Cidersomerset
17th November 2013, 13:32
An interesting article, still only scratching the surface, but something.
As we know the US & UK invaded Afghanistan for many reasons
nothing to do with dismantling 'CIA DA'...If that were the case they
would have to invade Langley or Saudi !!
http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/tony-blair.jpg
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/
===================================================
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No more evasion and prevarication – Britain's elite must be held to account
The blocking of the Chilcot report underlines how the powerful shield their activities
from the public
Henry Porter
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/3/1349278071036/Henry-Porter.jpg
The Observer, Sunday 17 November 2013
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2013/11/16/1384599248642/Tony-Blair-Porter-009.jpg
Tony Blair giving evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry in January 2010. Photograph: PA
In The Gatekeepers, the documentary made about Israel's internal intelligence, Shin
Bet, one of the most striking interviews with six former leaders of the agency is with the
charismatic Ami Ayalon, who later became a Labor member of the Knesset. Ayalon
confessed that when he was small boy he thought of the state of Israel being guided by
a kindly old man who lived in a room at the end of a corridor, dispensing wisdom and
guidance to the country's leaders.
When he grew up, he knew, of course, there was no such person, but as he rose to the
top of the Israeli navy and later Shin Bet, he realised that there was no fount of wisdom
or decency to be found at the top of the Israeli state either: just politicians and officials
making questionable decisions on the hoof.
In Britain, you might say that at the end of the corridor we do have a little old lady, who
has seen a thing or two in her 61-year reign and has much wisdom to offer prime
ministers and senior politicians. Although her impact on policy and the standards of
government is minuscule, she represents something or other that appears to be
reassuring.
But what you realise when you approach Ayalon's age and you have watched British
politics for a long time is that life is mostly shoddy and discreditable at the top and that
that characteristic is becoming more pronounced. There are decent people doing their
level best, but there are also bad ones who erode the integrity and trust necessary for a
democracy to work properly. One of those is Tony Blair, who took Britain to war on a lie
and who is now believed by most to have misled parliament in order to help an
American president who was bent on avenging 9/11 by invading the wrong country.
It is the greatest scandal of British public life in a generation, yet Blair and his allies,
such as Jack Straw and Alastair Campbell, have never been properly held to account.
More than a decade after we went to war, Sir John Chilcot's report is stalled because Sir
Jeremy Heywood, the current cabinet secretary, who was at Blair's side as principle
private secretary during the run-up to the invasion, is blocking crucial evidence to the inquiry.
It is an unbelievable state of affairs. As the former foreign secretary Lord Owen pointed
out last week, you couldn't have a more dubious arrangement. A man who was integral
to the government that took us to war is now sitting on evidence of 200 relevant
cabinet level discussions, 25 notes written by Blair to George Bush and records of 130
phone conversations between Blair, Bush and Gordon Brown. Heywood claims that he's
bound by the decision taken by his predecessor, Lord O'Donnell, to protect the
confidentiality of Blair and Bush's discussions. In effect, Heywood is claiming that he has
no discretion and therefore his past as senior official in Blair's Number 10 at the time
has no relevance.
What is so dismal about this situation, quite apart from the naked self-interest that it
represents, is that it underlines that while the British public is expected to put up with
ever-increasing levels of intrusion by surveillance, in the name of transparency and
security, those in power create for themselves an impregnable bunker where honour,
accountability and public opinion count for nothing. They conceal their actions and
shield themselves from entirely legitimate requests from an inquiry set up by the prime
minister himself.
One wonders whether Chilcot was perhaps the ultimately cynical act? Could it be that
Blair and the civil servants who oversaw the preparations for war always knew that the
excuse of preserving the confidentiality of the prime minister's conversations with Bush
would stop Sir John's committee getting at the truth of how we were taken to war on a
handful of lies? Maybe they just hope to outlast Chilcot, prevaricating until the
committee drop dead and everyone has forgotten the war.
Not only should Heywood be removed from anything to do with the decision of what
Chilcot is allowed to see, but, as Lord Owen suggested on Newsnight, the conventions
surrounding a prime minister's dealings with a US president no longer apply: this is
about the possibility that Tony Blair knowingly deceived parliament and dissembled to
the nation in order to do George Bush's bidding and preserve the special relationship.
Allegations don't come more serious than that. We should know what he said to Bush.
After Heywood's behaviour in the Plebgate case, when he failed to investigate
inconsistencies in the evidence that would have exonerated the former chief whip
Andrew Mitchell, people could be forgiven for wondering about Number 10's respect for
the truth and simply what is right. Mitchell was very hard done by and Heywood was the
man who could have prevented much of the shame that he endured. Maybe there are
questions to be asked about the values of the cabinet secretary himself.
But in all this, there is a much bigger theme, which is seen in another sputtering inquiry
into the behaviour of Blair-era politicians and officials – the Gibson inquiry into
allegations that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror
suspects after 9/11 and that officials in the then foreign secretary Jack Straw's office
were aware. The inquiry's investigations ended nearly two years ago and the report has
been sat on by Number 10 for the past 14 months. After the NGOs and torture victims
boycotted Sir Peter Gibson's inquiry, because it lacked credibility, it probably won't have
the damning impact it should have when it is finally published this week.
As a result, Number 10 may get away without following up with examination of cases
such as those of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was rendered with his wife for torture to
Gaddafi's Libya in an operation involving Sir Mark Allen of MI6 during Jack Straw's time
at the Foreign Office.
Scrape away at the interlocking scandals of the war on terror and the war in Iraq and
you find a rot that has taken hold at the top of British state.
Whether the scandal is about the path to war, the torture of terror suspects or the
exponential increase in surveillance, the common denominators are consistently the
reverence for the special relationship and related issues about the powers and conduct
of our intelligence services. These two have distorted the standards of public life for far
too long. It is imperative that Sir John Chilcot is no longer obstructed and we get his full
account of Blair's war as soon as humanly possible.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/17/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair-bush
As we know the US & UK invaded Afghanistan for many reasons
nothing to do with dismantling 'CIA DA'...If that were the case they
would have to invade Langley or Saudi !!
http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/tony-blair.jpg
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/
===================================================
http://static.guim.co.uk/static/bb771429d4f59d0f69a83d74ebfb2f3c17f525c3/common/images/logos/the-guardian/comment.gif
No more evasion and prevarication – Britain's elite must be held to account
The blocking of the Chilcot report underlines how the powerful shield their activities
from the public
Henry Porter
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/3/1349278071036/Henry-Porter.jpg
The Observer, Sunday 17 November 2013
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2013/11/16/1384599248642/Tony-Blair-Porter-009.jpg
Tony Blair giving evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry in January 2010. Photograph: PA
In The Gatekeepers, the documentary made about Israel's internal intelligence, Shin
Bet, one of the most striking interviews with six former leaders of the agency is with the
charismatic Ami Ayalon, who later became a Labor member of the Knesset. Ayalon
confessed that when he was small boy he thought of the state of Israel being guided by
a kindly old man who lived in a room at the end of a corridor, dispensing wisdom and
guidance to the country's leaders.
When he grew up, he knew, of course, there was no such person, but as he rose to the
top of the Israeli navy and later Shin Bet, he realised that there was no fount of wisdom
or decency to be found at the top of the Israeli state either: just politicians and officials
making questionable decisions on the hoof.
In Britain, you might say that at the end of the corridor we do have a little old lady, who
has seen a thing or two in her 61-year reign and has much wisdom to offer prime
ministers and senior politicians. Although her impact on policy and the standards of
government is minuscule, she represents something or other that appears to be
reassuring.
But what you realise when you approach Ayalon's age and you have watched British
politics for a long time is that life is mostly shoddy and discreditable at the top and that
that characteristic is becoming more pronounced. There are decent people doing their
level best, but there are also bad ones who erode the integrity and trust necessary for a
democracy to work properly. One of those is Tony Blair, who took Britain to war on a lie
and who is now believed by most to have misled parliament in order to help an
American president who was bent on avenging 9/11 by invading the wrong country.
It is the greatest scandal of British public life in a generation, yet Blair and his allies,
such as Jack Straw and Alastair Campbell, have never been properly held to account.
More than a decade after we went to war, Sir John Chilcot's report is stalled because Sir
Jeremy Heywood, the current cabinet secretary, who was at Blair's side as principle
private secretary during the run-up to the invasion, is blocking crucial evidence to the inquiry.
It is an unbelievable state of affairs. As the former foreign secretary Lord Owen pointed
out last week, you couldn't have a more dubious arrangement. A man who was integral
to the government that took us to war is now sitting on evidence of 200 relevant
cabinet level discussions, 25 notes written by Blair to George Bush and records of 130
phone conversations between Blair, Bush and Gordon Brown. Heywood claims that he's
bound by the decision taken by his predecessor, Lord O'Donnell, to protect the
confidentiality of Blair and Bush's discussions. In effect, Heywood is claiming that he has
no discretion and therefore his past as senior official in Blair's Number 10 at the time
has no relevance.
What is so dismal about this situation, quite apart from the naked self-interest that it
represents, is that it underlines that while the British public is expected to put up with
ever-increasing levels of intrusion by surveillance, in the name of transparency and
security, those in power create for themselves an impregnable bunker where honour,
accountability and public opinion count for nothing. They conceal their actions and
shield themselves from entirely legitimate requests from an inquiry set up by the prime
minister himself.
One wonders whether Chilcot was perhaps the ultimately cynical act? Could it be that
Blair and the civil servants who oversaw the preparations for war always knew that the
excuse of preserving the confidentiality of the prime minister's conversations with Bush
would stop Sir John's committee getting at the truth of how we were taken to war on a
handful of lies? Maybe they just hope to outlast Chilcot, prevaricating until the
committee drop dead and everyone has forgotten the war.
Not only should Heywood be removed from anything to do with the decision of what
Chilcot is allowed to see, but, as Lord Owen suggested on Newsnight, the conventions
surrounding a prime minister's dealings with a US president no longer apply: this is
about the possibility that Tony Blair knowingly deceived parliament and dissembled to
the nation in order to do George Bush's bidding and preserve the special relationship.
Allegations don't come more serious than that. We should know what he said to Bush.
After Heywood's behaviour in the Plebgate case, when he failed to investigate
inconsistencies in the evidence that would have exonerated the former chief whip
Andrew Mitchell, people could be forgiven for wondering about Number 10's respect for
the truth and simply what is right. Mitchell was very hard done by and Heywood was the
man who could have prevented much of the shame that he endured. Maybe there are
questions to be asked about the values of the cabinet secretary himself.
But in all this, there is a much bigger theme, which is seen in another sputtering inquiry
into the behaviour of Blair-era politicians and officials – the Gibson inquiry into
allegations that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror
suspects after 9/11 and that officials in the then foreign secretary Jack Straw's office
were aware. The inquiry's investigations ended nearly two years ago and the report has
been sat on by Number 10 for the past 14 months. After the NGOs and torture victims
boycotted Sir Peter Gibson's inquiry, because it lacked credibility, it probably won't have
the damning impact it should have when it is finally published this week.
As a result, Number 10 may get away without following up with examination of cases
such as those of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was rendered with his wife for torture to
Gaddafi's Libya in an operation involving Sir Mark Allen of MI6 during Jack Straw's time
at the Foreign Office.
Scrape away at the interlocking scandals of the war on terror and the war in Iraq and
you find a rot that has taken hold at the top of British state.
Whether the scandal is about the path to war, the torture of terror suspects or the
exponential increase in surveillance, the common denominators are consistently the
reverence for the special relationship and related issues about the powers and conduct
of our intelligence services. These two have distorted the standards of public life for far
too long. It is imperative that Sir John Chilcot is no longer obstructed and we get his full
account of Blair's war as soon as humanly possible.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/17/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair-bush