Liberal Burblings

Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

It was rather unpleasant seeing William Hague on GMTV and BBC Breakfast today. His appearance is enough to curdle porridge. He was bleating on about there needing to be an inquiry into the Iraq War.

But his argument doesn’t stack up. He still says it was right to invade Iraq! Unbelievable!

How on earth can we move forward while there exists such pig-headed reluctance to acknowledge the mistake of the invasion ?

Well done Ed Davey for taking the issue head on:

For the Tories to demand an inquiry into the Iraq war is like Ronnie Biggs wanting an inquiry into the Great Train Robbery.

There is an excellent new website on this issue here.

Andrew Grice in today’s Independent:

On Tuesday, the Conservative Party will propose an inquiry into the conflict to ensure all lessons are learnt. It, too, is trying to rewrite history. Without its support, Mr Blair would have lost the crucial Commons vote and Britain would not have gone to war. The only party that doesn’t want to rewind the tape is the Liberal Democrats, whose opposition to the war has been totally vindicated.

Hat-tip: Conservative Home

I have blogged fairly regularly about Ming Campbell’s strong and authoritative interventions on Iraq, which have often been backed up by his conversations with army commanders on the ground.

Last month, Ming was asking why British soldiers seemed to be lingering in Iraq simply to shore up a lame duck US President. Gordon Brown replied to Ming’s letter on the matter, saying that the soldiers were in Iraq based on British interests.

Well, today comes vindication for Ming – in spades. And a major embarrassment for Brown who is exposed as Bush’s Poodle 2:

LONDON (AFP) – Britain was prepared to withdraw its forces from the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April, but held off for five months after the United States asked it to stay, Britain’s military commander in Iraq said in an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, said that he wanted to leave Britain’s Basra Palace base in April, something he said would have been “the right thing to do.”

“In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” Bashall, 44, told the paper.

“The Americans asked us to stay for longer,” he said, adding the decision to stay in the city was a result of “political strategy being played out at highest level.”

“Political strategy being played out at highest level” ? That’s a very grand way of saying:

“Covering George W Bush’s posterior”

So, if a parent has a son or daughter in Iraq and they were in Basra between April and September, they were put at risk (indeed many injured and some killed) not for “Queen and country”, not even for “Uncle Sam” (given that the Congress is mostly against the “surge”) but “To save George Bush’s bottom”.

Marvellous.

I have blogged fairly regularly about Ming Campbell’s strong and authoritative interventions on Iraq, which have often been backed up by his conversations with army commanders on the ground.

Last month, Ming was asking why British soldiers seemed to be lingering in Iraq simply to shore up a lame duck US President. Gordon Brown replied to Ming’s letter on the matter, saying that the soldiers were in Iraq based on British interests.

Well, today comes vindication for Ming – in spades. And a major embarrassment for Brown who is exposed as Bush’s Poodle 2:

LONDON (AFP) – Britain was prepared to withdraw its forces from the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April, but held off for five months after the United States asked it to stay, Britain’s military commander in Iraq said in an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, said that he wanted to leave Britain’s Basra Palace base in April, something he said would have been “the right thing to do.”

“In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” Bashall, 44, told the paper.

“The Americans asked us to stay for longer,” he said, adding the decision to stay in the city was a result of “political strategy being played out at highest level.”

“Political strategy being played out at highest level” ? That’s a very grand way of saying:

“Covering George W Bush’s posterior”

So, if a parent has a son or daughter in Iraq and they were in Basra between April and September, they were put at risk (indeed many injured and some killed) not for “Queen and country”, not even for “Uncle Sam” (given that the Congress is mostly against the “surge”) but “To save George Bush’s bottom”.

Marvellous.

Richard Lugar has been US Senator for Indiana for 31 years and is a former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This week he created a major stir by being the first leading Republican to break ranks on Iraq. He warned that he might not support Bush’s funding request for Iraq in September. His words were strong:

In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.

Turkey is warning of plans to invade northern Iraq.

This is a worrying escalation of international military action. Goodness knows what impact it will have on Turkey’s application to join the EU.

An EU member country, the United Kingdom, has already invaded Iraq, with highly questionable justification.

So criticism of the Turkish stance would seem rather hypocritical, particularly if it comes from the UK or the USA.