[Marxism] No one is to blame!

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nobody seems to be picking up on the fact -- it must be admitted that there has 
been no repetition of it -- that in a hostile Sky television interview 
immediately after publication of the Butler report British Foreign Secretary 
Jack Straw seemed to be abandoning his boss's sinking ship by claiming that 
"we" (he?) "went to war" not for anything to do with W. M. D., but on the basis 
of UN resolution 1441 -- because Saddam was not honouring his obligations. In 
the first place there is no legality in usurping the UN's authority, especially 
when the UN specifically resisted enormous pressure to sanction the invasion. 
Secondly, 1441 was only passed on the specific written understanding that the 
threat of "grave consequences" did not specifically mean war.

By the way, it is easy to smugly take "responsibility" when you have been 
assured there is no blame! In fact Butler's bureaucratic structuralism and his 
Mandarin language allow his report to contradict itself repeatedly on crucial 
issues -- for instance, there was no "pressure" by the government on the 
intelligence services -- only "strain". For the other whitewash by Ulster 
Loyalist Lord Hutton, intelligence chief Scarlett was only "subconsciously" 
influenced by the government!

Robin Cook's newspaper article seems to accept that B.Liar will get away with 
it again.  -- JD

**************************************************************************************************************************

Britain's worst intelligence failure, and Lord Butler says no one is to blame 

What a shame that Anthony Eden did not have a Butler around to explain he was 
not responsible for Suez 

By Robin Cook 
The Independent 
15 July 2004
 
http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/robin_cook/story.jsp?story=541109
 


Snip
Yesterday Lord Butler calmly pronounced the intelligence on which the war was 
launched as hopelessly overheated. His conclusions on this point are so 
irrefutable that even Tony Blair had to admit that Saddam did not have any WMD 
ready for use. Lord Butler found that intelligence was often second-hand and, 
in the case of one "dominant" stream of intelligence, came from "a sub- 
sub-source". The absence of first-hand information meant most "intelligence 
reports" were in reality "inferential". The inaccuracy of the raw intelligence 
was then compounded by the exaggeration of analysts which resulted in 
"worst-case estimates, shorn of their caveats, becoming the 'prevailing 
wisdom'." 

After the Butler report, it is embarrassingly clear that Parliament was misled 
into voting for war on the basis of unreliable sources and overheated analysis, 
producing between them false intelligence. 

This must be the most embarrassing failure in the history of British 
intelligence. Yet according to Lord Butler, no one is to blame. Everyone 
behaved perfectly properly and nobody made a mistake. Poor things, they were 
let down by the system and institutional weaknesses. John Scarlett gets his 
very own specially printed Get Out of Jail Free card. 


Snip
Lord Butler was caught off guard by one journalist yesterday and confessed he 
was "surprised" that there was no reassessment of the intelligence as it 
emerged that the UN weapon inspectors could not find anything. A less 
phlegmatic man might have been astounded. 

In his statement to the Commons, Tony Blair stressed the sincerity with which 
he believed at the time in the September dossier. I do not doubt him. But I do 
doubt whether he still believed it when he asked Parliament to vote for war six 
months later. In the intervening period he had received three further 
assessments warning him that intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was 
"inconsistent" and "sparse". He knew that the Joint Intelligence Committee 
believed that Saddam had dismantled his chemical weapons and dispersed them to 
different locations, with the result that they could not possibly be fired in 
45 minutes. In his speech to the Commons on the eve of war, Tony Blair did not 
repeat a single one of the more lurid claims of the September dossier, largely, 
I suspect, because he had been warned by then they were unreliable. 

Yesterday Tony Blair insisted that the absence of any threat from Saddam did 
not mean that there was no justification for the war. Perhaps. But it certainly 
means that there was no urgent necessity for war. We could have found the time, 
at no risk to ourselves, to let Hans Blix finish his inspections and confirm 
that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. I fear that for Bush and Blair, 
the real reason why invasion was urgent was the growing realisation that Hans 
Blix was about to remove their principal pretext for war. 

Unfortunately for Tony Blair, the Butler report does not offer him much comfort 
on any of the other justifications for going to war. It concludes that there 
was "no evidence of co-operation" with al-Qa'ida. Worse, it reveals that the 
Joint Intelligence Committee warned that occupation would result in coalition 
forces being attacked by terrorists. 


Snip
Anyone listening to him [Blair] in the Chamber [House of Commons] could not 
have left with anything other than the impression that he is absolutely 
convinced he was right and that he would do it all over again in precisely the 
same circumstances. Notably there was no commitment to the more formal, 
collective style of Cabinet government for which Butler called, and I do not 
imagine any of its ministers are holding their breath expecting dramatic 
change. 

The irony is that the only ministers who have left the Government over the 
chapter of errors that led us into war in Iraq are those who could not support 
the war, and the only people to be sacked are those at the BBC and the Daily 
Mirror who criticised it. Everyone who contributed to the errors of judgement 
is still in post and now patted on the head by Lord Butler for doing the best 
they could. 

That may seem very British and very sensible to Lord Butler. To the rest of the 
world it will seem barmy. 
************************
Robin Cook was Tony Blair's first Foreign Secretary.
********************************
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