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The big story in the British press today is about Bush’s lapdog, Tony Blair.  Everybody knows that he lied his country into war, but now there’s hard evidence to support the accusation.

From The Inependent:

A devastating attack on Mr Blair’s justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain’s key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, “at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.”

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been “effectively contained”.

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. “I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed),” he said.

“At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that ‘regime change’ was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.”

He claims “inertia” in the Foreign Office and the “inattention of key ministers” combined to stop the UK carrying out any co-ordinated and sustained attempt to address sanction-busting by Iraq, an approach which could have provided an alternative to war.

Mr Ross delivered the evidence to the Butler inquiry which investigated intelligence blunders in the run-up to the conflict.

The Foreign Office had attempted to prevent the evidence being made public, but it has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

It shows Mr Ross told the inquiry, chaired by Lord Butler, “there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material” held by the Iraqi dictator before the invasion. “There was, moreover, no intelligence or assessment during my time in the job that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or the US,” he added.

Blair knew their were no WMD’s and he knew that Iraq was not a threat, yet he went to war with Bush knowing full well that all hell would break loose. 

Why would anyone do that?

“The members of the Bush team don’t seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn’t matter. They’re wrong on all counts.” –Paul Krugman, New York Times, 3/18/03

“The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war.” –Fred Barnes, Fox News Channel, 4/10/03)

“Well, the hot story of the week is victory…. The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths…. There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far…. The final word on this is, hooray.” –Morton Kondracke, Fox News Channel, 4/12/03)

“The second lie was that Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction represent an imminent threat to U.S. security. Despite the most hugely expensive but secret high-tech spy operation in human history — estimated by most at well over $100 billion a year — and a vast network of defectors and spies, we have not been able to find their supposed weapons.” –Robert Scheer, The Los Angeles Times, 3/4/03

“Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years.” –Dick Morris, Fox News Channel, 4/19/03

“Never mind the secret State Department document (disclosed last week in The Los Angeles Times) that holds just the opposite view – that not only are the prospects for democracy in the region poor, but entrenched economic and social problems are likely to undermine even basic stability for years to come. President Bush may not see them, but the risks are enormous.” –Bob Herbert, The New York Times, 3/17/03

“I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?” –Bill O’Reilly, Fox News Channel, 1/29/03)

Thanks to FAIR and Common Dreams for the quotes.

If you missed NPR’s piece “Iraq Three Years Later: The Path to War” by Mike Shuster, find the time to go to their website and listen. The soundbites are priceless. You’ll love hearing again how wrong the Administration was every step of the way leading into the war and every step thereafter following the”Mission Accomplished” speech.

Shuster closes with:

Within a matter of weeks though, it would become obvious that the mission had not been accomplished as the Iraqi insurgency erupted. And over the following two years, numerous investigations and commissions, including one authorized by the president himself, would conclude that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that there was no operational relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

This story about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s agreement with the White House that allows President Bush to continue his domestic spying program “with oversight” instead of demanding that he comply with existing law only proves that we no longer live in a democracy. “We the people” have been hosed.

And just how craven are the Republicans in the House?

The House Intelligence Committee said last week that it would seek limited briefings for some panel members so that they could weigh changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but the Republican leaders of the House committee stopped far short of proposing the kind of continuing oversight and rules changes that the Senate committee has settled on. A spokeswoman for the White House, Dana Perino, called the Republican senators’ proposal “a generally sound approach.”

“We’re eager to work with Congress on legislation that would further codify the president’s authority,” Ms. Perino said. “We remain committed to our principle, that we will not do anything that undermines the program’s capabilities or the president’s authority.”

We are doomed.

Time to post that 1941 quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis: “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.”

Over at This Modern World, you’ll find a lengthy excerpt of an article from Rolling Stone by James Bamford that goes into great detail about the Bush Administration’s covert propaganda campaign. The article is centered around a story about a former Iraqi civil engineer, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, who desperately wanted to help the U.S. bring down Saddam Hussein. Al-Haideri told the CIA how he “had helped Saddam’s men to secretly bury tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.” He told them this tale while strapped to a lie detector.

There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa.

The fabrication might have ended there, the tale of another political refugee trying to scheme his way to a better life. But just because the story wasn’t true didn’t mean it couldn’t be put to good use. Al-Haideri, in fact, was the product of a clandestine operation — part espionage, part PR campaign — that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. And the man who had long been in charge of the marketing was a secretive and mysterious creature of the Washington establishment named John Rendon.

From there, the article goes on for several pages about Rendon’s special skills in “perception management” and his ties to the Bush Administration. It’s something you really ought to read.

The article comes back around to the Administration’s use of al-Haideri’s allegations during the runup to the Iraq War.

…as President Bush was about to argue his case for war before the U.N., the White House had given prominent billing to al-Haideri’s fabricated charges. In a report ironically titled “Iraq: Denial and Deception,” the administration referred to al-Haideri by name and detailed his allegations — even though the CIA had already determined them to be lies. The report was placed on the White House Web site on September 12th, 2002, and remains there today.

(snip)

Finally, in early 2004, more than two years after he made the dramatic allegations to Miller and Moran about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, al-Haideri was taken back to Iraq by the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group. On a wide-ranging trip through Baghdad and other key locations, al-Haideri was given the opportunity to point out exactly where Saddam’s stockpiles were hidden, confirming the charges that had helped to start a war.

In the end, he could not identify a single site where illegal weapons were buried.

It’s just so “dishonest and reprehensible” of James Bamford to report this. How unpatriotic of Rolling Stone to publish it. What a “corrupt and shameless” person I am for even telling you about it.

Dick Cheney spoke again today at the American Enterprise Institute. He toned down his virulent jabs at those who dare not support the war in Iraq, but he did lash out against those who suggest that the Administration wasn’t straight with Congress or the American people about why we had to invade Iraq.

What is not legitimate, and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible, is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence.

Who is reprehensibly dishonest? The facts show that the Bush Administration did mislead the American people. Members of the Administration did pick and choose reports that best supported their position that we had to go to war to protect our country. The facts show that members of the Administration did not provide Congress with all the information they had. The facts show that they did leave out statements and caveats made by the intelligence community that cast doubts on the evidence used to support their urgent call for war.

For a lengthy list of all the misstatements and half-truths told by Cheney, Bush and others high up in the Administration, visit Henry Waxman’s website Iraq on the Record. The site includes 237 specific misleading statements and explanations for why they were misleading. Here’s on example of a statement made by Cheney:

“[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent with that — basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program, and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon within a year or two.”
Source: Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).

This statement was misleading because it failed to acknowledge the intelligence community’s deep division on the issue of whether Iraq was actively pursuing its nuclear program. The statement also failed to mention weeks of intensive inspections conducted directly before the war in which United Nations inspectors found no sign whatsoever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program. In addition, it failed to acknowledge the Defense Intelligence Agency position that: “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has — or will — establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.”

… The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war, which has taken a fearful toll in lives and injuries while at the same time weakening the military, damaging the international reputation of the United States, serving as a world-class recruiting tool for terrorist groups and blowing a hole the size of Baghdad in Washington’s budget.

A wiser leader would begin to cut some of these losses. But the whole point of this war, it seems, was to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq to ensure American domination of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves, which have been described, the author Daniel Yergin tells us, as “the greatest single prize in all history.”

No… I didn’t write that, but I THOUGHT it. That’s an excerpt from the most recent edition of Bob Herbert’s fine work. Read it all here.

Let’s not lose sight of what this war is all about: American Power and Control. No matter what they say, it’s not about pre-emptive strikes against madmen with WMDs, it’s not about “regime change,” and it’s not about “spreading democracy.” It’s about securing a supply of oil to keep our sinking economy afloat.

It smells like… Vietnam. This Iraq war is starting to smell a lot like that one.

Here’s today’s story from The Independent:

Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons [napalm-type firebombs], codenamed MK77, in Iraq.

You know there’s always a “but” in these stories…

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. “The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,” he told Mr Cohen. “I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.”
…

Mr Ingram did not explain why the US officials had misled him, but the US and British governments were accused of a cover-up. The Iraq Analysis Group, which campaigned against the war, said the US authorities only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable.
…

Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the group, said: “The US has used internationally reviled weapons that the UK refuses to use, and has then apparently lied to UK officials, showing how little weight the UK carries in influencing American policy.”

Everyday another lie is revealed. How can anyone continue to support Bush and his Administration? They lied to the American people about their reasons for going to war, they lied about torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, they continue to lie about what is happening at Guantánamo Bay, and they lied to their biggest ally about using napalm. The truth means nothing to them.

Someday this war’s gonna end, and somebody’s gonna make a movie about it. Now they’ll be able to use Kilgore’s line, and mean it.

Over 30 gallons of VX nerve gas was spilled last Friday. Fortunately it was contained without incident, as a single drop would kill an adult. Unfortunately, this recent discovery does nothing to help justify the current war in Iraq, but does raise another question. If one drop will kill a healthy adult, why would we need 250,000 gallons stored in Indiana? That is a lot of VX.