# The war in Iraq was not a blunder or a mistake. It was a crime : Owen Jones



## Black Mamba1

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/07/blair-chilcot-war-in-iraq-not-blunder-crime

Tony Blair is damned. We have seen establishment whitewashes in the past: from Bloody Sunday to Hillsborough, officialdom has repeatedly conspired to smother truth in the interests of the powerful. But not this time. The Chilcot inquiry was becoming a satirical byword for taking farcically long to execute a task; but Sir John will surely go down in history for delivering the most comprehensively devastating verdict on any modern prime minister.

Those of us who marched against the Iraq calamity can feel no vindication, only misery that we failed to prevent a disaster that robbed hundreds of thousands of lives – those of 179 British soldiers among them – and which injured, traumatised and displaced millions of people: a disaster that bred extremism on a catastrophic scale.

One legacy of Chilcot should be to encourage us to be bolder in challenging authority, in being sceptical of official claims, in standing firm against an aggressive agenda spun by the media. Lessons must be learned, the war’s supporters will now declare. Don’t let them get away with it. The lessons were obvious to many of us before the bombs started falling.

For what Chilcot has done is illustrate that assertions from the anti-war movement were not conspiracy theories, or far-fetched, wild-eyed claims. “Increasingly, we appear to have a government who are looking for a pretext for war rather than its avoidance,” declared the anti-war Labour MP Alan Simpson weeks before the invasion. And indeed, as Chilcot revealed, Blair had told George W Bush in July 2002: “I will be with you, whatever.”

This, as Chilcot puts it, was no war of “last resort”: this was a war of choice, unleashed “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted”. Simpson said: “We appear to produce dossiers of mass deception, whose claims are dismissed as risible almost as soon as they are released.” And now Chilcot agrees that the war was indeed based on “flawed intelligence and assessments” that were not “challenged, and they should have been”. Nelson Mandela was among those who, in the runup to war, accused Blair and Bush of undermining the United Nations. Mandela lies vindicated. As Chilcot says: “We consider that the UK was … undermining the security council’s authority.”

So many warnings. A month before the invasion the US senator Gary Hart said that war would increase the risk of terrorism. “We’re going to kick open a hornet’s nest, and we are not prepared in this country,” he warned.

Consider this, from the anti-war Dissident Voice website a month before the conflict: “A US attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq will provide new inspiration – and new recruitment fodder – for al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, and will stimulate a long-term increased risk of terrorism, either on US soil or against US citizens overseas.” It is not to belittle the authors to point out this was a statement of the obvious, except to those responsible for the war and their cheerleaders. Then read Chilcot: “Blair was warned that an invasion would increase the terror threat by al-Qaida and other groups.”

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## IbanEadam

Right... "Lessons must be learned.." Now is time at least Muslim leadership should unite and should go in world anti-terrorism court against this crime done by Bush and Blair.. Muslims should make a Muslim block to protect their rights against terrorists like Bush and Blair.. We extremely need a Muslim block. For this purpose we also need brave and qualified leadership, policy makers.

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## SQ8

IbanEadam said:


> Right... "Lessons must be learned.." Now is time at least Muslim leadership should unite and should go in world anti-terrorist court against this crime done by Bush and Blair.. Muslims should make a Muslim block to protect their rights against terrorists like Bush and Blair.. We extremely need a Muslim block. For this purpose we also need *brave and qualified leadership, policy makers*.


Please let us know when you find them. It has been 70 years and they are very good at playing hide and seek; we never found them.


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## +4vsgorillas-Apebane

I remember the 2003 invasion, I watched the reports live on t.v at Uni.

Even a retard with half a brain could have seen the consequences of removing Saddam, the one man who held the sectarian mobs and tribes together. Saddam was a hippocrite, vain and had delusions of grandeur but at least he isnt as bad the the hundreds of sociopathic 'Saddams' who now rule Iraq.

Fire is hot. 
Water is wet.
Sky is blue.
The invasion of Iraq was illegal and a crime against humanity.

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## Spy Master

@Solomon2 your comments on this??


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## Basel

Iraqis should demand war crime case against Tony Blair and his associates. He should not be let get away with it. If that happens it will be double standard of west.


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## pakdefender

Tony Blair's is a real jack bastard!
Indians learnt making fake dodgy dossiers from him

Remeber the dossier that Tony Blair presented : 
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2002/09/24/dossier.pdf 



Spy Master said:


> @Solomon2 your comments on this??



It was all done for Israel , that is what cannot be said in the open , rest is there for all to see

Whats "Honourable" about this mother fucker Blair








What an evil man


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## Solomon2

Spy Master said:


> @Solomon2 your comments on this??


On my blog. You'll want to start at the very first post: solomon2.blogspot.com.


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## f1000n

They should've removed Saddam in 1991. Instead they stop stop halfway, impose severe sanctions on Iraq for over a decade that caused the death of 500.000 children and then start another invasion.

Either they should've done it all in 1991 or not do anything at all, but since when is the well being of others something the west cares about.


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## pakdefender

First line of blame goes to Bush and Blair , they orchestrated and connived the whole war

BUT the second line of blame goes to the sectarian shithead in Iran and Saudi Arabia , they are equally if not more responsible for the half million deaths


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