37 Iraqis, including an eight-year-old girl. None of the victims
posed any military threat at the time. Amnesty has now accused America and
Britain directly of war crimes and of specific violations of the Geneva
Conventions. And this, of course, followed the report from the Red Cross,
leaked at the weekend, claiming "abuse tantamount to torture" by British
soldiers, stamping on the necks of detainees - one of whom died. Alarmingly,
the Red Cross believes that up to 90% of Iraqi detainees have been arrested
by mistake.

The accounts of humanitarian outrages just go on and on. The testimony
yesterday by US Major-General Antonio Taguba before the Senate armed forces
committee cited "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse". Major-General
Taguba deserves a medal for his courageous whistle-blowing. Somehow, I don't
think he will be top of George W Bush's list of war heroes.

The claim by Britain and America that all this amounts to the work of a
handful of out-of-control individuals, "seven bad men" as one US senator put
it yesterday, is simply untenable. There is now compelling evidence of
systemic abuse by coalition forces, even if no specific order was given to
torture detainees. Of course, we don't know precisely how widespread this
abuse has been, or indeed if all the claims are all true. Which is why the
proper place to test these allegations of war crimes is a court of law.

America may have boycotted the International Criminal Court, but Britain
remains a signatory. Being an ally of the US does not confer immunity to
prosecution under international law. As the Red Cross report makes clear,
British personnel have been involved in joint intelligence operations with
the Americans. We have been running some of the jails in Iraq. In short,
Britain is up to its neck in these charges. It is not impossible that we
could find ourselves answering for the crimes of the Americans.

Ministers laugh off such talk as absurd, but there are signs that they are
worried. Take the excuse offered by Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon that they
hadn't seen either the Red Cross or the Amnesty International reports. The
idea that neither the defence secretary nor the PM had been informed of
these devastating documents seems, frankly, incredible. It is rather like a
school head teacher claiming he hadn't been told that a member of staff had
been charged with paedophilia. Indeed, No 10 is now refusing to rule out
that the PM had been aware of the abuse allegations before they surfaced in
the press.

The suspicion will be that ministers turned a blind eye to the reports in
order to protect themselves from any future legal liability. If Tony Blair
or Geoff Hoon admitted to knowledge of "a pattern of torture", which is what
the Red Cross alleges, then they could - in theory - be held personally
accountable. Just like Slobodan Milosevic. Just like Saddam.

Of course, Tony Blair isn't a Serbian mass murderer. Of course the Americans
aren't as bad as Saddam Hussein - though the coalition's behaviour in
Saddam's jail, Abu Ghraib, has caused disgust across the world. But this
isn't a question of scale. It is a question of justice. Torture is still
torture even if your torture isn't as bad as the other guy's. And people and
nations who have been brutalised have every justification in seeking
redress. Western forces were under exacting obligations to behave in an
exemplary fashion in Iraq. America and Britain are supposed to uphold the
values of the civilised world.

Moreover, it is illegal under international law to invade a sovereign
country unless there are compelling reasons to do so: either that the
country poses a "real and present danger" to the invading country's
security, or that such action is necessary to save the people so invaded
from humanitarian abuse by a delinquent regime.
Well, the non-discovery of weapons of mass destruction dispenses with the
justification for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq on grounds of national
security. And it is hardly possible to argue that we invaded Iraq to
liberate it from an abusive regime if we are found guilty of the torture and
abuse of its citizens. If it is established beyond reasonable doubt that
America perpetrated war crimes then the shaky legal foundations for this war
collapse completely.

Of course, we are told by apologists for the Bush administration, that
regrettable things always happen in war. Allied forces were guilty of abuses
in the Second World War, in Korea, in Vietnam. It is best left to the
military to deal with, they say. When countries are faced with possible mass
destruction, they resort to desperate measures.

But it is not possible to justify allied behaviour in Iraq on grounds of
moral attrition. We have not been brutalised or invaded by Iraq, nor have
allied forces lost thousands in battle against Saddam. The loss of 3000
Americans on 9/11 cannot justify the abuse and death of innocent Iraqis,
since Iraq had nothing to do with the Manhattan bombings.

Civilians who have been maltreated or who have been indiscriminately
targeted, as in the recent siege of Falluja, have a right to justice. But it
is not only in Iraq that justice needs to be seen to be done. American
personnel who have been traumatised by having to witness or participate in
abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners of war may themselves have a right to
sue the American government for damages. The fact that they were subject to
military law at the time doesn't exonerate them - or Donald Rumsfeld.

Of course, we are a long way from seeing Tony Blair indicted for war crimes.
But in the court of public opinion, the government is already being judged.
Yesterday's Populus poll in the Times showed Labour at a 17-year low in
popularity. A YouGov in the Mail on Sunday indicated that Labour will lose
the next general election under Tony Blair. Next month's European elections
look like turning into a political bloodbath.

Tony Blair's refusal to distance himself from the disastrous Bush policies
in the Middle East is doing Labour immense damage. The comparison is often
made with Suez, which led to the resignation of the Tory PM Anthony Eden
after an abortive military strike on Egypt. But in 1957, Britain did not
stand accused of war crimes. Tony Blair would do well to consider if it is
wise to hang on to office.

In March last year, the first 18 judges to the new International Criminal
Court in The Hague were sworn in with British approval. It would be the
supreme irony if Britain were the first country in the dock.