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Report: Leaked UK Documents Detail Iraq War Chaos
Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict.
Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, talks to Associated Press in London after he addressed the delegates in Sierra Leone Trade and Investment Forum on 'Why I am sipporting Sierra Leone' , Wednesday, Nov.18, 2009.
(AP Photo/Sang Tan) The documents - transcripts of interviews from an internal defense ministry review of the conflict - disclose that some planning for the Iraq war had begun in February 2002. Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, then head of Britain's special forces, was quoted as saying he had been "working the war up since early 2002," according to the newspaper.
In July 2002, Blair told lawmakers at a House of Commons committee session that there were no preparations to invade Iraq.
Critics of the war have long insisted that Blair offered then-President George W. Bush an assurance as early as mid-2002 - before British lawmakers voted in 2003 to approve U.K. involvement - that Britain would join the war.
The leaked documents are likely to be supplied to a public inquiry established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to scrutinize prewar intelligence and postwar planning, and which will hold its first evidence sessions later this week.
Brown appointed ex-civil servant John Chilcot to lead the panel, which will call Blair and the current and former heads of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency - John Sawers and John Scarlett - to give testimony in person.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, military leaders used the defense ministry review to criticize government departments over their failure to plan for reconstruction work once Saddam Hussein had been deposed.
"We got absolutely no advice whatsoever. The lack of involvement by the FCO (Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office), the Home Office and the Department for International Development was appalling," the newspaper quoted Brig. Bill Moore as saying in his statement.
It quoted Lt. Col. M. L. Dunn as reporting that his soldiers "only had five rounds of ammunition each" when the invasion began, and that troops lacked the correct armor and other equipment.
In another statement, Lt. Col. John Power said long-distance radios failed in Iraq's heat and claimed planning was so haphazard that military officials mistakenly sent a container of skis along with desert equipment.
The newspaper said the internal review concludes that a swift military victory was won only because Iraq's forces were so poor. "A more capable enemy would probably have punished (our) shortcomings severely," it quotes a document as saying.
Britain's role in the Iraq conflict - which triggered massive public protests at home - left 179 British soldiers dead.
"Tony Blair consistently denied to Parliament and public that the U.K. government was preparing for war in Iraq, yet these documents show that planning began as far back as 2002," Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, said Sunday. The revelations prove Blair took Britain "an illegal and disastrous war on false pretences," Salmond said.
The defense ministry declined to comment Sunday on the leaked documents, but said it "recognizes the importance of identifying and learning lessons from operations."
Two previous British studies into the war have been carried out . One cleared the government of blame for the death of David Kelly, a government weapons scientist who killed himself in 2003 after he was exposed as the source of a British Broadcasting Corp. report that accused Blair's office of "sexing up" prewar intelligence.
A separate 2004 inquiry - which Chilcot took part in - into intelligence on Iraq also cleared Blair's government, but criticized spy agencies for relying on seriously flawed or unreliable sources.
Findings of the new inquiry will not be published before next summer, meaning the conclusions won't be known before Britain's next national election, which Brown must hold by June 2010.
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16 Comments so far
Show AllThose who don't believe in karma, need to take a good look at Tony Blair's face. What goes around, really does come around.
Hey tony blair - you say you meant well.
so how come you fear you'll end up in hell?
a fine catholic man you claim to be
but your name will be damned for eternity.
And you gordon brown - what did you buy?
you let tony sell you some pie-in-the-sky.
you signed all the cheques - bought all the bombs.
gave my money away for nothing but tombs.
Just one more reason why anyone who joins the military is nuts!
I seriously wonder why C.D. would post another AP article. I have never read one, written by their little psy-ops clowns, that even hints at the utter depravity and ammorality of the crimes these ugly people have committed. They seem to be fine with giving the dirtiest of deeds perpetuated, by Bush and Blair, a stern little long-after-the-fact, "tap tap tap" on the wrist, but they will never speak of the hundreds of thousands of human lives these criminals have devastated -Never!
Come on C.D., give some thought to using this space for something that doesn't encourage the infantile level of militarism that pervades our culture(s). kd
Give me a break......Common Dreams knows the limits of what it is allowed to print.
Did you notice how fast the video interview with John Perkins, "The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" was taken off the Common Dreams Site? On the same video was a man who had written a book on how the military was in control of all decisions since Eisenhower and any President that went against the military was rendered useless and or eliminated.....The two men showed how Corporate America gets things done with the aid of the military industrial complex.
The plans to invade Afghanistan and Iraq were made in 1997, in "The Plan For A New American Century," When Clinton and Gore refused to invade, a better President was found, George W. Bush. Wanting the approval of his dad, he was willing to do anything they wanted. The British and American forces were in place to attack Afghanistan prior to the attacks of 9/11........Some of the "Scumbags" couldn't resist making some Wall Street Transactions just before the attacks. (Better Known as insider trading)
Why do you suppose nobody except: Architects and Engineers For an Independent Investigation of 9/11, Pilots For An Independent Investigation of 9/11, and over 75,000 New York City Residents,wants to discuss the "Probability that the ISI of Pakistan with links to the CIA and Department of Defense and Saudi Arabia were the financiers and planners of 9/11? The evidence of the Mumbai attacks linking back to the ISI and CIA are now coming to light, but will soon disappear from the Mainstream Media.
No, Common Dreams let's us blog, but knows when to cut off information....All you have to read is "JFK, The Unspeakable" by James Douglass....."They" took care of Kennedy and David Kelly predicted how "They" would kill him and make it look like a suicide and the Mainstream Media had to go along with "Their" wishes.
Great points. The great "unthinkable" for most Americans is the convenience of 9/11 as a pretext to wage war with (of all places) Iraq. How did most Americans get led down the garden path to believe that Iraq needed to be attacked after 9/11? The big "forgotten" transition in our collective thought was the anthrax attacks (still, for all intents and purposes, unsolved, unresolved) and the specter that Iraq had biological weapons.
9/11 + anthrax/small pox threat (the so called "second wave") = rationale for Iraq War.
Logical thinking need not apply.
Jeevee
WHAT "COMMON DREAMS" IS ALLOWED TO PRINT... EXCELLENT COMMENT. SEVERAL OF MY WELL-MEANING COMMENTS HAVE BEEN REJECTED.
blair is nwo scum
he has been hiding in jerusalem for the last couple of years overseeing the genocide of the palestinians - which by all accounts is going well
he is getting ready to become the president of the supreme soviet - also known as the eu - where he should be able to advance the nwo scum agenda even more
in the article the writer says that blair told bush that britain would be in the nwo scum war of iraq and i have a problem with that
the writer should have said that blair told bush that the nwo scum that used to be britain was ready to do what nwo scum do everywhere - kill and oppress the citizens while raping the country
btw - bush is nwo scum who was president of the country that used to the the united states
"In July 2002, Blair told lawmakers at a House of Commons committee session that there were no preparations to invade Iraq."
Right Tony. The preparation was really for AFGHANISTAN, wasn't it...
"To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" -Tony Blair (Times, July 17 2002).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq
Busted.
Blair-Bush-Cheney and the neocons promoted a war based on lies to the American and British people. When will we get a political system that doesn't shield liars?
We have known for a number of years that "lap dog" Tony was in chahoots with Bush to carry out the unjustified attack against Iraq. Months before the attack began in March, 2003, a British newspaper had found that the Iraqi mobile Biological Weapons trucks that the Bush administration had been hyping were really hydrogen generators for balloons and had been manufactured in Britain. The "Downing Street Memo" was leaked in May, 2005 and revealed that the decision had already been made to go to war as early as July, 2002. James Risen's book, "State of War" states that Jack Straw, the British Foreign Minister, sent a memo to Blair tht warned there was no reasonable justification for an attack against Iraq. Both Straw and Powell were sidelined by the White House, especially after the neo-cons overheard Powell referring to them as "the **##ing crazies". On Jan 31, 2003 Bush suggested to Blair ways to justify and precipitate war against Iraq, because up to that time no WMD had been found. Fly a U-2 painted with UN colors over Iraq and if the Iraqis fired at it, we could then attack them. Also have a Iraqi defector make a presentation about WMD (this from Phillip Sands book,"Lawless World"). "The Melbourne Minutes" is an account that on Feb 27, 2002, the head of the Australian Wheat Board informed the board of Governors that he had been informed by the Australian Ambassador to the US that war with Iraq was inevitable and Australia would assist. "Diplomat's Suppressed Document Lays Bare the Lies Behind Iraq War" reveals that Carne Rosse had given evidence that there were no WMD in Iraq before our invasion in 2003. He couldn't reveal that information for fear of being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act of England.
This most recent article is just additional proof that Blair should be charged with war crimes. We can always hope.
If Tony "War Criminal" Blair had been awarded the job of EU President, these documents would not have been leaked.
That job would have given Tony "War Criminal" Blair immunity from all criticism.
always remember that bush told the inspectors to stop their work. he was ready to bomb iraq to smitherines. he knew the inspectors would find nothing, so he ordered them home before they could destroy his pretext for war. bush had to move more quickly than he had anticipated; this explains why our rudimentary armaments were in such poor shape, the "hillbilly armor" and all. always tell the pro-war folks that bush knew there were no wmds, and he made sure the inspectors wouldn't find that out as well; else, the pretext would have vanished, as would have what international support there was for the war.
Send him to the Hague!
Picture of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde.
I wondered why Liberal Party's Blair sided with Bush until I discovered that London's and other war profiteering central banks own and control America:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Banks/Secrets_Federal_Reserve.html