What is a lie? My dictionary defines it as an untrue statement which has the intention to deceive.
Last week in the Parliamentary debate about ISIS and whether we should unleash the might of our airpower on them (five or six Tornados?) Peter Hain and a majority in Parliament supported this action. His speech to the House of Commons was virtually identical to the article he had placed in the Guardian newspaper the day before. It's not a bad job when the same piece of work can get you handsomely paid twice over, is it? I could be wrong but I don't see other MPs doing the same thing. Maybe he's anticipating a hard winter in 2015/2016 when he'll have to pay for the upkeep of his house out of his own pockets for the first time in 23 years.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/25/isis-barbarity-we-cant-stand-by-impotently
I ask "what is a lie" because in his combi article/speech Hain makes the following statement:
"In the cabinet in 2003, I backed Tony Blair over the invasion of Iraq because I honestly believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I was wrong: he didn’t – we went to war on a lie. And the aftermath was disastrous".
This is the first time I've heard Hain speak so openly on this and was quite surprised at his frankness. So was the BBC correspondent I saw on TV the same day. Look at the words again though. "I backed Tony Blair ....I honestly believed....". Why say it in this way? Why not simply say I voted for the Iraq War and leave Blair's name out of it? It was Hain's personal decision to support it. Robin Cook resigned rather than support the war. And why "honestly believed"? Can you "dishonestly believe" that there were WMDs? These statements are designed, in my opinion, to divert any blame away from Hain. Invoke the name of Blair with all its connotations re the Iraq War. I think it's been done for one reason. There is a greater demon in all this than I!
Even though Hain is a self-proclaimed agnostic it's left me wondering if, like Blair, a conversion to Catholicism is on the cards late in life, and he's getting his confessional practice in a bit early. As we get on in life it's perhaps a wise move to acknowledge there may be somebody "up there". Just in case. And if nothing else, Hain is famous for covering all the bases.
I am assuming that in the main the "lie" refers to the erroneous intelligence provided by an Iraqi exile given the codename of Curveball. What a cracking and appropriate name - which I hope was given to him AFTER it all came to light? His real name was Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi and the "lie" refers to evidence he gave first to the German intelligence services, the BND, which was then passed to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the USA. Curveball now admits that he made up a story about him being an Iraqi chemical engineer with bio-weapons knowledge, and he was involved with mobile biological weapons systems in Iraq . This fabricated story was doubted by the Germans and by the DIA and CIA but supposedly swallowed and definitely embellished in other sectors of the Bush administration, who we of course then fell in line behind. Except - even the Yanks aren't that stupid (really) and there are strong suggestions that there were many in their chain of command who pressed on with Curveball's claims all the while knowing they were at the very least doubtful. They may even have known they were lies. But they wanted something they could hang onto Saddam Hussein and this fitted the bill.
http://my.firedoglake.com/amerigus/2013/02/17/rachel-maddow-iraq-wmd-fraud-expose-will-cause-political-upset/
So now we know the Germans doubted it and the Yanks doubted it. Wikipedia even suggests our own intelligence services doubted the claims. Yet we are supposed to believe that our Government did not doubt it, but just fell into line, accepting Curveball's claims hook, line and sinker. That's some curveball being thrown us. It's all too convenient for me, I'm afraid, and I'm not going to let Bush, or Blair and his Cabinet off the hook because of Curveball.
With all the opprobrium directed towards Blair and the other warmongers still in our midst, how do we know that the story of Curveball is kosher? How do we know he's not a creation of that murky world of the spooks? His confession years later seems a convenient excuse for the people who took us to war to hide behind. Could Curveball, like WMDs, not really exist - at least in the sense he's not who he claims he is?
Even if Curveball is who he claims to be and did make up a cock and bull story, there was a wealth of better intelligence from far more reliable sources that pointed to the fact that WMDs did not exist in Iraq. Those that took the decision to go to war chose to ignore this evidence in favour of anything that pointed to there being WMDs.
The unpalatable and brutal fact appears to be that we (Blair) had given Bush undertakings that we'd be in there with him. Within Blair's Cabinet, Robin Cook comes out of it with credit, quitting on a matter of principle. Home Office Minister John Denham also resigned over Iraq as did Junior Health Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Clare Short, like Cook a Cabinet member, resigned after the war. The rest of them bent over and let Bush and Blair have their way. "Yes Men and Women" - who knows the real reasons they threw their lot in with Blair (see Footnote below)? They emerge with a permanent stain on their Parliamentary careers and on their souls. It's hard to wash away the blood of over 115,000 dead Iraqis and 179 UK military - not counting those from other countries involved in the conflict. God knows how many more suffered life-changing injuries (there were nearly 6,000 UK military casualties).
One thing I find particularly difficult to swallow - it relates to Peter Hain again and it's this: he is on record ("Outside In") as stating that the biggest mistake in the whole of his political life was fighting the Deputy Leadership battle (presumably because he got stuffed). What a shallow statement, what vanity, when making the mistake of voting for an illegal war cost the lives of so many and ruined the lives of so many others.
A recent study has come up with a death figure attributable to the War and subsequent civil unrest as closer to half a million.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
And who can say if the current ISIS problem in Iraq would be happening now? Doubtful, isn't it, bearing in mind any civilian support for them in Iraq comes from factions who were supportive of Saddam Hussein?
Putting all the blame on Curveball won't cut it. It doesn't win me over. I doubt it even assuages their own consciences, but I could be wrong there as politicians are put together differently to me.
And please, don't get me started on our own curveball - the manipulation of our own intelligence reports. Because weren't there "lies" in that as well? And you aren't going to be able to blame Curveball for that! Who is going to carry the can for that deception?
In his book "Outside In", Hain granted Curveball the equivalent of five lines. In contrast there are pages and pages building up the case against Saddam, much of it nothing at all to do with WMDs. It reeks of self-justification, a manufactured smokescreen to try and blind the reader to the fact that he was part of one of the biggest cock-ups since Suez.
And if we were taken to war on a lie or lies, why did Hain vote AGAINST further investigations into what happened? Wouldn't you want it all out in the open to show how you were duped? Or was there a lot more that it was better kept tucked away?
So, coming back to lies again. Curveball told a lie. Curveball was therefore a liar. If you know what he said to be a lie, yet you repeat it as truth - are you similarly defined? Because how come there were all these doubts expressed about Curveball's credibility yet in the end his story became a main piece of the jigsaw? Someone has to be responsible. Someone else besides Curveball has to have lied too.
I await to see what Chilcot will make of it all but don't hold my breath.
FOOTNOTE:
It would be quite easy for me to pinch the best bits out of this letter reproduced below and slip it into my writing above, but that's not my style. It was a letter published in the New Statesman on 21 June 2007. I have reproduced it in full because I think it cuts through all the political and so-called humanitarian reasons for going to war in Iraq and instead asks MPs to examine their own consciences as to EXACTLY what motivated them to support it.
From: Karen Blakeley, Cass Business School, London EC1
My heart sank when I read Peter Hain identifying the lessons learned from the Iraq war (Inside track, 11 June). They were, according to him, that "military power alone is no substitute for winning the battle of hearts and minds" and that "we need to reform and strengthen the capacity of the UN, Europe and other multinational bodies". These may have played a role, but this is easy learning and not the painful lesson our leaders need to face.
The deeper learning involves examining how the decision was made in the first place - first by the leader, second by parliament and, most importantly, by each individual MP. Everyone who voted for the war needs to ask him or herself two questions: what really motivated my personal decision to back the war, and did I use the available information to make the best decision in the circumstances?
First, every MP who supported the war should examine some of the less admirable motivations for him or her doing so (and we all, on occasion, have these less savoury motivations). Was there an element of not wanting to be identified as "difficult" or "anti-patriotic", or was there a desire not to make a career-limiting move, perhaps? Second, everyone should ask themselves what information they paid attention to, what information they ignored and whether they did the best to listen honestly and openly to both sides of the argument.
Whenever a flawed decision is made, particularly by those in leadership positions, it is highly likely some of these psychological dynamics will have played a role.
THAT is a really searching, insightful letter, in my opinion.
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