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

Blair’s still wrong - wars have increased terrorism and Iran’s government isn't suicidal enough to start a nuclear war - nor was Saddam

Tony Blair’s repetition of claims that the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have been necessary to prevent terrorism and effective in reducing the threat from it is not supported by the facts. His claims that war on Iraq was necessary to stop a WMD threat is equally empty, whether or not Iraq had any WMDs, as are his claims that ‘military action’ against Iran to produce ‘regime change’ would reduce extremism and prevent a nuclear threat.

Saddam proved in 1991, when he did have WMD, that he wouldn’t risk nuclear retaliation by using them. American generals and Israeli military historians are among those who say the Iranian government’s past behaviour shows it’s no more likely than Saddam was to invite it’s own nuclear annihilation by starting a nuclear war.

Why the war in Afghanistan is not the way to prevent terrorist attacks

The 9-11 hijackers all trained in Germany and then at flight schools in the US. Many different people and organisations from FBI agents and flight school trainers to a member of the Taliban all the information necessary to prevent the attacks.  This information included who the hijackers were, where in the US they were training, that they were planning to hijack civilian airliners to use as ‘flying bombs’ to crash into buildings and that likely targets were the World Trade Center (already hit by a truck bombing in 1993) and public buildings in New York, the White House, CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia ; and the Pentagon and that by August 2001 an attack was imminent within weeks at most.

Those sources of information included US intelligence briefing documents given to President Bush, a Library of Congress report to the US National Intelligence Council, some CIA agents, several different FBI agents in multiple warnings, a US military intelligence unit and an American flight school trainer, the Egyptian government, German intelligence and even the then Taliban foreign minister who (correctly) feared that if Al Qa’ida carried out it’s attacks it would bring the US military down on the heads of the Taliban.

In almost every case superiors ignored the warnings and ordered those involved to take no further action; in many cases they also instructed those involved not to inform other US government agencies.

Federal authorities knew even in 1998 (i.e even under Clinton) that Al Qaeda recruits were training in US flight schools.

On September 11^th two of those four sets of buildings named as likely targets by these multiple reports– the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - were hit in exactly the predicted way – with hijacked civilian aircraft. FBI agents who had identified some of the flight school trainees as Bin Laden’s people in August 2001 and asked for arrest warrants had their requests refused and their reports were not passed on by their superiors.

So when the Bush administration boasted that there had been no successful attacks since 9-11, their bluster was designed to hide the fact that if they had been at all competent in pooling and acting on the intelligence they had, September 11^th could probably have been prevented. It also ignored the fact that the Iraq war led to two terrorist attacks on it’s allies – the Madrid and London bombings – again showing that these wars made no-one any safer.

At no point in a decade of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan have NATO or the Afghan government controlled the whole territory of either country. So if the aim is to prevent terrorist groups being able to train in either of them it can’t be achieved through military force.

After 9-11, overthrowing the Taliban may have been necessary, but bombing the whole of Afghanistan, killing over 3,000 civilians in the first 6 months alone, was not , never mind systematic torture and killing of prisoners, many of whom were not involved in any violence and had no involvement with Al Qa’ida or the Taliban.

Civilian deaths are increasing year due to both Taliban suicide bombings and targeting of civilians and US air strikes and night raids.

Saddam had shown he wasn’t willing to risk a nuclear counter-strike by using WMDs

Whether Iraq had WMDs or not was always an irrelevant question as after the 1991 Gulf War, in which Saddam had dozens of chemical warheads for his scud missiles but only used conventional warheads, it was clear he was deterred from using WMDs on nuclear armed states or their allies for fear of nuclear retaliation.

This fact was recorded by Professor Joseph Nye (the head of the US Political Science association) and Professor Robert Keohane, in their book ‘After the Storm’, though they claim that why Saddam didn’t use these weapons is a ‘mystery’ (1).

I’d have thought two Professors of political science with a background in international relations might, between them, be able to figure out that governments don’t use WMDs if the response might be their own nuclear annihilation, but it seems not.

As Condoleezza Rice put it in an article written during the 2000 US Presidential election ‘if they ["rogue states"]do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration’ (2).

The one argument that invading Iraq was effective is that it brought Al Qa’ida to focus on killing Americans and Iraqis in Iraq, where they were easier targets than in a now more alert US – and where Al Qa’ida could blend in more easily in appearance and dress. The cost in lives and suffering was so vast though, that improving security and intelligence sharing in the US would surely have been more effective and saved far more lives.

 Invading Afghanistan and Iraq not only failed to address the actual problem, but gave Bin Laden exactly what he wanted. The USSR’s military suffered it’s Vietnam in Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s aim was to do the same to the US as the Mujahedin had to the Soviets. While Bin Laden is now dead, Al Qa’ida could have been defeated far more easily without three full scale wars – in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq – and without the huge numbers of deaths caused.

The US National Security Strategy of 2002 stated that “The events of September 11, 2001…opened vast, new opportunities.” (see page 28)

The Bush administration saw September 11^th as a huge opportunity to achieve the policy aims successive US governments had always had – securing an export pipeline for the oil reserves of former Soviet republics that avoided Iranian and Russian influence or control; and securing US control of Iraq’s oil reserves, which it had lost after the 1991 Gulf War (an aim of  Bush and his political allies well before 9/11), plus those of Iran, which it lost control of with the overthrow of the Shah’s dictatorship in 1979 (3).

The Evidence that Iran’s rulers don’t want national martyrdom through nuclear war either

- directly or by proxy

There will be no  ‘threat’ posed by Iran developing nuclear weapons, if it does so, either, for the same reason – it won’t use them.

In 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war in which the US and most of the rest of the world was arming and funding Saddam against Khomeini’s Islamic government in Iran, a US warship – the USS Vincennes – entered Iranian waters and began exchanging fire with Iranian ships. This was as part of Reagan’s policy of protecting Iraqi oil tankers, while claiming that Iraqi attacks on Iranian oil tankers were “legitimate”. The Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, leading to the death of hundreds of civilians. Khomeini vowed revenge, but the Iranian government and military interpreted the shooting as a sign that US military forces were joining the war on the Iraqi side. This was an opportunity for national martyrdom if they wanted it. Instead the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards persuaded Khomeini to make peace (4) – (8).

This was one of the actions which has persuaded people like former US General John Abizaid (a George W Bush appointee) and Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld that we can live with a nuclear Iran, which would want nuclear weapons for the same reason our governments have – as a deterrent against attack (9) – (10).

The only use of nuclear weapons by one government on another was at the end of World War Two when the US was the only government to possess any.

There has been no example of a nuclear armed state using nuclear weapons on another nuclear armed state – not even by Pakistan’s military governments, which have had a strong Islamic ideology since General Zia’s dictatorship in the 1980s ; and which has feared Indian military attack on many occasions.

Israel has between dozens and hundreds of nuclear warheads. It’s ally America has thousands.

There are plenty of examples of states getting nuclear weapons as deterrents though.

The US developed and proposed the use of new ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons under the Bush administration, with Iran the favourite target. The Obama administration has not ruled it out. Israel also has plans for nuclear strikes on Iran (ostensibly to “take out” Iran’s nuclear programme) (11) – (13).

Van Creveld wrote in 2004 that  Iran’s government would be crazy not to want a nuclear deterrent given repeated Israeli and US threats of ‘military action’ and the US invasion of both it’s neighbours – Afghanistan and Iraq . He also pointed out that there had been repeated claims that Iran would have developed nuclear weapons in a few months or years for at least 15 years at that point – and all had proven false (14).

Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld

The US government claimed Iran would have a nuclear weapon within 12 months in August 2010. This is one of an endless series of claims that Iran will have nuclear weapons by a certain date, delivered over decades, none of which has ever come true. So far it seems to be yet another example of calling ‘wolf’ – when the wolf doesn’t exist and would be used to deter an attack rather than carry one out even if it did exist.

It’s not even certain whether Iran will develop nuclear weapons given religious rulings banning their stockpiling and use as un-Islamic and immoral by Iran’s ‘Leader’ Ayatollah Khameini, Khomeini’s successor (15).

The Ahamadinejad “wipe Israel off the map” quote was a wilful mistranslation in which he actually said he hoped "the regime that rules over Jerusalem will be eliminated from the pages of history" and clarified that he meant "Israel will be wiped out soon the way the Soviet Union was" (i.e by its own population overthrowing its government). This can hardly be interpreted as a threat of nuclear war, especially since a similar possibility was raised more recently by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when he said that if a two state peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians could not be negotiated an Apartheid style struggle ending in a binational state with Jews a minority would probably result (16) – (18).

The phrase Ahmadinejad used has also been used every year on ‘Al Quds’ day by Iranian politicians since the 1979 revolution. Using it is more a tradition and an attempt by politicians to associate themselves with Khomeini (who first said it) as the Islamic regime’s founder than anything else (19).

 That's apart from the fact that Iranian Presidents, unlike American Presidents, are not the Commander in Chief of their country's military in theory or in practice and would never have a finger on the nuclear trigger even if Iran did develop nuclear weapons and even if he did want to use them on Israel (20) – (21).

Iranian missile tests are constantly reported as if they are unprovoked threats. In fact they are usually an attempt to deter threats of attack, as when Iran launched long-range missile tests in 2008 after Israel carried out military exercises with hundreds of aircraft openly saying they were preparations for possible attacks on Iran.

The serious threat of nuclear attack is from the US and Israel against Iran if Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons and if American and world public opinion falls for the hype.

No government has ever armed terrorist groups with WMDs or nuclear weapons either because that would be risking committing national suicide by proxy – and even that terrorist groups they can’t control might turn those weapons on them.

The idea that Hezbollah or Hamas, each of which have been elected to government and been willing to form coalitions with other parties, are some ‘end of the world’ cults that would happily bring nuclear destruction down on their own heads and those of their people to destroy Israel is also ridiculous (22) – (23).

The Risks of Action – chaos caused by war makes it easier for terrorists to operate and get WMD materials

The Blairites and the neo-cons argue that we have to make sure though – that, as Cheney put it, if there’s a one per cent chance of something so terrible happening we have to treat it like a 100% certainty. This sounds like it’s a ‘safety first’ policy. In fact it’s the most dangerous and irrational course of action, because going to war carries it’s own risks and they are serious and could result in creating the problems they are meant to prevent – including that in the chaos following ‘regime change’ weapons and even WMDs or nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorist groups or people who might sell them to them (as explosives, nuclear materials and chemical weapons components did in Iraq); that they are able to operate far more easily in that chaos; and that they may get converts across the world as a result of civilian deaths and torture of Muslims in the wars involved (24) – (27).

In 2005 Iraq's deputy minister of Industry Sami al Araji reported that “equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons”(28)

Some may suggest a proxy war, as in Libya, using a few special forces on the ground along with Iranian rebels and NATO air power. Libya is at great risk of becoming another Somalia already though.

Iran already has armed Kurdish, Arab and extremist Sunni rebel groups along with the Mujahedin E Kalq. Any overthrow of the regime by force would not only cause heavy civilian casualties and risk civil war, but if Iraq is any guide might well involve a new government running it’s own US trained torture and death squads no better than those of the Ayatollahs.

In Libya, where supposedly we had “learned the lessons” of Iraq and “avoided mistakes” made there some weapons stores were not secured any more than they had been in Iraq – and as in Iraq – no-one knows who now has many of these weapons. Reports from UN agencies based on unidentified sources say chemical and nuclear stockpiles have been secured in Libya. Let’s hope so. The previous “confirmation” by the International Criminal Court that Saif Gaddafi was under arrest and on his way to the Hague turned out to be false (29)  - (30).

These are all the dangers that war is supposedly meant to avert – but going to war is far more likely to create them than to prevent them, while the much derided option of “doing nothing” about them carries far less risks in reality.

(1) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216

(2) = Rice, Condoleeza (2000) in Foreign Affairs January/February 2000‘ - 'Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest' http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20000101faessay5-p50/condoleezza-rice/campaign-2000-promoting-the-national-interest.html - cited in Chomsky, Noam (2003) 'Hegemony or Survival' , Penguin Books , London & NY 2004, pages 34 & 260 citing Mearsheimer, John & Walt, Stephen (2003) in Foreign Policy Jan/Feb 2003

(3) = CNN 10 Jan 2004 ‘O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11’, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-10/politics/oneill.bush_1_roomful-of-deaf-people-education-of-paul-o-neill-national-security-council-meeting?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

(4) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006 - pages 170-174

(5) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2004), ‘The Persian Puzzle', Random House, New York, 2005 paperback edition - pages 231-233

(6) = Freedman, Lawrence (2008) ‘A Choice of Enemies : America Confronts the Middle East’, Orion, London, 2008, chapter 10, Pages 194-206 of hardback edition

(7) = Newsweek 13 Jul 1992 ‘Sea of Lies : Sea Of Lies : The Inside Story Of How An American Naval Vessel Blundered Into An Attack On Iran Air Flight 655 At The Height Of Tensions During The Iran-Iraq War-And How The Pentagon Tried To Cover Its Tracks After 290 Innocent Civilians Died’, http://www.newsweek.com/id/126358

(8) = NYT 15 Jul 1988 ‘Iran Falls Short in Drive at U.N. To Condemn U.S. in Airbus Case’,

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/15/world/iran-falls-short-in-drive-at-un-to-condemn-us-in-airbus-case.html

(9) = Forward – The Jewish Daily – 24 Sep 2007 ‘The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran ’,http://www.forward.com/articles/11673/

(10) = CNN 18 Sep 2007 ‘Retired general: U.S. can live with a nuclear Iran’,http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-18/world/france.iran_1_nuclear-weapon-nuclear-program-nuclear-fuel?_s=PM:WORLD

(11) = Independent 02 Oct 2007 ‘US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-plan-for-air-strikes-on-iran-backed-by-brown-395716.html

(12) = guardian.co.uk 06 Apr 2010 ‘Barack Obama's radical review on nuclear weapons reverses Bush policies’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/barack-obama-nuclear-weapons-review

(13) = Sunday Times 07 Jan 2007 ‘Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece

(14) = NYT 21 Aug 2004 ‘Sharon on the warpath : Is Israel planning to attack Iran?’,http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html

(15) = CNN 10 Aug 2005 ‘Iran breaks seals at nuclear plant’, http://articles.cnn.com/2005-08-10/world/iran.iaea.1350_1_uranium-conversion-natanz-enrichment?_s=PM:WORLD

(16) = Guardian Comment Is Free14 Jun 2006, ‘Lost in Translation’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

(17) = Iranian Television Broadcasts President Ahmadinezhad's Interview With French TV "Exclusive interview" with Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad by David Pujadas of French TV's TF2 Channel on 22 March 2007 – recorded Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 Sunday, March 25, 2007 (reproduced as second item below article on Professor Juan Cole’s website at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

“(Ahmadinezad) Let me ask you this question: where is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now? Was it not wiped off (the map)? How was it wiped off? We have a totally humanitarian solution for Palestine. We have said that all the Palestinians should take part in a free referendum so as to end the 60 year old war. The outcome is clear from now. It is because of the same outcome that America and Britain are refusing to yield.

(David Pujadas) Let us clarify everything. Do you really wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Do you have a plan for this job or are you in fact making such a prediction?

(Ahmadinezhad) Look, I told you the solution. I think the people of Palestine also have the right to determine their own fate. Let them choose for themselves, the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims. That is, all the Palestinians who belong to that land can participate in the referendum. I think the outcome of such a referendum is already clear. We saw what happened in last year's elections (when they voted for HAMAS).”

(18) = Guardian 30 Nov 2007, 'Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution fails, says Olmert', http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2219485,00.html

(19) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, (hardback edition)

(20)= Hauser Global Law School Program (New York University School of Law) Mar 2006, 'A Guide to the Legal System of the Islamic Republic of Iran' by Omar Sial' , http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/iran.htm

(21) = Time magazine 20 Apr 2006‘Iran President's Bark May Be Worse than His Bite', http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1185293,00.html

(22) =  Harik, Judith Palmer (2005), ‘Hezbollah : The Changing Face of Terrorism, I.B. Tauris, London & New York, 2005 paperback edition

(23) = Hroub, Khaled (2006), ‘Hamas : A Beginner's Guide, Pluto Press, London, 2006 paperback edition

(24) = Times 28 Oct 2004 ‘350 tonnes of high explosive looted in Iraq’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article498870.ece

(25) = AP 31 Oct 2004 ‘2nd Site With U.N.-Sealed Arms Was Looted, Inspectors Report’,http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31chemical.html

(26) = Washington Post 11 May 2003 ‘Iraq nuclear sites reportedly looted’,http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-05-11/news/0305110454_1_nuclear-bomb-looted-iraq

(27) = AP Worldstream 31 Oct 2004 ‘Iraq Looted Chemical Site’, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-101900373.html

(28) = NYT 13 Mar 2005 'Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says', http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/international/middleeast/13loot.html

(29) = guardian.co.uk  02 Sep 2011 ‘Libya warned smugglers are looting Gaddafi's guns - West fears heatseeking surface-to-air missiles will fall into terrorists' hands’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/02/west-warns-smugglers-looting-libya-arms

(30) = AP foreign 07 Sep 2011 ‘UN watchdog says Libyan chemical weapons secure’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9834687

The Chilcot Inquiry on Iraq, Blair ; and Guardian editor Michael White’s lazy, contemptuous failure to research the facts on Iraq or Iran

Guardian editor Michael White's coverage of the Chilcot Inquiry on Iraq is unbelievably lazy. His fact free, condescending and contemptuous piece makes the ludicrous claim that Blair is partly right on Iran as Iran is “scary”. White couldn't even be bothered finding out the second name of the mother who had lost her son to Blair's war - she's just "a middle aged woman called Deirdre" to him

According to White on Tony Blair’s latest appearance before another shoddy ‘ Iraq Inquiry’, “Yet again Sir John Chilcot's panel had hardly laid a glove on the former prime minister” (1)

What a surprise that such trenchant critics of Blair as the Chilcot Inquiry didn’t put him on the spot.

There’s Baroness Prashar, made a Baroness and member of the Lords by one Tony Blair MP in 1999 – and also appointed by him to various other jobs (2) – (3).

There’s historian (read propagandist in this case) Sir Martin Gilbert, who is an expert on and hero worshipper of Winston Churchill (4) – (5). He whitewashes Churchill’s urging of the use of “poison gas” on such “uncivilised tribes” as the Iraqi Kurds – and later on German civilians in World War Two. Churchill claimed that targeting civilians and using chemical weapons on them were matters of “fashion” not of “morality” (a German historian has brought attention to this) (6) – (8). Luckily no-one at the time listened to Churchill’s plan for an early version of Saddam’s Anfal genocide of the Kurds by gassing them – though the RAF and British army deliberately massacred thousands of Kurdish villagers and other Iraqi rebels and civilians with conventional weapons in the 1920s and 1930s, one RAF officer recounting tactics used against Kurdish villages as follows “the attack with bombs and machine guns must be..unrelenting…continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle” An RAF manual noted that by using such methods “within 45 minutes a full sized village can be wiped out”.  (This is not a quote from Gilbert’s histories but Arab American historian Rashid Khalidi) (9).  Boer and black African civilians in the Boer War were starved to death in huge numbers in the first concentration camps, a British invention which provided neither enough food nor any shelter. Sadly for Churchill he didn’t get to use poisoned gas on the detainees, but he fought in and enthusiastically backed the war and the methods used in it (10). Churchill’s actions could only look enlightened by comparison with Hitler’s – and then only because other members of the British government and military refused to carry out Churchill’s full plans.

Gilbert also hero worships and whitewashes the records of Bush and Blair, which are even worse, just as much.  In 2004 he compared Bush and Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill and the "war on terror" against some terrorist groups to World War Two against the most powerful state and military in the world – as if bombing, invading and occupying entire countries with whole armies and air-forces could ever stop terrorism rather than create new enemies with dead allies and civilians to avenge) – and as if in the present the attacked  and invaded weaker countries, not the attackers, were the aggressors. If he’d compared the war on terror to the British and French Empires’ invasions and occupations in the Middle East between the First and Second World Wars he’d have been closer to the truth. (11) – (12).

Gilbert’s modern day heroes continued the British Empire’s methods in Iraq with constant air strikes by the USAF and RAF on Iraqi civilians from the 1991 war on through the ‘No Fly Zone’ period from 1991 to March 2003 - and massively increased during ‘Operation Desert Fox’ and from 2000 to 2003. Between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians were killed directly by US and Coalition bombing in the 1991 war alone and an estimated 250,000 died due to damage to clean water supplies, sewage systems and hospitals as an indirect result of that bombing. During the war from 2003 to 2010, in which (as in 1991) bombing, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, napalm and similar substances and white phosphorus were used on Iraqi cities, massive civilian casualties were the result again. Many more would die due to sanctions. They continue to be killed by terrorism, Iraqi government (US trained) death squads and torture; and hunger and illness due to corruption and lack of reconstruction at a rate exceeding that under Saddam and sanctions. Millions of civilians have died as a result from 1991 to present; at least as many as were killed by Saddam in the 80s (when he was armed and funded by the US and British governments among others even after Halabja) and in 1991 (when the US government ordered it’s troops to prevent Shia rebels getting to arms caches and let Saddam’s forces wipe them out to minimise Iranian influence in Iraq) (13) – (22).

Then there’s Gilbert’s colleague on the Chilcot Inquiry, another (only a bit less biased) historian  Lawrence Freedman, who has written an entire book on US involvement in the Middle East since 1976 (‘A Choice of Enemies’) which makes almost no mention of the vast number of civilians killed in indiscriminate attacks by US forces or their allies – and absolutely none of the deliberate targeting of civilians and ambulances in Coalition assaults on Fallujah and other cities like Samarra ; nor of the systematic and brutal torture by Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq reported by US and British troops to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as to British courts. The word “torture” appears on just a few paragraphs on 4 of 509 pages of Freedman’s book and is glossed over without any discussion of the scale of it or the methods used. Unlike in soldier’s reports to human rights groups, Freedman mentions “beatings” once – without mention of the fact they often go on for days and nights on end by shifts of troops, with some victims dying. Breaking bones with baseball bats is never mentioned by Freedman, nor does battering head off doors or concrete floors, nor electrocution. His only other descriptions are “humiliation” and “attack with dogs”, in the same sentence as “beatings” – and he gives the false impression these happened only at Abu Ghraib and only by the soldiers named in the Taguba report. (23) – (24).

Then there are a two thoroughly establishment former civil servants, one being Inquiry Chairman sir John Chilcot, who approved the previous Butler Inquiry whitewash (25).

In short the entire inquiry is a joke Michael. It is not dealing with any of the core facts or evidence, just playing around the edges for show. Pretending otherwise is a sad joke, but feel free to pretend this is a rigorous trial which has found Blair guilty of nothing more than “mistakes”.

White goes on to say that

“a middle-aged woman called Deidre, smartly dressed and articulate, emerged from the hearing on BBC TV to sum up the familiar case for the prosecution….Deidre acknowledged "tears in his voice, but it was all rehearsed. I don't believe a word of it"…And that's it really: "We wuz robbed." Whatever the man says doesn't matter to his hardcore critics…It will not stop the Iraq specialists poring over Blair's testimony and the accompanying release of documents looking for flaws and inconsistencies, as they so often have done before – and emerge as "frustrated" as Deidre because they still can't find that final proof…. ……..

….It's disappointing for the pack that always gathers where Blair goes, not least because the Get Blair crowd are looking for something that isn't there – the smoking gun that proves Blair's villainy. Instead they get mistakes, his misplaced optimism in the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) intelligence about WMD, the efficacy of invading such a snake pit as quasi-Stalinist Iraq or the Pentagon's reckless occupation strategy.”

You really think we would ever expect to get evidence of Blair's guilt coming from his own mouth in an inquiry set up with a panel of Iraq war supporters who are banned from even referring to parts of his communications with President Bush during questioning in the inquiry or in the final report, when, even if they’re released, large sections of these conversations have also been deleted from Whitehall records ?  (26) – (27) How naive. How ludicrous.

Should we judge everyone's guilt or innocence of crimes on these standards? We could allow the accused to appoint his friends and associates as judges, not bother with a jury - and decide what evidence the "court" is allowed to bring up and what it can't; and what questions they can and can't ask. Then everyone will be found to have just made some mistakes, even if they got large numbers of people killed by premeditated lies, because i mean if they didn't admit their guilt you haven't laid a glove on them. Isn't that right Michael? The prisons can be emptied tommorrow that way. Everyone's a winner.

Still, it makes you feel smug to pretend that if Blair doesn’t admit guilt he must be innocent of anything but some “mistakes”, despite the wealth of evidence ; and clearly you can look down on some “middle aged woman” who’s only one of millions to have lost people they loved as a result of Blair’s lies.

Her name by the way Mr White is Deirdre Glover and her son's name was Kristian Glover. He was 30 when he was killed in Iraq.

Forget researching the facts, Iran is “scary” so Blair and his critics are supposedly equally wrong

White continues

“I think Blair was naive and careless, but so were many of his critics – as they demonstrate today on the scary subject of Iran, though I share their distaste for Blair's bellicosity, on evidence again today. But we're not learning more than nuances of the Iraq policy any more, we're mostly spinning in well-trodden mud.”

Wow another brilliant fact and argument free "analysis". Iran is "scary". Blair just made mistakes and all his critics are supposedly as wrong as he is and just as much to blame for being “careless”, based on not one fact, because he hasn’t admitted guilt.

Fact: Iran's government had the opportunity for glorious national martyrdom in 1988 when the US Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus. They believed this signalled the US was about to join the Iran-Iraq war on the Iraqi side, as opposed to arming him and providing him with chemical and biological weapons (as it had been for years). They - including Rafsanjani and Khameini and Revolutionary Guard officers like Ahmadinejad - chose to persuade Khomeini to make peace instead. This fact is available from many histories of Iran, including the Persian Puzzle by former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack (28).

Iran's 'Supreme Leader' Ayatollah Khameini (above) has control of Iran's military - not President Ahmadinejad while the pragmatic Ayatollah Rafsanjani (below) is influential in Iranian politics. Both helped persuade Khomeini to choose peace over national martyrdom in 1988.

So, as Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld and US General John Abizaid have both said, the world can live with a nuclear Iran, as Iran's government is not going to commit mass suicide by starting a nuclear war, however much they might urge individual martyrdom on others (29) – (30).

Former US General John Abizadi (above) and Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld (below) both say we can live with a nuclear Iran

Fact: This is basically the same scenario as with the whole Iraq charade. During the 1991 war Saddam did have WMDs and some delivery systems for them - highly inaccurate Scud missiles with chemical warheads. He did not use one of them (You can find this fact in a book written by Joseph S .Nye (a former member of the Clinton administration) and Robert Keohane called 'After the Storm' though they pretend it's a "mystery" that he didn't use them, despite the blindingly obvious - that as Condoleezza Rice acknowledged in 2000 "rogue regimes" could not use WMDs even if they developed them without being destroyed by a nuclear counter strike from Israel, the US or it's allies and so "classical deterrence" would render their WMDs ineffective for anything except deterring others from attacking them (31) – (32).

Chilcot Inquiry member and historian Lawrence Freedman also acknowledges the scud chemical warheads existed but weren’t used by Saddam in the 1991 war in his book ‘A Choice of Enemies’, adding that “Iraqis..Indicated that they were influenced by the prospect of nuclear retaliation, though as much from Israel as the United States.”, but, as far as I can find out, has never brought this up during the Inquiry. His book goes on to make up some illogical and vague claim about the Iraqis maybe having made this claim about their motives for reasons of “prestige”. (33)

A Scud missile - in 1991 Saddam had chemical warheads for his scud missiles, but only fired conventional ones for fear of nuclear retaliation from Israel or the US. So the supposed Iraqi "threat" never existed and whether Saddam had WMD or not was irrelevant.

North Korea has nuclear weapons already and it’s government is no less “unstable” or “irrational” than Iran’s – if anything more so. So why is the prospect that Iran might get it’s own nuclear deterrent “scary” to you Mr. White, but you don’t worry about North Korea?

The conspiracy theory that the Iraqi or Iranian governments would commit national and personal suicide by proxy by handing WMDs to terrorist groups is ludicrous - which is why, a decade into the "war on terror", it's never happened - despite the chaos in Iraq after the invasion letting Al Qa'ida get it's hands on the few remnants of Saddam's WMDs from the 1980s. Even Al Qa’ida do not want to risk nuclear retaliation.

Fact : Saddam could only use WMDs on his own people - and on Iranians- while the nuclear powers - including the US, France, theUK, Russia and China - were allied to him during the Iran-Iraq war. Fact :  At the time of Halabja none of these governments gave a toss about it - and Blair refused to sign parliamentary motions condeming the gassing and genocide and demanding US and British aid be ended (which it never was till shortly before the 1991 war as the Scott Report and US members of congress revealed) (34)

Saddam could only use chemical weapons on his own people and the Iranians when all the nuclear powers were supporting him, funding and arming him during the Iran-Iraq war - which they continued to do for 2 years after Halabja. After 1991, with the US hostile to him, he couldn't risk it. So there was no threat of him using WMD on his own people again either

As for Blair having made “mistakes” on WMD don’t make me laugh (or should that be cry that not one national newspaper editor seems to know or care about the basic facts). Read UNMOVIC head Hans Blix’s last two briefings of the UN Security Council on the progress being made in destroying Saddam’s last reserves of WMDs from the 80s and on the destruction of his longest ranged missiles and of manufacturing facilities for them (35) – (37).

Also note the trick of misdirection used on the mythical “threats” posed by Iraq or Iran getting WMD –  i.e both had and have proven they wouldn’t use them if they had them for fear of a nuclear counterstrike.

As for your theory that his critics should “move on”, that will only be possible when Blair, the Israeli government and half the politicians in the US at least stop calling for another war on Iran that would get hundreds of thousands more killed – and editors and journalists like yourself stop parroting them on the non-existent “threat” from “scary” Iran. (Hoping that they might admit the horrendous lies they told and crimes they committed in Iraq and deal with the reality that neither Iraq nor Iran can possibly pose a threat to nuclear armed nations and their allies who also have immensely stronger militaries than them would doubtless be too much.)

Iraqis will not be able to move on for decades, because they’re still being killed by the same US trained death squads and the same terrorists that the US let into the country by invading and creating chaos, with no concern for anything but their own profits.

You, Mr. White, like Blair, are certainly “careless” of the truth and “spinning in well-trodden mud” on Iran as on Iraq before it though. You never let facts get in the way of some smug opinion that Blair is half right and his critics are all just as wrong as he is - some tawdry, fact and logic free, fence sitting.

But forget facts, eh Michael? Iran is "scary" so Blair must be half right. Pathetic. Anyone paying to buy a newspaper with one of your columns in it is certainly being robbed if they expected any of the central facts from reliable sources, or any coherent argument.

Have you spent so much time being flattered and fed lies by government press officers and Ministers that you actually believe they’re giving you the facts and not spoon feeding you garbage? Do you actually check any reliable, neutral (as opposed to political, government) sources on anything? ; Clearly not often.

The above includes plenty of reliable sources with solid facts (listed below and in some cases on the links below). I wish you’d recognise some of them. I don’t think it’s likely you ever will though. Much easier to pretend the truth is half way between what Blair says and what his critics say than risk losing readers or having to do any work by researching and publishing the unpleasant facts.

(1) = Guardian Politics Blog 21 Jan 2011, 17.38 GMT, ‘Chilcot inquiry: we wuz robbed again’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jan/21/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair-iraq

(2) = Baroness Prashar,http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/usha-prasher/26541

(3) = The Iraq Inquiry – People - Baroness Usha Prashar of Runnymede,
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/background/ushaprashar.aspx

(4) = The Iraq Inquiry – People – Sir Martin Gilbert,http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/background/martingilbert.aspx

(5) = Sir Martin Gilbert Online,http://www.martingilbert.com/

(6) = Telegraph 31 Jan 2007 ‘Churchill wanted to use gas on enemies’,http://www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/WSC/gaswar.html

(7) = Guardian 28 Nov 2002 ‘The Churchill you didn't know’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2002/nov/28/features11.g21

(8) = Guenther W. Gellermann, "Der Krieg, der nicht stattfand", Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1986, pp. 249-251, http://www.codoh.com/incon/incongasmemo.html

(9) = Rashid Khalidi (2005) ‘Resurrecting Empire’, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusets, 2005, page 26 - 27

(10) = Thomas Pakenham (1999) ‘ The Boer War’, The Folio Society, London, 1999,
p613-615, 626-634 (chapters 38 & 39)

(11) = Observer 26 Sep 2004 ‘Statesmen for these times’, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1379819,00.html

(12) = See (9) above, entire book

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

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

(15) = Clark , Ramsey (1992) ‘War Crimes: a Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq’ Maissoneuve Press , 1992 – and at http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-index.htm

(16) = Observer 20 Dec 1998 ‘Refineries in the bombsights in plan to undermine regime’

(17) = New York Times 18 Aug 1999 ‘With Little Notice, U.S. Planes Have Been Striking Iraq All Year’, http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/081399iraq-conflict.html

(18) = New Statesman 17 Aug 2000 ‘Labour claims its actions are lawful while it bombs Iraq, starves its people and sells arms to corrupt states’, http://www.newstatesman.com/200008070012

(19) = Guardian 19 Feb 2001 ‘Raid shows Bush-Blair bond on Iraq’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/feb/19/usa.iraq2

(20) = Counterpunch 04 Dec 2002 ‘No-Fly Zones Over Iraq : Washington's Undeclared War on "Saddam's Victiims"’, http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill1204.html

(21) = See blog post on following link and the sources listed for it,http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/09/blair-us-uk-and-saddams-invasions-and.html

(22) = See blog post on following link and the sources listed for it,http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/09/are-iraqis-better-off-as-result-of-2003.html

(23) = Lawrence Freedman (2008) ‘A Choice of Enemies’, Weidenfield & Nicolson, London, 2008

(24) = See the website page on the following link and the sources listed for it, http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/who%27s_right_on_Iraq/torture/

(25) = http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/people.aspx

(26) = BBC News 18 Jan 2011 ‘Iraq inquiry 'disappointed' by Bush-Blair note secrecy’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12210687

(27) = Independent 20 Jan 2011 ‘Details from Blair's Iraq calls were deleted’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/details-from-blairs-iraq-calls-were-deleted-2189275.html

(28) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(20054), ‘The Persian Puzzle, Random House, New York, 2005 paperback edition - pages 249-374 ; Also see the link below and the sources for it, which include Pollack’s book with chapter and page numbers, http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/PersianProblem/

(29) = Forward – The Jewish Daily – 24 Sep 2007 ‘The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran ’,http://www.forward.com/articles/11673/

(30) = CNN 18 Sep 2007 ‘Retired general: U.S. can live with a nuclear Iran’,http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-18/world/france.iran_1_nuclear-weapon-nuclear-program-nuclear-fuel?_s=PM:WORLD

(31) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm, Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216

(32) = Rice, Condoleeza (2000) in Foreign Affairs January/February 2000‘ - 'Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest' http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20000101faessay5-p50/condoleezza-rice/campaign-2000-promoting-the-national-interest.html - cited in Chomsky, Noam (2003) 'Hegemony or Survival' , Penguin Books , London & NY 2004, pages 34 & 260 citing Mearsheimer, John & Walt, Stephen (2003) in Foreign Policy Jan/Feb 2003

(33) = Lawrence Freedman (2008) ‘A Choice of Enemies’, Weidenfield & Nicolson, London, 2008, Chapter 12, p245

(34) = See the blog post link below and sources 5 to 11 at the bottom of it,http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/09/blair-us-uk-and-saddams-invasions-and.html

(35) = Briefing of the Security Council, 14 February 2003: An update on inspections, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix, http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/pages/security_council_briefings.asp#6

(36) = Briefing of the Security Council, 7 March 2003: Oral introduction of the 12th quarterly report of UNMOVIC, Executive Chairman Dr. Hans Blix,http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/pages/security_council_briefings.asp#7

(37) = Also see the blog post link below and sources for it,http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/09/risks-of-action.html