Are Iraqis better off ten years after the invasion? Is Iraq becoming more stable and is its economy booming?

Supporters of the Iraq war are constantly telling us how great life in Iraq is these days. Scottish Labour party member Doug Maughan writing to the Sunday Herald claims Iraq is progressing nicely along the long, hard road to stability, adding that Iraq’s economy is booming (1).

This echoes Blair’s biographer John Rentoul who hilariously recommended Jeffrey Archer in the Times saying much the same thing back in 2010 “Today [Baghdad] is a boom town, rather than a bomb site. If I were a young man, looking to make my fortune, I would be off to Iraq like a shot.” (2).

Are Iraqis really better off than they were before the invasion?

Iraq certainly goes boom, boom, boom with each set of bombs set off by Al Qa’ida, let into the country by the invasion; and growing stronger again since short-lived US funding of ‘Awakening’ militias to fight them ended in 2009  (3) – (9).

Today NATO are quietly collaborating with the Saudi and Qatari Sunni dictatorships (sorry “monarchies”, because it sounds nicer) to arm, fund and train Sunni Islamist armed groups, in order to target the Shia/Alawite axis of Iran, Assad and Hezbollah ; and this Islamic civil war is spreading from Syria to Lebanon and Iraq, with Al nusrah in Syria and Al Qa’ida in Iraq now openly allied to one another (10) – (14).

Perhaps the fact that the Shia government of Iraq has refused to place sanctions on Syria is relevant there. It may have led the Saudis and the US government may have decided they would rather not have a Shia government in Iraq (15).

Polls of Iraqis don’t back up the dominant British and American media story that “of course” Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion either.

A Zogby poll of Iraqis in 2011 found only 30% thought Iraq was better off than before the invasion, 42% worse off, the rest the same or didn’t know (16). From various interviews with Iraqis the fact that under Saddam you could at least know what was and wasn’t safe to do, while since the invasion you could be killed just due to your religion, or kidnapped to extort money from your family, or caught in crossfire, is one of the major reasons.

A Greenberg poll in April 2012 found a majority believing the country was headed in the right direction only among Shia, with most Sunni Arabs and Kurds disagreeing, showing that sectarian divisions are if anything even worse than under Saddam (17).

As for the supposedly “booming” economy a Gallup poll in March this year found 55% of Iraqis say the jobs and unemployment situation has become worse since the end of 2011 and 34% say it’s stayed the same (18).

Inequality, homelessness and hunger have if anything become worse problems even than under Saddam and sanctions. For much of the occupation many Iraqis were searching for food in rubbish bins, many of them refugees created by coalition offensives on cities, or by sectarian fighting (see sources 41 to 49 on the blog post on this link).

Another cause of these problems is corruption under both the Coalition Provisional Authority and elected Iraqi governments. Under Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority billions of dollars of Iraqi UN oil for food funds went missing (19).

Saddam Hussein was certainly a brutal, torturing and genocidal dictator, but his genocides and massacres were over by 2000 – and sanctions could have been lifted at any time as Saddam had proven in 1991 he wouldn’t risk using chemical weapons any more once all the superpowers were his enemies rather than his allies.

So by 2003 war was bound to kill far more Iraqis than it saved, especially run by Cheney and Rumsfeld, the architects of the Latin American death squads in the 80s, who brought the “El Salvador option” to Iraq, with units like the Iraqi Police Commandos (20).

The occupation’s brutality almost matched Saddam for torture and even massacres of civilians, complete with targeting ambulances, like the one in Falluja in April 2004, only stopping short of Saddam's genocides (21) – (22).  Today US trained Iraqi units kidnap and torture Iraqis with all the same torture methods used under Saddam, including rape and pulling out nails with pliers, often just to extract ransom money from their families (23) – (25). Iraqi forces frequently fire on and kill unarmed demonstrators; while US trained Iraqi Special Forces summarily execute suspected insurgents or dissidents the same way they did under Saddam (26) – (30).

The supporters of the Iraq war do have a point in asking how the Arab Spring would have turned out if Saddam had still been in power. The results might, as they suggest, have been bloody, as in Syria, but then that would be no more bloody than the occupation or the sectarian fighting and Iraqi government brutality during and since it.

While life has improved for many Kurds and Marsh Arabs, with the southern marshes now partially restored, the Marsh Arabs were at war with occupation forces for years ; and disputes between the Kurdish regional government and the Iraqi central government over whether the former can negotiate contracts with foreign oil companies or only the central government can do so has been added to Sectarian violence between Kurds and Sunni Arabs who settled in Kurdistan under Saddam. This could produce civil war if a compromise is not reached.

It’s certainly to be hoped that life will improve for Iraqis, but the outlook isn’t good – and if it does improve it will be despite the invasion and occupation and NATO and the Gulf monarchies encouraging a Sunni-Shia civil war across the Middle East, not because of them.

(1) = Sunday Herald 28 Apr 2013 ‘Iraq well on the road to stability’, http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/letters/iraq-well-on-the-road-to-stability.20907120

(2) = Independent ‘Eagle Eye’ 26 Jul 2010 ‘Iraq, land of opportunity’,
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/07/26/iraq-land-of-opportunity/

(3) = Reuters 20 Mar 2013 ‘Al-Qaida claims responsibility for Iraq anniversary bombings’,
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/us-iraq-violence-qaeda-idUSBRE92J09C20130320

(4) = BBC News 15 Apr 2013 ‘Iraq deadly bombings hit Nasariyah, Kirkuk and Baghdad’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22149863

(5) = Washington Post 30 Apr 2013 ‘Wave of bombings further tests Iraq’s stability’,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/wave-of-bombings-further-tests-iraqs-stability/2013/04/29/558ea356-b0fb-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html

(6) = BBC World Service 13 May 2009 ‘Awakening Councils face uncertain future’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/05/090513_awakening_wt_sl.shtml ; ‘Sunni Awakening Councils, or Sahwa, were paid by the Americans to keep the peace in their neighbourhoods. Often former insurgents who had fought with al-Qaeda, they turned against their former allies and drove them out of much of Iraq. However, the Shia-dominated government has taken over responsibility for the groups and many Sahwa members say they are now being sidelined.’

(7) = McCLatchy Newspapers 01 Apr 2013 ‘Iraqi government at odds with U.S.-funded militias’, http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Iraqi-government-at-odds-with-U-S-funded-militias-1433562.php ; ‘the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils… undercutting support for… al-Qaida in Iraq …Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government. But the Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest.’

(8) = The Hill 29 Jun 2012 ‘Pentagon condemns return of al Qaeda in Iraq, promises 'unrelenting' response’,
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/240877-pentagon-condemns-return-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq-promises-unrelenting-response

(9) = Council On Foreign Relations 18 Mar 2013 ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’,
http://www.cfr.org/iraq/al-qaeda-iraq/p14811

(10) = Washington Post 16 May 2012 ‘Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination’,  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-rebels-get-influx-of-arms-with-gulf-neighbors-money-us-coordination/2012/05/15/gIQAds2TSU_story.html

(11) = Sunday Times 09 Dec 2012 ‘Covert US plan to arm rebels’,
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1173125.ece

(12) = Reuters 14 Nov 2011 ‘Syria urges Arab League to reconsider suspension’,
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=245466  ; ‘Gabriel Ben-Dor, director of national security studies at the University of Haifa… Ben-Dor said the decision should also be viewed within the context of Arab and Western attempts to contain an emboldened Iran.…“They’re hoping to dismantle the axis of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah... to isolate Iran even more by depriving it of its only major ally in the Middle East.”’

(13) = guardian.co.uk 09 Apr 2013 ‘Al-Qaida in Iraq admits links to Syrian jihadist fighters’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/09/alqaida-iraq-admits-jabhat-alnusra

(14) = BBC News 10 Apr 2013 ‘Syria crisis: Al-Nusra pledges allegiance to al-Qaeda’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22095099

(15) = BBC News 27 Nov 2011 ‘Syria unrest: Arab League adopts sanctions in Cairo’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15901360

(16) = Zogby Research Services November 2011 ‘Iraq: The War, its consequences and the future’, http://aai.3cdn.net/2212d2d41f760d327e_fxm6vtlg7.pdf

(17) = Greenberg Quinlan Rossner Research May 2012 ‘A Major Shift in the Political Landscape - Graphs for the report on the April 2012 National Survey’,
http://www.ndi.org/files/NDI-Iraq%20-%20April%202012%20National%20Survey%20-%20Presentation.pdf , page 28

(18) = Gallup 12 March 2013 ‘Iraqis Say Security Better as Result of U.S. Withdrawal’,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/161312/iraqis-say-security-better-result-withdrawal.aspx

(19) = Reuters 19 Jun 2011 ‘Iraq hunting $17 billion missing after U.S. invasion’,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/19/us-iraq-usa-money-idUSTRE75I20S20110619

(20) = New York Times Magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(21) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Falluja siege’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(22) = Iraq Body Count 26 Oct 2004 ‘No Longer Unknowable: Falluja's April Civilian Toll is 600’, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/9/

(23) = Amnesty International Annual Report 2012 – Iraq – Torture and other ill-treatment,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iraq/report-2012#section-4-5 ‘Torture and other ill-treatment were widespread in prisons and detention centres, in particular those controlled by the Ministries of Interior and Defence. Commonly reported methods were suspension by the limbs for long periods, beatings with cables and hosepipes, electric shocks, breaking of limbs, partial asphyxiation with plastic bags, and rape or threats of rape.’

(24) =  Amnesty International World Report 2010 (covering 2009) – Country Report Iraq, http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=123 ;(once pdf loads, scroll down to page 125 (by PDF page number) or 178 (number marked on page); ‘Iraqi security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, torture...and did so largely with impunity....Torture methods reported included beatings with cables and hosepipes, suspension by the limbs for long periods...electric shocks to the genitals...breaking of limbs, removal of toenails with pliers and piercing the body with drills. Some detainees were alleged to have been raped….In May inmates of the womens’ prison in al Kadhimiya told members of the parliament’s human rights committee that they had been raped while held in prison or detained elsewhere’

(25) = Guardian 16 Jan 2012 ‘Corruption in Iraq: 'Your son is being tortured. He will die if you don't pay'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/16/corruption-iraq-son-tortured-pay

(26) = Amnesty International Annual Report 2012 – Iraq – Excessive Use of Force,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iraq/report-2012#section-4-6 , ‘The security forces used excessive force in response to anti-government protests in Baghdad and other cities, particularly in February and March, using live ammunition, sound bombs and other weapons to disperse peaceful protests. At least 20 people were killed in the protests that began in February.’

(27) = guardian.co.uk 04 Mar 2011 ‘Baghdad protesters converge on Liberation Square’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/baghdad-protesters-iraq-driving-ban ; Security forces around Iraq clashed with protesters last Friday in the country's most widespread and violent demonstrations since a wave of unrest began to spread across the Middle East. At least 14 people were killed

(28) = Reuters 23 Apr 2013 ‘Tensions high after Iraq forces raid Sunni camp, 23 dead’,
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/uk-iraq-protests-idUKBRE93M07F20130423

(29) = Amnesty International 25 Apr 2013 ‘Iraq: Rein in security forces following the killings of dozens at protest in al-Hawija’,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE14/006/2013/en/9e32213c-789c-48a7-81ca-083659d185e6/mde140062013en.html

(30) = The Nation 22 Jun 2009 ‘Iraq's New Death Squad’,
http://www.thenation.com/article/iraqs-new-death-squad

Thatcher and Thatcherism didn't save Britain – They've caused the problems it has today ; the Falklands War was as avoidable as Iraq ; and Thatcher didn’t promote freedom but backed and armed dictatorships

I won’t celebrate anyone’s death, but Prime Minister David Cameron’s claim that Thatcher “saved our country” and the £10 million state funeral (of which taxpayers will pay at least half the costs) are party political propaganda and a slap in the face to all the unemployed and disabled people facing benefit cuts today (1) – (2). The message is “She mattered, you don’t”.

Thatcherites, like Thatcher, are not revolutionaries but reactionaries who want to go back to the 19^th century when there was no welfare state or government regulation

Thatcherites see themselves as radical reformers going up against “the establishment” and “vested interests”. For Thatcher this meant trade unions and public sector professionals like teachers, nurses, doctors and lecturers. For brave Chancellor George Osborne, a public school and Oxford University educated millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer, it means the vast oppressive charities and churches who help the poorest (4).

Thatcherites aim to roll back all the progress made by Atlee’s post-war Labour government and take us back to the 19^th century with no trade unions, no employee rights, no welfare state and no NHS (these “only encourage dependency”) – back to the poorhouse, the workhouse and the poor dying of hunger, cold or illness and being blamed for their own suffering.

It’s new only in rejecting the One Nation conservatism of politicians like Ian Gilmour MP (who condemned Thatcher’s policies and record in his book ‘Dancing With Dogma) and Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.

From On Yer Bike in the 80s to Workers and Shirkers today –
Different Decade, Same Thatcherite attempt to impose ideology over reality

The current Conservative government even continues to claim that it hopes its welfare “reforms” will “encourage people to work” even when it’s own (fiddled) figures show over 5 times more people unemployed (2.52 million) than job vacancies (494,000) (5) – (6). (The actual ratio is higher as the unemployment figures are fiddled downwards by using methods including counting people on unpaid temporary “workfare” placements as “employed”  (7).)

So basic arithmetic shows there are no jobs available for over 80% of unemployed people in the UK ; but Thatcherites have never let facts or logic get in the way of an ideology which pretends that the most powerful and wealthiest have no responsibility for the massive effects of their actions, while the poorest and most vulnerable, who have no power or influence, are supposedly entirely to blame for every problem.

Osborne claims people on benefits are all “shirkers” who don’t work (when many do) and don’t work by choice (8) – (9).

So for the first time since 1945 benefits are being cut to punish all the supposed “shirkers” (inflation is 2.2%, but the rise in benefits this year is limited to 1% -a real terms cut) (10)

This is exactly the same crap that was shovelled by Thatcher and her ministers in the 80s, when, after being elected on a campaign that promised to get unemployment down, they increased it from 2 million to over 3 million – and then people like Norman Tebbit told the unemployed to “get on yer bike” and get a job.

Thatcher didn’t save Britain – she began the policies that led to our current problems

Far from saving Britain, Thatcher caused many of our current problems.

Setting  us on the road to the banking crisis

As the late Conservative MP Ian Gilmour pointed out, by raising interest rates to double figures to cool a financial sector boom in the South-East of England, Thatcher destroyed much of Britain’s manufacturing industry, which was pushed into recession by the resulting over-valuation of the pound (hurting exports) and unaffordable credit, leaving us over-reliant on the financial sector, which she began the deregulation of with the 1986 ‘Big Bang’ (this being the main cause of the boom, which was as much a bubble as the one that burst recently) (11) - (12).

Destroying key industries due to blinkered ideology

She closed down our steel industry, while other countries, like Germany, continued subsidising steel and other key industries, even under conservative Chancellors like Helmut Kohl. As a result Germany’s economy remains stronger and its unemployment lower than ours.

(And in fact as Nobel prize winning South Korean economist Ha Joon Chang has shown with copious historical examples, every single developed country got that way by subsidising and protecting industries until they were strong enough to compete internationally (13))

Selling off assets that provided revenue to government

She sold off valuable assets like British Gas and British Telecom, losing the government revenue which could have funded the NHS, public education and the welfare state.  While it’s likely ideology was the main driving force for these privatisations, they also funded short term income tax cuts which helped her win elections. No wonder former Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan accused her of “selling the family silver”. In fact it was worse than that. She sold the geese that laid the golden eggs.

Deregulation and privatisation leading to consumers being fleeced

Her privatisation and deregulation of every economic sector led not to greater competition but to oligopoly – sectors dominated by a few large companies which took over smaller firms or pushed them out of business, before charging customers whatever they like due to informal price fixing or simple profiteering. For instance today a handful of energy companies dominate Britain’s market for electricity and gas for the domestic and business markets.

While benefits for the poorest are cut and capped, these companies are allowed to charge whatever they like. They have doubled their profit margin by percentage on their average customer between 2011 and the first quarter of 2013 – under two years. The gap between their own costs and the prices they charge to customers rises constantly. The heads of these companies are rewarded with knighthoods (14) – (16).

This is Thatcherism again. Those who have wealth are assumed always to deserve it, while those who are poor are assumed to be poor because they are lazy or spendthrifts. In reality some of the wealthiest people in Britain started off with wealth or a family with connections to get them jobs on the boards of big firms – and then used their own wealth, or the company’s, or the bank’s, to buy political influence with donations to party funds, effectively exempting their company or their entire sector from any significant regulation. (And no, I’m not saying this is true of anyone who has more money than average, some did work hard for it and take risks and pay their employees fair wages).

Selling off council houses without replacing them –
meaning we have to pay housing benefit for rent for private landlords

She began the sale of council houses, without buying or building replacements. Today, due to the shortage of council houses, councils spend a fortune renting social housing from private landlords or paying housing benefits that go to those landlords in rent.

This is the main reason for high benefits payments to some families – because most of it goes on housing benefit that goes straight into the pocket of private landlords – but David Cameron’s Thatcherite government is capping the benefits payments to people stuck in this situation as if this was their fault, rather than buying and building enough council houses (17).

Every Daily Mail or Sun headline about asylum seekers or people on benefits living in mansions is a result of this policy, begun by Thatcher, but rather than blame her and her successors in government, they blame weak, powerless, easy targets instead.

Thatcher and the Falklands War –
Not a war hero but either incompetent
or else deliberately engineering
a war that wouldn’t have happened otherwise

The attempt to present her as a great war leader in relation to the Falklands, with 800 members of the military to be present at her funeral, is especially hard to reconcile with the historical facts.

When the Argentinians began talking of taking the Falklands in 1977, Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan and Foreign Secretary David Owen were persuaded by military chiefs to send a Royal Navy fleet to the South Atlantic to signal Britain would fight any invasion. The Argentinians backed down. In a similar situation in 1982 Thatcher’s government withdrew the last Royal Navy ship from the area during spending cuts, leading the Argentine military junta to believe Britain would not fight for the islands (18) – (19). They invaded – and then Thatcher declared war. Hundreds died as a result.

Some suggest that Thatcher, then the most unpopular Prime Minister in British history, after increasing unemployment to over 3 million, wanted a war to restore her popularity (20).

It’s impossible to know whether this was the result of blind ideology in imposing spending cuts and incompetence in not caring where they were made, or whether Thatcher wanted the Argentinians to believe Britain wouldn’t fight in order to get a war to restore her political fortunes. Either way she was responsible for an easily avoidable war and all the deaths in it. By any rational standard she should be condemned for not preventing war as simply and easily as Callaghan did rather than lauded for winning a war against an inferior military.

In the case of the 1990-1991 Gulf War against Iraq, which Thatcher committed British troops to shortly before her party got her to resign over the poll tax, there is no such doubt. The Bush (senior) administration and the Kuwaiti monarchy duped Saddam into war with the US over Kuwait. Bush and his advisers sought to repeat Thatcher’s feat of going from unpopularity on domestic unemployment and recession to election victory on a tide of war fuelled nationalism ; they failed.

The Poll Tax

The poll tax, which resulted in Thatcher’s resignation, was a local council tax under which everyone paid exactly the same amount irrespective of their income. It caused riots the last time it had been tried by an English ruler, in 1381, resulting in the peasants’ revolt. The Conservatives, who supposedly want everyone to know the history of Britain, seemed to be massively ignorant of it – they thought the poll tax was going to be hugely popular. Instead, as in 1381, it brought mass non-payment and riots. Thatcher, whose supporters claim she was acting on behalf of the “ordinary person in the street” showed she had no more clue what many of them wanted than medieval English kings knew of peasants’ needs.

A lover of freedom? Thatcher’s foreign policy

We’re told Thatcher was a “lover of freedom”. This is only true if you interpret freedom in the narrow neo-liberal sense of freedom for companies, banks and those with lots of money to do what they like – pay less tax due to tax cuts, avoid tax through tax havens, avoid regulation, charge customers whatever they want to, etc.

She certainly opposed Communism, but her role in it’s downfall, like Reagan’s, was negligible. Dissidents and protesters in the Soviet bloc did far more, as did Gorbachev – and before him Brezhnev by spending so much on the Soviet military that he drove the USSR’s economy into the ground. Her support for “freedom” elsewhere wasn’t just non-existent – she was supporting , training and arming the forces of many dictatorships.

General Pinochet aided the British war effort by allowing them to use Chilean ports. Thatcher treated him as an honoured friend after that, despite Pinochet having overthrown the elected government of President Salvador Allende in a military coup and having thousands of people tortured and killed.

She condemned Nelson Mandela’s ANC as terrorists and refused to place economic sanctions on Apartheid South Africa, though we are assured that in private she was putting verbal pressure on South African Presidents to free Mandela. Sanctions would have made considerably more difference and much sooner.

Thatcher’s government also provided training, tens of millions of pounds of money and dozens of jet fighter bombers to Mugabe’s military as he was massacring members of the tribes of his political opponents by the thousand. Perence Shiri, one of the officers who headed the genocide was subsequently allowed to come to Britain to train at the Royal Defence College. The massacres were played down by the Foreign Office as “exaggerated” (21) – (22).

She even armed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and right up until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the middle of 1990; including selling him chemicals used as ingredients for chemical weapons, spare parts for tanks and attempting (but failing) to sell him hawk jets which could be used to bomb ground targets (as they later were in Indonesia) while Saddam was using chemical weapons on Iranians and Iraqi Kurds and carrying out his Anfal campaign of genocide against the latter. (23) - (24)

On top of this, British taxpayers ended up having to pay the £1 billion bill for Saddam’s purchases from British arms companies, as after the 1991 Gulf War there was no chance of his government paying – and Thatcher had approved the exports under Export Credit Guarantees  (25).

She signed the Al Yamamah oil for arms deal with the Saudi monarchy, which continues to be an absolute dictatorship imposing a medieval version of Islamic law – and torturing confessions out of suspects before executing them by beheading. Her son Mark Thatcher had a £1 million house purchased for him by a company based on a tax haven and owned by Wafic Said, a dodgy Middle Eastern arms deal broker. Said also gave Mark a £14,000 Rolex watch. Said’s wife donated large amounts to the Conservative party before the 2010 election . Mark Thatcher has denied rumours that he received millions more as part of the deal (26) – (27).

Margaret Thatcher also sent the SAS to train the mass murdering Khmer Rouge’s monarchist allies in laying land mines in the 1980s (28).

Supporting mass murdering dictators, monarchist allies of ultra-nationalist regimes guilty of genocide and governments which gave black people no rights whatsoever seem like strange ways to promote freedom, but then Thatcher never really supported freedom or democracy in the sense that most people use the words.

A Prime Minister who divided Britain – just like Major and Blair and Cameron

Thatcher was the first post-war Prime Minister to divide Britain, largely through strident English nationalism thinly disguised as British nationalism, combined with constant attempts to divide the majority in order to make conquering them easier.

Those who had jobs were encouraged to hate those who were unemployed as supposedly all lazy scroungers, while Thatcher continued to drive unemployment higher and higher. Those who worked in the private sector were told they should disdain public sector employees and trade unions as supposedly selfish “vested interests” – and the working class were encouraged to hate the middle class as effete namby pamby liberals who were meant to be out of touch with reality and had more education than was good for them. Hatred of foreigners, minority nationalities, religions and ethnic groups, as well as refugees and asylum seekers was also encouraged.

This was all continued under Blair to some extent, with opposition to his policies also blamed on the “middle class” as if a bunch of former lawyers who were now on over £100,000 a year ministerial and Prime ministerial salaries weren’t middle class.

Under Cameron we are back to all the divide and conquer tactics used under Thatcher.

Thatcher’s period as Prime Minister did more than anything to boost support for Scottish and Welsh devolution and for independence for Scotland - and this has been cemented by the continuation of many of her policies by her successors.

If Thatcher’s supporters don’t want her death and funeral politicised they should stop trying to use it to re-write history as party political propaganda

The Conservative party claim no-one should denigrate Thatcher’s record at this time. If they didn’t want her death and funeral politicised perhaps they shouldn’t have tried to use it for party political ends and to try to justify their current shameful policy of taking from the disabled, the poor and the unemployed to fund tax cuts for millionaires.

Given the Thatcherite establishment’s shameless rewriting of history, politicisation of her death and funeral and attempt to use it to gain votes, the political opponents of the government have no option but to respond in kind. Margaret Thatcher has thousands of admirers who are senior politicians, journalists and editors telling her version of history and the present. They won’t be allowed to stop the millions of people who oppose Thatcherism, and those who suffered under Thatcher and her legacy under her successors, telling the other side of the story.

(1) = BBC News 08 Apr 2013 ‘David Cameron: Baroness Thatcher 'saved our country'’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22068771

(2) = Telegraph.co.uk 15 Apr 2013 ‘Margaret Thatcher's funeral: it would be extraordinary not to spend so much, says No 10’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9994872/Margaret-Thatchers-funeral-it-would-be-extraordinary-not-to-spend-so-much-says-No-10.html

(3) = ITV news 16 Apr 2013 ‘Poll: 60% oppose taxpayer funding of Thatcher funeral’,
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-04-13/poll-60-oppose-taxpayer-funding-of-thatcher-funeral/

(4) = BBC News 02 Apr 2013 ‘George Osborne: Benefit critics talk 'ill-informed rubbish'’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21998784

(5) = Office for National Statistics 20 Mar 2013 ‘Labour Market Statistics, March 2013’,  http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/march-2013/statistical-bulletin.html

(6) = Office for National Statistics 20 Mar 2013 ‘Labour Market Statistics, March 2013 - Vacancies’, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/march-2013/statistical-bulletin.html#tab-Vacancies

(7) = Guardian 15 Jan 2013 ‘Statistics cast doubt on coalition's '500,000 new jobs' claim’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/15/statistics-doubt-coalition-500000-jobs

(8) = BBC News 03 Apr 2013 ‘George Osborne: Benefit critics talk 'ill-informed rubbish'’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21998784

(9) = Guardian 22 Oct 2012 ‘Extra 10,000 working people a month reliant on housing benefit, says report’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/22/working-people-housing-benefit-report

(10) = Guardian 01 Apr 2013 ‘The day Britain changes: welfare reforms and coalition cuts take effect’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/31/liberal-conservative-coalition-conservatives

 (11) = Ian Gilmour (1992) ‘Dancing with Dogma – Britain under Thatcherism’, Simon and Schuster, London, 1992, Chapter 4, pages 60 - 65

(12) = Observer 09 Oct 2011 ‘Big Bang's shockwaves left us with today's big bust’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/09/big-bang-1986-city-deregulation-boom-bust

(13) = Ha Joon Chang (2007) ‘Bad Samaritans’, Random House, London, 2008

(14) = Guardian 02 Dec 2011 ‘Big six energy firms face fresh accusations of profiteering’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/02/energy-firms-accusations-profiteering-electricity

(15) = Guardian 12 Apr 2013 ‘Big six energy firms accused of 'cold-blooded profiteering'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/12/big-six-energy-firms-accused-profiteering

(16) = BBC News 31 Dec 2010 ‘New Year Honours: Broughton and Carr business knights’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12093737

(17) = BBC News 15 Apr 2013 ‘Benefit cap 'will encourage people to work'’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22148764

(18) = BBC News 01 Jun 2005 ‘Secret Falklands fleet revealed’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4597581.stm

(19) = Freedman, Lawrence (2005) ‘Official History of the Falklands Campaign Volume 1’,
Routledge, 2005, chapters 8 – 9

(20) = Lenman, B. P. (1992) The Eclipse of Parliament: Appearance and Reality in British Politics since 1914 (London: Edward Arnold)

(21) = Campaign Against The Arms Trade ‘UK Arms Exports to Zimbabwe’ by Emily Mitchell, Section 3, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe , http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/countries/zimbabwe/ and
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/countries/zimbabwe/#3

(22) = Programme Transcript – Panorama, "The Price of Silence" , RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC 1-10 Mar 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_10_03_02.txt

(23) = Financial Times 29 Jul 1991 ‘Britain Exported Poisonous Gas Ingredients to Iraq’

(24) = Financial Times 30 Dec 2011 ‘UK secretly supplied Saddam’,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/52add2c4-30b4-11e1-9436-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2QfcSoZKo

 (25) = Guardian 28 Feb 2003 ‘How £1bn was lost when Thatcher propped up Saddam’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/28/iraq.politics1

(26) = Guardian 13 Apr 2013 ‘Mark Thatcher's return to the spotlight’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/11/mark-thatcher

(27) = Guardian 28 May 2010 ‘Questions raised over Conservative party donations by businessmen's wives’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/28/donations-tory-wives-businessmen

(28) = Pilger , John (1998) Hidden Agendas Vintage , London , 1998, pages 33-34 , 260-261 of paperback edition

Thatcher’s Falklands War got hundreds killed due either to incompetence or cynical manipulation – Callaghan avoided a war in identical circumstances 5 years earlier by sending a small fleet to the South Atlantic

The attempt to present Margaret Thatcher as a great war leader based on the Falklands War, with 800 members of the military to be present at her funeral, is bizarre once you know the historical facts.

When the Argentinians began talking of taking the Falklands in 1977, Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan and Foreign Secretary David Owen were persuaded by military chiefs to send a Royal Navy fleet to the South Atlantic to signal Britain would fight any invasion. In a similar situation in 1982 Thatcher’s government withdrew the last Royal Navy ship – the HMS Endurance - from the area during spending cuts, leading the Argentine military junta to believe Britain would not fight for the islands (1) – (2). They invaded – and then Thatcher declared war. Hundreds died as a result.

Some suggest that Thatcher, then the most unpopular Prime Minister in British history to that point, after increasing unemployment by over 50% to over 3 million after promising to reduce it during the 1979 election campaign, wanted a war to restore her popularity (3).

It’s impossible to know whether the decision to recall HMS Endurance was the result of blind ideology in imposing spending cuts and incompetence in not caring where they were made;  or whether Thatcher wanted the Argentinians to believe Britain wouldn’t fight in order to get a war to restore her political fortunes. If the latter she was betraying members of the British armed forces just as much as Blair with Iraq. Either way she was responsible for an easily avoidable war and all the deaths in it. By any rational standard she should be condemned for not preventing war as simply and easily as Callaghan did rather than lauded for winning a war against an inferior military that could have been avoided.

In the case of the 1990-1991 Gulf War against Iraq, which Thatcher committed British troops to shortly before her party got her to resign over the poll tax, there is no such doubt. The Bush (senior) administration and the Kuwaiti monarchy duped Saddam into war with the US over Kuwait. Bush and his advisers sought to repeat Thatcher’s feat of going from unpopularity on domestic unemployment and recession to election victory on a tide of war fuelled nationalism ; they failed.

(1) = BBC News 01 Jun 2005 ‘Secret Falklands fleet revealed’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4597581.stm

(2) = Freedman, Lawrence (2005) ‘Official History of the Falklands Campaign Volume 1’, Routledge, 2005, chapters 8 – 9

(3) = Lenman, B. P. (1992) The Eclipse of Parliament: Appearance and Reality in British Politics since 1914 (London: Edward Arnold)

Time for a debate on the system of private donations to party funds, public schools and Oxford University that creates vile politicians like George Osborne, David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith

Some might say that Chancellor George Osborne's use of the Phillpott case to try to justify taking benefits from the most vulnerable people in the country is a lot like when Bush used 9-11 as an excuse to invade Iraq, or when Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag to seize power and carry out the Holocaust - and if that seems like an outrageous statement to any of Osborne's supporters you'll now know how the rest of us feel about Osborne trying to use a psychopath’s crimes to take from the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country (1).

His attacks on the welfare state are morally wrong as they take from the most vulnerable people in the country while cutting taxes for the wealthiest and allowing tax evasion by them, big banks, or big firms through UK government approved tax havens in UK dependencies like the Channel Islands.

On top of that they are economic stupidity, especially in a recession, as people on benefits will spend every penny as they’re struggling to get by, boosting demand in the economy. By comparison tax cuts for the wealthiest will often lead to them saving more money, or transferring it to investments in other countries. So common sense and justice would suggest the government should be increasing taxes on the highest earners, closing down tax havens in UK dependencies and increasing benefits. Instead they’re doing the opposite.

So it’s time we had a debate on the systems of public schools and Oxford University, along with big private donations to political parties from billionaires big banks and big firms, that create vile politicians like David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne who attack the poorest to cut taxes for wealthy donors to party funds – and who try to use the deaths of children at the hands of a lunatic to try to justify this.

Philpott would have been a violent, manipulative and “vile” man whether the welfare state existed or not. George Osborne would also probably be a vile man whether private donations to party funds were allowed or not, but he might not be Chancellor of the Exchequer and he , Cameron and Duncan Smith might not have the power to take from the poorest to give to the richest.

There are plenty of sociopaths who have got to much higher positions than Philpott ever attained – for instance Roger Carr, the head of Centrica, who was given a knighthood for supposed services to the public in 2010 while his energy company is one of those which has been shown by studies by Manchester University to systematically over-charge customers over years. So we have a system where organised theft results in knighthoods.

Tony Blair, who got tens of thousands killed for nothing and ordered British forces to co-operate in US-led torture is similarly rewarded with a paid position as a UN envoy – and his bodyguards and their hotel rooms and flights are paid for at public expense while he works for the dictators of Kazakhstan (where protesters are shot dead) and Kuwait among others as a public relations adviser (4).

Time for a debate on the system that rewards these sociopaths with not just thousands a year but tens of millions and which allows them to gain positions of power so easily.

(1) = guardian.co.uk 04 Apr 2013 ‘Mick Philpott's benefits 'lifestyle' should be questioned, says Osborne’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/04/mick-philpott-benefits-lifestyle-questioned

(2) = BBC News 31 Dec 2010 ‘New Year Honours: Broughton and Carr business knights’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12093737

(3) = Guardian 02 Dec 2011 ‘Big six energy firms face fresh accusations of profiteering’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/02/energy-firms-accusations-profiteering-electricity

(4) = Independent 29 Dec 2011 ‘Bullets, beatings and Blair's brutal friend in Kazakhstan’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bullets-beatings-and-blairs-brutal-friend-in-kazakhstan-6282490.html

Why sanctions on Iraq could have been ended without any war of invasion or occupation ; no threat from Saddam’s regime to Iraqis or other countries existed by 2000; the genocide against the Marsh Arabs was largely over by the late 90s and could have been ended by air strikes in the Southern No-Fly Zone

The tenth anniversary of the Iraq war has seen the repetition of many excuses for the invasion. One of the commonest is that UN sanctions on Iraq killed millions of Iraqi civilians, with the pretence that sanctions which killed millions of Iraqis through shortages of food and medicines couldn’t be lifted or else Saddam’s regime would become a serious threat. Another is that it was necessary to end Saddam's genocides and massacres. These are lies; the US could have stopped Saddam's genocides and massacres but either kept supporting him (while he committed genocide against the Kurds) or did nothing (while he massacred Shia and Marsh Arabs); and sanctions could have been lifted at any time ; here’s why.

Saddam couldn’t even defeat Iran in the 8 year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s; and that was with almost the entire world’s governments supporting him with arms, funding, intelligence and political support. This included as Saddam used chemical weapons on Iranians and in his genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, even after Halabja (see post on this link for sources and more details).

(The Halabja attack used US Apache Bell helicopters, whose sale was approved by the Reagan administration, supposedly for “crop spraying”, even though they already knew Saddam was using chemical weapons (1) – (3). After Halabja the US government issued one statement of condemnation, then continued supporting Saddam and suggested that maybe the Iranians had done it (4).)

Saddam showed during the 1991 war that he didn’t dare to use chemical weapons on other countries or the Iraqi Kurds after 1991. He had chemical warheads for his scud missiles, but only used conventional warheads (5).

He could only massacre Shia rebels and their families in Southern Iraq (including Marsh Arabs) at the end of the 1991 war because Bush senior ordered his troops not to intervene ; a massacre that would never have happened if Bush hadn’t given Iraqis the false impression that his forces would aid them if they rebelled (he actually wanted a military regime to replace Saddam) (for details and sources see this post).

Saddam did carry out one horrific campaign of torture, massacres and genocide against Iraqis after 1991; against the Marsh Arabs and other Shia rebels and their families who fled to the southern marshes in 1991 (6).

However US and British aircraft patrolling the Southern No-Fly Zone could have stopped most of this by bombing Saddam’s artillery, trucks, tanks and bulldozers; but made no attempt to do so, probably for the same reason Bush senior didn’t help the other Shia rebels ; the Marsh Arabs are also mostly Shia and so they were seen as potential allies of Iran (7).

Throughout the 1990s Saddam’s forces shelled Marsh Arab villages and towns with tanks, artillery and mortars, including chemical weapons according to some reports, drained the marshes by diverting rivers, killed many rebels, bulldozed houses, left many civilians to die in deserts; and forcibly relocated most of those who didn’t leave to live elsewhere in Iraq, or weren’t among the unknown number who were killed (one estimate being 120,000), or the estimated 40,000 to 120,000 who fled to Iran (8) – (11).

By comparison dozens of Coalition offensives on Iraqi cities during the occupation killed hundreds of civilians in each assault – e.g  600 in the April 2004 assault on Falluja alone (12). Coalition offensives, Saddam’s earlier campaigns and sectarian fighting had left 2.8 million Iraqis “internally displaced people” (homeless refugees inside Iraq) and 2.2 million refugees in other countries at the highest point (during the occupation in the late 2000s). Today an estimated 1.3 million Iraqis remain “internally displaced” and 1.4 million are refugees in other countries While some have returned home , unfortunately other reasons for the reduced numbers include Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria deciding it’s even more dangerous there (13) – (15).

By the end of the 1990s Saddam’s campaign of genocide against the Marsh Arabs was complete. All but an estimated 20,000 Marsh Arabs were gone from the area they had lived in, compared to an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 in 1991, the last major rebellion being crushed in 1998. Only 1,600 still lived in their traditional reed houses on floating platforms in the marshes (16) – (18).

That’s why Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch concluded in 2004 that the 2003 invasion of Iraq “was not a humanitarian intervention” as no massacres or genocide were being planned or carried out by Saddam’s forces (19).

He could have added that none had been carried out or planned for over a decade. Any war was now bound to kill far, far more Iraqis than Saddam was killing. That’s before we even get into the constant firing on civilians and ambulances in many US offensives on Iraqi cities during the occupation which led western aid workers and Iraqi doctors and civilians to conclude they were being deliberately targeted – e.g Fallujah in April 2004 and in Samarra in October 2004 ; or the US trained Iraqi paramilitary torture and death squads, of which more in my next post  (20) – (21).

(Many Marsh Arabs, who have survived only by becoming bandits or extortionists, also went to war with Coalition forces after the invasion in a rebellion against attempts to disarm them – many joining Al Sadr’s Madhi army or other anti-occupation militias. (22)

Dennis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, two successive heads of the sanctions programme who resigned in protest over it, said it was not Saddam's regime causing the starvation and shortage of medicines under sanctions, but that the sanctions imposed a limit on oil sales too low to support Iraq’s population ; both opposed the war (23) – (25).

The UN sanctions on Iraq had been demanded by the US and British governments at the end of the 1991 war – a war which began with an invasion of Kuwait which resulted largely from US and Kuwaiti co-operation to put economic pressure on Iraq by slant-drilling across the border into Iraq, by Kuwait exceeding it’s agreed OPEC quotas for oil sales and by it demanding immediate repayment of loans made to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (see this post for sources and details).

We’ve already shown that their reason for not wanting them lifted was not that this would end Saddam’s “containment” and allow him to conquer the Middle East or massacre Iraqi rebels again.

The real reasons were avoiding loss of face; and ensuring US and British firms got oil contracts on favourable terms. The US had punished Saddam in 1991 and put him on their enemies list. If his regime now survived, the US would look weak and this would encourage other governments to defy it.

Even worse, after the 1991 war Saddam had negotiated oil contracts with Russian, French and Chinese oil companies. If sanctions were lifted and Saddam survived in power they would get the oil contracts, with US and British firms excluded.

As the Washington Post reported on the 15th of September 2002 ‘A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition...."It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."’ (26).

The US however failed to get the Oil Law it wanted the Iraqi parliament to pass during the occupation (it’s main reason for it’s war with the Shia Iraqi nationalist Al Sadr, whose Shia Sadrist MPs joined Sunni parties’ MPs in opposing the oil law;) and as a result failed to get contracts on the terms it wanted for most US oil companies (27).

Anglo-American oil giant BP  has managed to get a very lucrative contract for one giant Iraqi oil field on terms extremely favourable to it ; and is seeking others in Iraqi Kurdistan which is in disputes with the central government in Baghdad over the regional government negotiating oil contracts rather than the central government ; and over how favourable the terms of contracts are to oil companies (28) – (31). BP took over the US oil firm Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana and one of the ‘Seven Sisters’ oil giants) in 2001.

Oil and arms company profits and global power were the US aims in Iraq, not protecting Iraqis or promoting democracy – as I’ll show in my next post on how US and Coalition forces and the new Iraqi government still torture and kill Iraqis using all Saddam’s methods short of actual genocide.

 (1) = Mark  Phythian (1997) Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine, Boston: Northeastern University Press

(2) = Washington Post $1.5 Billion in U.S. Sales to Iraq; Technology Products Approved Up to Day Before Invasion’,

(3) = LA Times 13 Feb 1991 ‘Iraq Arms: Big Help From U.S. : Technology was sold with approval--and encouragement--from the Commerce Department but often over Defense officials' objections.’, http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-13/news/mn-1097_1_commerce-department-approved-millions/3 , page 3 of online version of article

(4) = Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting 01 Sep 2002 ‘The Washington Post's Gas Attack -Today's outrage was yesterday's no big deal’, http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-washington-posts-gas-attack/

(5) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216 (Nye is a former member of the Clinton administration)

(6) = Chicago Tribune 05 Aug 1993 ‘Briton: Iraq Is Wiping Out Arabs In Marshes’,
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-08-05/news/9308050117_1_marshes-chemical-weapons-arabs ; 3^rd Paragraph ‘She said doctors and other experts aiding the Arabs estimate that 120,000 may die from the terror campaign being waged against them by the regime of Saddam Hussein. There are an estimated 200,000 marsh Arabs, and she said more than 300,000 other people from nearby towns and cities fled to the marshes for refuge when Hussein crushed a Shiite Muslim uprising after the Persian Gulf war.’

(7) = Guardian.co.uk 19 Nov 1998 ‘Rebellion in southern marshes is crushed’ ,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1998/nov/17/2

(8) = See (6) above

(9) = See (7) above

(10) = BBC News 03 Mar 2003 ‘Iraq's 'devastated' Marsh Arabs’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm ; 6^th to 7^th paragraphs

(11) = The Oregonian 14 May 2003 ‘IRAQ'S MARSH ARABS, MODERN SUMERIANS’,
http://www.simplysharing.com/sumerians.htm

(12) = Iraq Body Count 26 Oct 2004 ‘No Longer Unknowable: Falluja's April Civilian Toll is 600’, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/9/

(13) = Internal Displacement Monitoring Center ‘Iraq: Response still centred on return despite increasing IDP demands for local integration’,  http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/iraq

(14) = 2013 UNHCR country operations profile – Iraq,
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486426.html

(15) = BBC News 29 Oct 2012 ‘Iraqi refugees flee Syrian conflict to return home’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20131033

(16) = Juan Cole (2008) ‘Marsh Arab Rebellion : Grievance, Mafias and Militias in Iraq’ Fourth Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture, (Bloomington, Indiana : Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2008),   Page 7,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/iraq/iraqtribes4.pdf

(17) = BBC News 03 Mar 2003 ‘Iraq's 'devastated' Marsh Arabs’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm ; 7^th to 8^th paragrahs

(18) = Guardian.co.uk 19 Nov 1998 ‘Rebellion in southern marshes is crushed’ , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1998/nov/17/2

(19) = Human Rights Watch 26 Jan 2004 ‘War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention’,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/01/25/war-iraq-not-humanitarian-intervention

(20) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Fallujah siege’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(21) = Independent 04 Oct 2004 ‘Civilians Bear Brunt as Samarra 'Pacified'’,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1004-02.htm (no longer exists on the Independent newspaper’s website – is this connected to Tony Blair’s biographer and apologist John Rentoul being the paper’s Politics Editor?)

(22) = Juan Cole (2008) ‘Marsh Arab Rebellion : Grievance, Mafias and Militias in Iraq’ Fourth Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture, (Bloomington, Indiana : Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2008),   Pages 7-17,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/iraq/iraqtribes4.pdf

(23) = BBC News 30 Sep 1998 ‘UN official blasts Iraq sanctions’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

(24) = BBC News 14 Feb 2000 ‘UN sanctions rebel resigns’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/642189.stm

(25) = Guardian 29 Nov 2001 ‘The hostage nation - Former UN relief chiefs Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday speak out against an attack on Iraq’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/29/iraq.comment

(26) = Washington Post 15 Sep 2002, 'In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue : U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool',
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/177755831.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Sep+15%2C+2002&author=Dan+Morgan++and++David+B.+Ottaway&pub=The+Washington+Post&edition=&startpage=A.01&desc=In+Iraqi+War+Scenario%2C+Oil+Is+Key+Issue%3B+U.S.+Drillers+Eye+Huge+Petroleum+Pool ; or read full version at
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0915-03.htm

(27) = Greg Muttitt (2011) ‘Fuel on the Fire – Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq’, Bodley-Head 2011

(28) = Observer 31 Jul 2011 ‘BP 'has gained stranglehold over Iraq' after oilfield deal is rewritten’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/31/bp-stranglehold-iraq-oilfield-contract

(29) = Wall Street Journal Online 27 Jan 2013 ‘Iraq, BP Considering Kirkuk Field Deal’,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578247013430825632.html

(30) = BBC News 20 Mar 2013 ‘Kurdish oil exports stall in row over revenue-sharing’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21793783

(31) = CNN 12 Dec 2011 ‘Oil power struggle as U.S. leaves Iraq’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/12/world/meast/iraq-oil