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)

Governments' war propaganda is the main reason why people doubt every call for humanitarian intervention

It’s best to retain some scepticism about some claims by governments and defectors from Gaddafi’s government, given the use of propaganda over the decades to get public support for wars and military coups.For instance in 1953 in Iran the CIA and MI6 hired mobs to chant pro-Communist and pro-Mossadeq slogans while smashing shop windows and attacking people, in order to give the false impression that Mossadeq’s supporters were mostly Communists and violent (1). Propaganda can even sometimes initially be spread by human rights groups and aid organisations before they find out it’s false. In 1991 there was the notoriously false story about babies being thrown out of incubators to die in Kuwait by invading Iraqi troops. In fact this never happened and the story was invented by the Hill & Knowlton public relations company hired by the Kuwaiti monarchy, with the key “witness” telling the story to congress being a member of the ruling Kuwaiti Al Sabah family and the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US. The babies thrown from incubators story was also published in an Amnesty International report based on what the Kuwaiti Red Crescent told them, before they carried out interviews with staff in the hospital involved and found out it was false. Hill & Knowlton also hired seven other people to assume false identities and give false testimony to the UN on supposedly eyewitness accounts of human rights abuses by Saddam’s forces  (2) – (3). The American media also declined to publish satellite images showing that President Bush (senior)’s claims of an Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border were false (4)  Similar “public relations”  (often a euphemism for lying) would be used by the Bush junior administration to sell the 2003 invasion. (Of course I’m not suggesting here that Saddam’s dictatorship didn’t torture, rape or murder large numbers of people – while the US government was arming, funding and supporting it and once it was at war with it).

(We can put Gaddafi’s supposedly proven guilt for the Lockerbie bombing in the same propaganda category. Megrahi’s trial was a sham and no-one knows who carried out the Lockerbie bombing.)

That's why I can't say I know for certain what is going on in Libya, only to try to make informed guesses based on past events and recent reports – and parallels with events elsewhere currently and in the past. There is no maxim truer than that ‘in war, truth is the first casualty’. If we were to wait for absolute certainty though, we would be too late to prevent the killings of civilians which the balance of probabilities suggests are taking place.

The main motives of governments backing and opposing intervention in Libya are mostly selfish and about their own poll ratings, their firms’ profits and access to oil contracts and energy supplies, but Gaddafi is as much a dictator as Mubarak and the rest and we should support the rebels and protesters who want to overthrow him, especially as, wherever he’s winning, anyone in the town is taken away as a suspected rebel – and on past practice that means they’ll be in jail for decades, or more likely summarily executed. (It’s worth noting though that both Cameron and Sarkozy, the two heads of government most keen on a no-fly zone in Libya, also have mass unemployment at home and plummeting poll ratings – and may well hope a wave of patriotic fervor will save them at the next election if they use their militaries against Gaddafi (as Thatcher used hers in the Falklands war when she similarly had terrible poll ratings due to increasing unemployment from 2 million to over 3 million). Meanwhile the Italian government – which gets over 30% of its energy from Libya – is not keen at all to risk disrupting this by a change of government in Libya. EU countries’ reliance on Russian gas imports – especially Germany – may be another reason for most of the EU opposing a no-fly zone (5) – (9).

It’s also entirely rational to doubt the motives of the US and other governments for calls for intervention and war criminals to be brought to justice and Gaddafi’s dictatorship overthrown, given their failure to make similar calls about dictatorships (and democracies) allied to them who have had unarmed protesters shot or killed by police and thugs – in Egypt, in Bahrain, in Oman, Yemen and Iraq (though these killings seem to be smaller scale in most cases – though over 300 in Egypt until Mubarak handed over to Suleiman and the military - they are definitely against entirely unarmed protesters, whole some reports from Libya say some protesters in Zawiyah were armed with guns, though this was after Gaddafi’s forces had fired on protesters in Benghazi) (10) – (17). They made no such calls during Israeli war crimes which killed over 700 civilians in the 2008 -2009 Israeli war on Gaza – and they have committed war crimes including targeting civilians and using methods which kill civilians along with combatants in large numbers in air strikes and drone strikes and night raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan, just as they did during the Kosovo war (18) – (21). They’re making no calls for intervention while the Saudi military has drivne into Bahrain and is killing democracy protesters in a kind of Middle Eastern version of the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring (the Emir of Bahrain may have “requested their assistance”, but he is a dictator not an elected head of government – and even if he didn’t want them there, he has little choice in the matter given Saudi’s greater military strength). (22) – (23) .

NATO’s “Humanitarian Intervention” in Kosovo

Jamie Shea - NATO's spokesman during the 1999 Kosovo war

In Kosovo NATO claimed to be intervening to stop Yugoslav (mostly Serbian) military and police killings of Kosovan Albanians. Yet the KLA had been killing Serbs to try to provoke such attacks for years and had been described as terrorists by the US state department until a few months before the war. The Rambouillet Accord, which the US demanded the Yugoslav government accept before the war stipulated that ‘The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles’ (chapter 4 article 1) and also basically demanded the entire country allow immediate occupation by NATO forces (Appendix B).John Norris , an adviser to US deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (who was chief US negotiator at Rambouillet) wrote that ‘It was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform—not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians—that best explains NATO’s war.’ So the war was at least as much about free market “economic reform” as “humanitarian intervention” (24) – (26).

NATO air forces committed a mixture of deliberate atrocities and indiscriminate bombing carried out because they were under orders to bomb from 50,000 feet. This ensured NATO pilots were safe from being shot down, but resulted in them bombing many of the same Albanian refugees they were meant to be saving, partly due to mis-identifying their tractors as Serbian tanks; and partly due to some Serbian soldiers locking refugees in a village they were in, which they knew NATO planned to bomb (27) – (29).

The deliberate atrocities included targeting Serbian state television on the grounds that its broadcasts encouraged genocide against Albanians. This succeeded in killing such supposed mass murderers as an elderly night watchman and a make up lady. The targeting of the Serbian Communist Party headquarters in Belgrade on similar grounds accidentally hit a hospital, killing patients. NATO forces also managed to bomb the Chinese, Russian and Indian embassies in Belgrade. This was explained as an accident. It was a remarkable co-incidence that all three governments had just voted against a US motion in the UN Security Council to give them UN authorisation for military action in Kosovo. This was not under the notorious Bush administration, but under the supposedly moderate and internationalist Clinton administration. This doesn’t even go into the bombing of bridges and town centres with cluster bombs on market day, or planes returning to target those trying to help the survivors and wounded (27) – (29).

Some will argue that despite all this the military action stopped massacres and ethnic cleansing once NATO ground troops moved in. Unfortunately that’s not true. It just changed how was ethnically cleansing and murdering who. Serbian military, police and paramilitary killings of Kosovan Albanians mostly ended. However KLA murders, kidnappings and ethnic cleansing of Serb and Roma civilians grew rapidly as recorded by Human Rights Watch and investigative journalists on the ground like Robert Fisk. These had begun before NATO intervention, partly in order to provoke Serb forces to carry out atrocities that would bring NATO in. Up until NATO began the push for military intervention they described the KLA (fairly accurately) as a terrorist group. The KLA are also involved in trafficking Afghan heroin to western Europe, including the UK, kidnapping people to sell their organs; and kidnapping women and girls as forced prostitutes (something ‘private contractors’ for the US state department and UN funded Albanian militia units have also been involved in). One of the most notorious KLA thugs is Hashim Thaci. The Clinton administration chose to back Thaci and the worst elements of the KLA rather than Kosovan Albanian nationalist and pacifist Ibrahim Rugova and his LDK party to become the new government of Kosovo (30) – (39).

So, understandably, few people trust any government to back democrats in it’s foreign policy; and when some of those calling for “liberal intervention” lambast people who think they may be being lied to again, they should really be complaining about the governments who have churned out so much propaganda that it’s hard for anyone to tell the difference until the major events are already over.

(1) = Curtis, Mark (1995), ‘The Ambiguities of Power : British Foreign Policy since 1945', Zed Books, London & New York, 1995 hardback edition, Chapter 4, pages 86 – 96 (and especially 93-94)

(2) = Naseer Aruri (1991) ‘Human Rights and the Gulf Crisis’ in Phyllis Bennis & Michel Moushabeck (1991) ‘Beyond the Storm : a Gulf Crisis Reader’, Canongate Press, Edinburgh, UK 1991, Chapter 28, especially pages 313-317 of paperback edition

(3) = Christian Science Monitor 06 Sep 2002 ‘When contemplating war, beware of babies in incubators’, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

(4) = Laura Flanders (1991) ‘Restricting Reality : Media Mind Games and the War’ in  Phyllis Bennis & Michel Moushabeck (1991) ‘Beyond the Storm : a Gulf Crisis Reader’, Canongate Press, Edinburgh, UK 1991, Chapter 13, esp. p168 of paperback edition

(5) = YouGov/Sun Poll 10 Mar 2010, http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3273 (also see recent polls and average of them on same page)

(6) = Reuters 21 Feb 2010 ‘Sarkozy's poll ratings fall, near record lows’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/21/us-sarkozy-ratings-poll-idUSTRE61K12520100221

(7) = BBC News 01 March 2011 ‘Italy and Silvio Berlusconi face Libya dilemma’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12612405

(8) = Reuters 20 Feb 2011 ‘Berlusconi under fire for not "disturbing" Gaddafi’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/20/us-italy-libya-berlusconi-idUSTRE71J1LH20110220

(9) = Anthony Seldon & Daniel Collings ‘Britain Under Thatcher’ , Chapter 2, page 20

(10) = Human Rights Watch 08 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt: Documented Death Toll From Protests Tops 300, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/08/egypt-documented-death-toll-protests-tops-300

(11) = Amnesty International 17 Feb 2011 ‘Bahrain protest deaths rise as camp is evicted’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bahrain-protest-deaths-rise-camp-evicted-2011-02-17

(12) = Amnesty International 24 Feb 2011 ‘Oman must rein in security forces to prevent further deaths’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/oman-must-rein-security-forces-prevent-further-deaths-2011-02-28

(13) = Amnesty International 09 Feb 2011 ‘Yemen urged to halt deadly attacks on protestors’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/yemen-urged-halt-deadly-attacks-protesters-2011-03-09‘The Yemeni authorities must end deadly night raids and other attacks on protests, Amnesty International said today, after one protester was killed and around 100 injured in the capital Sana'a late last night. According to media reports, security forces used live rounds and tear gas against protesters camped outside Sana’a University…. Some 30 people have reportedly now been killed in Yemen during ongoing unrest which began early last month. Protesters are demanding government reform and an end to corruption and unemployment.

(14) = AP 25 Feb 2011 ‘12 killed as Iraqis protest in 'Day of Rage'’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

(15) = 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

(16) = HRW 25 Feb 2011 ‘Iraq: Open Immediate Inquiry Into Protester Deaths’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/25/iraq-open-immediate-inquiry-protester-deaths

(17) = Human Rights Watch 26 Feb 2011 ‘Libya: Security Forces Fire on Protesters in Western City’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/26/libya-security-forces-fire-protesters-western-city ; Egyptian migrant workers who fled to Tunisia from Zawiyah, a coastal city 40 kilometers west of Tripoli, told Human Rights Watch that Libyan security forces shot at protesters who had defied government orders to stay inside their homes and who tried to hold a demonstration after Friday prayers. One migrant worker said he saw approximately 3,000 protesters in the main square, some of whom carried guns.

(18) = Human Rights Watch 07 Feb 2010 ‘Israel: Military Investigations Fail Gaza War Victims’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/06/israel-military-investigations-fail-gaza-war-victims

(19) = The Public Record 19 Oct 2009 ‘Report: Drone Strikes Increased Dramatically Under Obama’,http://pubrecord.org/world/5801/report-drone-strikes-increased/

(20) = thenews (Pakistan) 03 Jan 2011 ‘Drones killed 59pc civilians, 41pc terrorists’, http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=23631&Cat=2&dt=1/3/2011

(21) = See this blog post and sources for it  http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/08/killings-of-civilians-by-nato-forces-in.html and the following blog post link under the sub-heading ‘Night Raids and the El Salvador Option moving from Iraq to Afghanistan’, http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-more-push-for-what-in-afghanistan.html

(22) = Reuters 14 Mar 2011 ‘Saudi sends troops, Bahrain Shi'ites call it "war"’,http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/uk-bahrain-protests-forces-idUKTRE72D28G20110314

(23) = guardian.co.uk 15 Mar 2011 ‘Two killed as Bahrain's king declares martial law’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/15/bahrain-king-declares-martial-law

(24) = BBC News 28 Jun 1998 ‘The KLA - terrorists or freedom fighters?’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/121818.stm

(25) = US State Department ‘Rambouillet Agreement - Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo’, http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html

(26) = John Norris (2005) ‘Collision Course : NATO, Russia and Kosovo’ cited by Naomi Klein (2007) ‘The Shock Doctrine’ , Penguin/Allen Lane, 2007, page 328 of hardback edition, Chapter 17, page 328

(27) = HRW 26 Oct 2001 ‘Under Orders : War Crimes in Kosovo’, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2001/10/26/under-orders-war-crimes-kosovo

(28) = BBC News 01 Jan 1999 ‘Nato's bombing blunders’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/340966.stm

(29) = Phillip Knightley (2000) ‘The First Casualty’, Prion Books Limited, London, 2000, Chapter 20 is on the Kosovo war and propaganda and NATO war crimes in it in general; pages 516-517, on bombing of Chinese and Indian embassies in Belgrade by NATO after they’d criticised NATO’s air war – and given NATO the addresses of their embassies at it’s request, supposedly to ensure they wouldn’t be hit

(30) = Independent 24 Nov 1999 ‘Serbs murdered by the hundred since `liberation'’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/serbs-murdered-by-the-hundred-since-liberation-1128350.html

(31) = Observer 25 Jul 1999 ‘Killings blamed on KLA’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/jul/25/balkans3

(32) =  HRW 26 Oct 2001 ‘Under Orders : War Crimes in Kosovo’, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2001/10/26/under-orders-war-crimes-kosovo; see summary under Sub-heading ‘Abuses by the KLA’) http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/kosovo/undword.htm

(33) = San Francisco Chronicle 05 May 1999 ‘KLA Linked To Enormous Heroin Trade / Police suspect drugs helped finance revolt’, http://articles.sfgate.com/1999-05-05/news/17687597_1_kosovo-albanians-kosovo-liberation-army-ethnic-albanian-community

(34) = Mother Jones magazine Jan/Feb 2000 ‘Heroin Heroes’, http://motherjones.com/politics/2000/01/heroin-heroes

(35) = Observer 25 Mar 2000 ‘Revealed: UN backed unit’s reign of terror’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar/12/balkans.unitednations

(36) = Guardian 10 Dec 2003 ‘The Privatisation of War’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/10/politics.iraq

(37) = Siddharth Kara (2009) ‘Sex trafficking: inside the business of modern slavery’, Columbia University Press, 2009, Chapter 5, pages 143- 145http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WWb-wx1gjLwC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=KLA+sex+slaves&source=bl&ots=RwdHrczQRh&sig=JTo2XKmDBB9afaaB5iOqVjYut5M&hl=en&ei=IeVnTb7wDsib8QOUkt2LBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=KLA%20sex%20slaves&f=false

(38) = guardian.co.uk 14 Dec 2010 ‘Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms ring, Council of Europe reports’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/kosovo-prime-minister-llike-mafia-boss

(39) = Time 05 Jul 1999 ‘Democracy School’, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991398,00.html

Libya is not like Iraq in 2003, but Iraq at the end of the 1991 war - no intervention will mean massacres

Too many people, including me, have been looking at what's happening in Libya through wariness of the war propaganda on Kosovo in 1999 or Iraq from 2002 on. There is some definite propaganda today. Megrahi’s trial was a sham and no-one actually knows who carried out he Lockerbie bombing ; and Gaddafi has never used chemical weapons against Libyan rebels. Some of what we are hearing from all sides is probably propaganda based on past wars (e.g the 1991 Iraqis throw Kuwaiti babies from incubators lie and the equally false story about the 20 Albanian school-teachers beheaded by Serbs during the Kosovo war (1)).

What's happening in Libya is far more like Iraq at the end of the 1991 war, than Kosovo in 1999 or Iraq in 2003. At the end of the 1991 in Iraq there were rebellions with majority support against the dictatorship, but the dictatorship’s stronger military crushed them because the US and it's allies allowed them to, on the calculation that a successful Shia rebellion would increase Iranian influence in Iraq (2) – (3). Similarly the Obama administration is wary of supporting rebels some of whom, like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have been allies of Al Qa’ida in the past (4) – (5).

However the rebels are mostly not LIFG. If we don't back them now with arms supplies and air support the likelihood is they will be massacred just like Shia rebels and civilians in the South of Iraq were in 1991. It’s right to be uncertain of recent reports based on past propaganda like the 1991 ‘babies thrown from incubators’story and the 2002-2003 Iraqi WMDs-Al Qa’ida lies; and right to remember the ulterior motives of most governments, but we know from Gaddafi’s past practice that many of those who criticised him, never mind fought against him, will be killed in public hangings or private disappearances if his forces win (6) – (9).

That doesn't mean sending in ground troops - and in fact the rebels say they'd fight them if any were sent, to prevent another Iraq or Afghanistan style occupation. It does mean arming the rebels, providing humanitarian aid to cities and migrant workers and providing air cover.

CORRECTIONS AND UPDATES 14^th March :

I've not found any report saying the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are involved in the current fighting. There are claims from Gaddafi's government that various "Islamic Emirates" groups are involved like the Islamic Emirate of Barqa  (10)

Al Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib has said it supports the rebels (though whether it's provided any support beyond words is not known) (11)

There are also some reports that Gaddafi has offered rebel fighters who surrender and hand over their weapons an amnesty (12)

(1) = Phillip Knightley (2000) ‘The First Casualty’ (revised edition), Prion, London, 2000, page 508 of paperback edition

(2) = Galbraith, Peter W. (2006) ‘The End of Iraq’, Pocket Books paperback, 2007, Ch4, especially page 46

(3) = Aburish , Said K (2000) ‘Saddam Hussein - The Politics of Revenge’ Bloomsbury , London , 2000  - 2001 paperback edition, Ch11, especially p308 and footnote 60 p379

(4) = Mark Curtis (2010) ‘Secret Affairs – Britain’s collusion with Radical Islam’, Serpent’s tail books, London, 2010, chapter 13, pages 225-231 of paperback edition

(5) = Al Jazeera 16 Feb 2011 ‘Libyan police stations torched’, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/20112167051422444.html ; ‘Meanwhile, a local human rights activist told Reuters news agency that the authorities have decided to release 110 prisoners jailed for membership of banned organisation, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.The prisoners to be freed on Wednesday, are the last members of the group still being held and will be set free from Tripoli's Abu Salim jail, Mohamed Ternish, chairman of the Libya Human Rights Association said.Hundreds of alleged members of the group have been freed from jail after it renounced violence last year.’

(6) = Geoff Simons (2003) ‘Libya and the West’ Center for Libyan Studies, Oxford, UK, 2003, Chapter 6 , especially pages 103 -115 (also cites summary executions of Libyans stopped at road blocks etc)

(7) = Ronald Bruce St. John (2008 ) ‘Libya – From Colony to Independence’ , Oneworld books, Oxford, UK, 2008, pages 165-171, 256-257 of paperback edition

(8) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2011 – Libya,http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/libya ; There are still dozens of unresolved disappearance cases in Libya, including those of Libyan opposition members Jaballa Hamed Matar and Izzat al-Megaryef, whom Egyptian security arrested in 1990 in Cairo. Their families later learned that Egypt had handed them over to Libyan security officials, who detained them in Abu Salim prison. Prominent Lebanese Shia cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr disappeared in Libya 32 years ago; his fate remains unknown.

(9) = Amnesty International 2010 World Report – Libya,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=156; Hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and other human rights violations committed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s remain unresolved, and the Internal Security Agency, implicated in those violations, continued to operate with impunity.

(10) = AFP/ Sydney Morning Herald 21 Feb 2011 ‘Libyan Islamists seize arms, take hostages’,http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/libyan-islamists-seize-arms-take-hostages-20110221-1b19c.html

(11) = CNN 24 Feb 2011 ‘Al Qaeda's North African wing says it backs Libya uprising’,http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-24/world/libya.qaeda.statement_1_libyan-islamic-fighting-group-islamic-maghreb-al-qaeda?_s=PM:WORLD

(12) = guardian.co.uk 02 Mar 2011 ‘Muammar Gaddafi offers rebels an amnesty’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/02/muammar-gaddafi-offers-rebels-amnesty

Blair, the US, the UK and Saddam's invasions and massacres - the full truth

Iraqi Kurds collect the bodies of those gassed by Saddam's forces at Halabja in 1988. The full truth on this massacre and many others - and what the US and British governments and Tony Blair did and didn't do relating to them - is never mentioned by Blair or his supporters. The full facts show the British and American wars on Iraq have never been about protecting Iraqis from being massacred.

Tony Blair and his supporters have been in over-drive since the publication of his plan for Iraq War Disaster II – War on Iran – sorry, I mean his book ‘The Journey’.  (1) – (4).

The factual inaccuracies in Blair’s claims on Iraq and Iran and the lack of logic in his arguments are so numerous that i’ll be making a separate post to cover them

For instance Keith Gilmour, in a letter published in several newspapers (e.g The Independent, The Herald and The Scotsman) begins:

‘No interview with Tony Blair is complete without exhaustive attempts to secure new and deeper regrets and apologies over the Iraq war.

And these cannot just cover poor planning and tactical mistakes (sending too few troops, destroying too much infrastructure, neglecting to secure armouries and borders, disbanding the Iraqi army).

‘No, Mr Blair must be made to "regret" sending a volunteer army to help oust a genocidal, WMD-ambitious despot who had bombed and invaded his neighbours; repressed, tortured and gassed his opponents; harboured terrorists; sponsored suicide bombers; stoked ethnic hatred and extreme Islamist and anti-western sentiment; torched oilfields; destroyed marshlands; wrecked his country's economy; ignored UN resolutions; duped, bribed and expelled weapons inspectors; and provoked sanctions that killed 100,000 innocent Iraqis annually.

‘Regrets and apologies about the length and bloodiness of the war just will not do. Isn't Mr Blair now "sorry" he ever thought it the lesser evil to try and replace blood-soaked tyranny with fledgling democracy?’

Like most supporters of the Iraq war, Keith Gilmour seems to either be unaware of many of the full facts on Iraq from the Iran-Iraq war and the genocide against the Kurds to the present, or else deliberately omits them. The many facts they don’t mention cast a very different light on the ones they do.

This first post will just cover the full facts on Saddam’s invasions of Iraq and Kuwait; his massacres of Iraqi Kurds, Shia and Marsh Arabs and what the US and British governments and Tony Blair did (and didn’t) do about them at the time ; plus the emptiness and dishonesty of the claim that the 2003 invasion was ‘necessary’ to prevent Saddam massacring and using WMD on his own people again.

British and American governments armed and funded during Saddam’s invasion of Iran and genocide against the Kurds - even after Halabja

Keith, like most Blairites and neo-conservatives, omits to mention that when Saddam was invading Iran; using chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and Iranian troops; and massacring the Kurds in his genocidal Anfal campaign; the US and British governments were funding and arming him, including with chemicals and hardware such as pumps used in the production and use of chemical weapons. US funding continued in the guise of “agricultural aid’ even after the gassing of Halabja in 1988. The Scott Report in the UK showed the British government continued to allow the sale of equipment with military applications to Saddam after Halabja too. Iraq expert Efraim Karsh wrote that ‘Karsh says “Saddam was the favoured son of the West (and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union), the perceived barrier to the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism. Consequently, apart from occasional feeble remonstrations (notably after Halabja), western governments were consciously willing to turn a blind eye to Iraq’s chemical excesses.” (5) – (10).

Tony Blair, then a backbench Labour MP, refused to back parliamentary motions calling for an end to British and American support for Saddam at the time of Halabja, but he and Bush junior became very exercised about it 20 years after the genocide had ended (11).

How Bush Senior suckered Saddam into invading Kuwait in 1991
to try to boost his vote for the 1992 Presidential Election

Brent Scowcroft as a member of the Bush (senior) administration in 1990 was also a director of by Kuwait Incorporated's Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, whose U.S subsidiary Santa Fe International was involved in slant drilling across the border into Iraqi oil fields. Kuwait’s ruling monarchy were also selling more oil than agreed under OPEC quotas, which was pushing down the price of oil; as well as demanding Iraq repay loans made to it during the Iran-Iraq war (12) – (13).

Hussein consulted his patrons in the US government on his plan to invade Kuwait. According to a transcript released by the Iraqi government U.S Ambassador Glaspie in a meeting with the Iraqi dictator in 1990, eight days before Iraq invaded Kuwait, told Hussein  what US Secretary of State James Baker had directed her to say -  'We have no opinion on your dispute with Kuwait'.  US government officials have refused to answer any questions on the transcript.  Six days before the invasion US State Department Official John Kelly told congress that ‘the US has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq' (14).

So after the invasion Saddam was surprised to find the US declaring war on him and refusing to negotiate on a withdrawal. President Bush (senior) rejected five separate peace plans proposed by Iraq, Jordan, Morocco and France (15) -  (16).

Supposedly this was because Bush could not allow the sovereignty of any state to be violated - yet neither the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus nor the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, nor the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza seemed to warrant military action before or after the 1991 Gulf War.   The reality is that the Bush senior administration engineered a war on a proxy dictatorship it had built up itself. This was in a failed attempt to save Bush's Presidency from electoral defeat on domestic issues - particularly the economy.

 The 1991 Gulf War - Bombing civilians and forced conscripts ; encouraging and betraying Iraqi rebels; allowing Saddam to massacre them and their families

After Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, President Bush Senior’s administration began attacks by bombing and with ground forces, not just on Iraqi forces fleeing Kuwait, but on civilians and forced conscripts too.

Estimates made by aid workers in Iraq after the 1991 war put the number of Iraqi civilians killed directly by the US bombing campaign at between 10,000 and 25,000, with many civilian targets such as water treatment works being targeted (17). Estimates of indirectly caused deaths that include the secondary effects of bombing - for instance destruction and pollution of water supply systems through the bombing of chemical plants and nuclear reactors - put the figure as high as 250,000 by the end of 1991 – many more would die as a result of destruction of infrastructure and sanctions in the years ahead (18).

Meanwhile Iraqi conscripts, many of them recruited from Shia and Kurds who loathed Saddam, were under aerial attack from US forces with conventional bombs, cluster bombs, and even napalm. Bulldozer blades were fitted to American tanks - and used to bury the conscripts alive in their trenches. Iraqi conscripts attempting to surrender were shot in many cases (19) – (20).

President Bush (senior) told Iraqis there was one way they could end  bombing “ That is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside ..” (21) .

So Iraqi Shia, Kurds and Marsh Arabs rebelled against Saddam, assuming  US forces would stop attacking them and aid them once they fought Saddam’s forces. Yet when Saddam brought his helicopters and Republican Guard elite troops out of reserve to crush the rebels, US forces were ordered back and allowed them to recapture arms and ammunition dumps and massacre the rebels and then their families and anyone suspected of belonging to a disloyal community, events recounted by both Iraqi defectors and US troops (22).

Patrick Lowe, a reconnaissance scout for the US 1^st Armoured Division told former Bush administration diplomat Peter W. Galbraith:

“I watched as Iraqi helicopter gun  ships flew into the city and gunned down everything in their way. I watched as troops were sent in...I had to process the civilian refugees that fled the town. They pleaded with me to do something, anything to stop this..mass murder. I heard stories of women and children being burned alive in their homes. Women being raped to death, men being chopped up alive. I can hear their screams and wailing to this day...I had been pleading for almost three days with my chain of command to let me do something...The squadron commander...ordered me to do nothing...I [sent] a patrol out...to see if the Iraqi troops would shoot at them so that I had a reason to engage and protect those...civilians.They did not engage and so we continued to sit and watch. I have never been more ashamed of my country’s actions...I sat and watched hundreds of thousands die in the most horrible ways possible” (23).

The Marsh Arabs, who also joined the rebellion, suffered the same fate, with an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 massacred (24).

So as a result of encouraging and then betraying the rebels Bush senior’s administration allowed them and their families to be massacred, the reasoning being that the Shia were the same type of Muslims as the Iranian regime and so their rebellion must be crushed to contain Iranian influence.

The other reason for allowing the rebels to be crushed was that both the Bush senior and Clinton administrations wanted a new military dictatorship in Iraq, not any kind of popular rebellion that might lead to a democracy that might actually put it’s own peoples’ interests ahead of those of US companies and US power.

US National Security Council director of Near Eastern affairs Richard Haas confirmed that 'Our policy is to get rid of Saddam not his regime' .In 1998 Brent Scowcroft , Bush's National Security Adviser in 1991 , defined the optimal outcome that had been desired in the Gulf War as 'a military government' (25) – (26). British and American officials briefings to journalists during Operation Desert Fox made it clear that a military coup leading to a new dictatorship was still felt to be the optimal outcome in 1998 (27).

The Kurds in the North were only spared a similar fate to the Shia in Basra by the presence of many TV crews, including British and American ones, calling for intervention to prevent a repeat of the Anfal massacres of the 1980s. This managed to get the Bush administration to order the US air force to prevent Saddam’s forces operating in the Kurdish North from the end of the 1991 war on.

No massacres or planned massacres after 1991 – so any war was bound to cost more lives than it saved

Gilmour also omits Human Rights Watch’s report there was no threat of massacres by Saddam’s forces in 2002 – 2003 and so war was bound to cost far more lives than non-intervention.  (28). In fact there were no large scale massacres at all after 1991. Marsh Arab rebels in the South were Saddam’s main victims on a much smaller scale from 1991 through to 2003, but his attacks on them took place in the Southern No Fly zone patrolled by the British and American air forces, who did not to intervene, probably for similar reasons to the betrayal of the Shia in 1991, under both Bush Senior and Clinton (29).

(1) = Times 30 Jan 2010 ‘Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair slated for Iran threat claim’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7009478.ece

(2) = BBC News 04 Sep 2010 ‘Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair’,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11182225

(3) = guardian.co.uk 01 Sep 2010 ‘Tony Blair: West should use force if Iran 'continues to develop nuclear weapons'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-west-use-force-iran-nuclear-weapons

(4) = guardian.co.uk 04 Sep 2010 ‘Tony Blair interview: the full transcript’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-interview-full-transcript

(5) = Karsh, Efraim (2002) ‘The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988’ Osprey, London, 2002 p20 US & Soviet Union supplying arms and military advisers to Saddam, p42-44 USSR, France and Egypt Saddam’s main arms suppliers, p 44 1984 -1985 Reagan admin doubles financial aid to Saddam ‘for food products and agricultural equipment’ from $345mn to $675mn. 1988 US govt extends $1bn credit to Iraq, largest amount of US annual credit to any country in that year; p44-45 Israel along with N.Korea, Libya and Syria armed Iran. Last three complete armaments, Israel spare parts for jets and tanks (own note – doesn’t count Iran-Contra arms?); p53-55 Gassing of 20 Kurdish villages in 1987 by Saddam to prevent them aiding Iranians; p55 western governments attitudes

(6) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2002), ‘The Threatening Storm, Random House, New York, 2002 - pages 18-20

(7) = Washington Post 22 Mar 1992, ‘Gonzalez's Iraq Expose: Hill Chairman Details U.S. Prewar Courtship, Washington Post archive article here ; full article also reproduced at the Federation of American Scientists' website here ; This gives an account provided by A US Congressman based on information provided to congressional committees by the CIA.

(8) = Washington Post 5 Aug 1992, ‘GOP Seeks Probe of Gonzalez Over Iraq Data, Washington Post archive article here ; also reproduced at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1018781.html Far from disputing the accuracy of Gonzalez's claims the Bush (senior) administration and the CIA instead stopped providing Gonzalez with intelligence briefings and attempted to have him censured by congress for releasing the information to the public

(9) = 'U.S. chemical and biological warfare-related dual use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the health consequences of the Persian Gulf War'/ A report of Donald W. Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with respect to export administration, United States Senate (1994) - Link to Library of Congress record

(10) = BBC News 27 Apr 2004 ‘Q&A: The Scott Report’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/3631539.stm

(11) = Guardian 18 March 2003 , 'Diary' , "http://www.guardian.co.uk/diary/story/0,,916313,00.html ; (see final paragraph)

(12) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, paperback edition, p168

(13) = Aburish , Said K (1997) A Brutal Friendship Indigo , London , 1998 paperback edition, page 102

(14) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, paperback edition, p 391 – 396

(15) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992

(16) = Chomsky (1991) ‘World Orders Old and New’

 (17) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, p326 – 355

(18) = Lee , Ian (1991) ‘Continuing Health Costs of the Gulf War’, Medical Educational Trust , London , 1991

(19) = Blum , William (1995) ‘Killing Hope’,  Common Courage Press , Monroe , Maine , 1995, pages 334-338

(20) = Pilger , John (1998) ‘Hidden Agendas’ Vintage , London , 1998, pages 49 - 52

(21) = BBC News 21 Aug 2007 ‘Flashback: the 1991 Iraqi revolt’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2888989.stm

(22) = Aburish , Said K (2000) ‘Saddam Hussein - The Politics of Revenge’ Bloomsbury , London , 2000  - 2001 paperback edition, Ch11,p308 and footnote 60 p379

(23) = Galbraith, Peter W. (2006) ‘The End of Iraq’, Pocket Books paperback, 2007, Ch4, page 46

(24) = BBC News 03 March 2003 ‘Iraq's 'devastated' Marsh Arabs’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm

(25) = Hiro, Dilip(2001) ‘Neighbours not friends - Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars’ , Routledge paperback , London , 2001, pages 37 ,343

(26) = Galbraith, Peter W. (2006) ‘The End of Iraq’, Pocket Books paperback, 2007, Ch4

(27) = Times 17 Dec 1998 ‘Raid planners hope to spark army uprising’

(28) = Human Rights Watch 2004 ‘War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention’, http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm#_Toc58744952 and http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/index.htm

(29) = Guardian 17 Nov 1998 ‘Rebellion in southern marshes is crushed’,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1998/nov/17/2