Brent Stop the War Meeting: Chilcot - what now?

This was the surprise guest at Brent Stop the War/Brent & Harrow PSC findraising garden party on Sunday

From Brent Stop the War

There is a growing demand that Tony Blair should face a motion of contempt in the House of Commons over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has said he would probably support.

What does the Chilcot Report mean for Stop the War?  How can we build a movement capable of stopping current and future interventions abroad?

Mundher Adhami [a member of the Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, and the Iraqi National Foundation Congress]will speak at a special meeting of Brent Stop the War which will take place on Monday, July 18th at 7.30pm

Brent Trades Hall (London Apollo Club) 375 High Rd, Willesden, NW10 2JR

[It’s very close to Willesden Bus Garage, buses 6, 52, 98, 226, 260, 266, 302, 460 and just five minutes’ walk from Dollis Hill Jubilee Line station]

Lucas: Chilcot proves Blair lied about reasons for going to war - Stop the War meeting tomorrow

Caroline Lucas the Green party MP, said today that the report is 'damning' and shows that Blair and colleagues 'lied' to the public about their reasons for going to war.

She said:

“Chilcot’s report is damning for Blair, his cabinet and all those MPs who voted to take this country into an illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Iraqis continue to pay the price for an invasion that took place long before other options for a peaceful resolution were explored. 

"This report confirms the series of serious failures that led to this disastrous war. We know for sure that Government Ministers, including Tony Blair, lied to the public about their reasons for going to war. He said he would support George Bush ‘whatever’ eight months before the war – and thousands of lives were lost because he stuck to that promise despite the evidence in front of him.

“This report confirms that Blair had indeed decided to back the Iraq war far earlier than he has previously admitted. His claim that it was a war solely to eradicate WMDs is now in tatters. Blair knew he would never have garnered enough support for regime change, so he lied to Parliament and the Public to invade Iraq.

“We can now see the consequences of this horrific war: many thousands of civilians dead, hundreds of British troops killed and injured and continued civil wars raging across the Middle East.

"Ultimately we should have never needed this report because MPs should have taken note of the clear evidence presented to them and voted against the war. There's no doubt that Tony Blair should take much of the responsibility for this disaster - but every MP who closed their ears and eyes to the facts and voted for the war should now publicly apologise.

"411 MPs walked through the lobbies to vote alongside Blair for the Iraq war - and both parties need to take responsibility for that. The Prime Minister is the only leader in Westminster to have voted for the war and he should apologise in full for doing so.

"Parliamentary and constitutional failures are a constant feature in this report. The relevent checks and balances were not in place and we need to urgently explore how we can better hold the executive to account in this country. 

"Moving forward from today it's crucial that we learn lessons. That's why I'm demanding that the Prime Minister today joins me in calling for all future votes on military intervention to be unwhipped - so MPs use the facts and their conscience as their guide rather than threats from their party machinery."

Stop the War Coalition responded to the Chilcot Report with this statement:

The Chilcot report is a damning indictment of Tony Blair and those around him who took us to war in Iraq.

The report vindicates Stop the War and all we have been campaigning for over the years.  This report would not have happened without our campaigns and our ceaseless demands for Blair to be held to account.

It clear that Blair used lies and deception to get his way, that the war was unnecessary and illegal and that everything was done to ensure it went ahead.

The victims are the Iraqis, those soldiers who died and were injured, but also the whole political system traduced by this process.

The anti-war movement and the millions who marched were vindicated by this report and we now demand justice.

We welcome the fact that this report is so damning but for us this is not the end but the beginning. Meetings should be held in every town and city around the country. There must be legal sanctions against Tony Blair and he should no longer be considered fit for any office.

If you are in London, join us tomorrow (7 July) at the People's Response to Chilcot public rally at Mary Ward House at 7pm

Reacting to the publication of the Chilcot Report, Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said:

“The Green Party believes the report’s final confirmation that the Iraq war was ‘not a last resort’ and that the British government decided to invade before all the peaceful options had been exhausted is a verdict that must produce action. We must not just say 'never again' but act to make that fact.

“That the judgements about the severity of threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were presented with a certainty that was not justified is simply inexcusable. Never again must the executive be able to lead us to war based on massaged information.

“And never again should MPs be told how to vote on such a critical matter. The Government should, immediately, announce that all future military interventions will have unwhipped votes in the House of Commons. We must never again see MPs being cajoled into voting along party lines when their conscience tells them otherwise. No MP should answer when asked why they voted for war 'I was told to.'

"Those MPs must be given genuinely independent legal advice about the legality of the action. They must know it is their responsibility to act legally, and that they could face sanction if they don't live up to it."

Speaking from Westminster, Shahrar Ali, Green Party Deputy Leader, said:

"The Green Party is resolutely committed to finding non-violent solutions to conflict situations and unequivocally opposed the war in 2003.

"The headline points of this mammoth report are chilling, yet unsurprising to all those who have been calling for Blair to be investigated at the International Criminal Court. 

"Whether on grounds of Blair's intent to bypass the UN, diplomacy not having been exhausted, or critical papers being denied to the Foreign Office, I support those renewed calls for a criminal investigation."

People's Chilcot Tribunal June 8th

From Stop the War Coalition

There is a growing sense of anticipation in relation to the publication of the Chilcot report. However, after years of lies and obfuscation, it is reasonable to be sceptical about the recent media claims that the soon to be released Chilcot report will provide a genuinely scathing critique of the process that led us into the Iraq War.

Former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond has already called for Tony Blair to be tried in the Hague for war crimes. It is well documented that Blair was committed to regime change (which is entirely illegal under international law) over a year before the invasion actually started.

It is also well documented that the intelligence dossiers which were used by the government to justify going into war were highly misleading. As Professor Steven Kettell noted, the weapons expert Dr David Kelly, who died in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, revealed that members of the intelligence community were alarmed about the way in which their opinion was ignored by Tony Blair's war-mongering clique.

Stop the War Coalition is hosting a People's Chilcot Tribunal to establish who was to blame for the catastrophes of the Iraq War, including over a million deaths and millions of refugees who are still fleeing the devastated country. There will be testimony from a wide range of people including former UN envoy to Iraq Hans von Sponeck, ex-soldiers Ben Griffin and Geoff Martin, writer Tariq Ali, Iraqi dissident Sami Ramadani, political commentator Peter Oborne, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German, CND chair Kate Hudson, Peter Brierley from Military Families Against the War, and former MP Alice Mahon.

You can book your place here. Please invite your friends as well. We will also hold a public meeting the day after the report is released

8th June 3pm-8pm Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre. 25 New Inn Yard, EC2A 3EAJ
 

Tulip, Dawn and War

Prior to Ed Miliband's speech today there had been press comment that foreign policy had played little part in the General Election campaign. Here is Brent we did have a cross-Brent hustings on War, Peace and the Middle East where some of these issues were raised. LINK

'Unintended consequences' of military intervention is as pertinent to Labour as it is to the Conservatives given Blair's intervention in Iraq. What is suprising to me is the lack of comment on Chilcot and the decision to put it on the back burner until after the election. Surely the findings should have formed a centre piece of this General Election?

At the hustings Tulip Siddiq (Labour candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn)  gave specific undertakings about war and said that she had voted for Ed Miliband precisely because David Miliband was too associated with Tony Blair and the Iraq War.

Dawn Butler was not invited to that particular hustings but was asked about her views at a subsequent election meeting. She said she had been against the war in 2003 and had voted against an inquiry in June 2007 because she thought it would have impacted on the British troops that were deployed in Iraq at the time.

This is the motion that Dawn Butler voted for. Only 8 Labour MPs voted against.

  This House, recognising that there have already been four separate independent committees of inquiry into military action in Iraq and recognising the importance of learning all possible lessons from military action in Iraq and its aftermath, declines at this time, whilst the whole effort of the Government and the armed forces is directed towards improving the condition of Iraq, to make a proposal for a further inquiry which would divert attention from this vital task

Earlier in 2006 she had asked Tony Blair a question in the House of Commons which seemed to indicate some disquiet about policy in Iraq.

Butler was subsequently seen as a government loyalist. She seconded the Queen's Speech in November 2007 and became Assistant Chief Whip in September 2008.

Attending the hustings in Brent there have been a number of occasions when candidates have been asked if they would defy the party line (and the party whips) on issues of principle. It is clearly an issue that concerns local people and the shadow of Iraq, it seems to me, is behind much of that concern as Iraq and the war figured quite large in the Brent Central battle between Dawn Butler and Sarah Teather.

Butler's Green challenger in Brent Central, Shahrar Ali, has claimed in his election material that he, rather than Dawn, is Teather's natural successor as far as issues of war and Israel-Palesrtine are concerned.

Over in Hampstead and Kilburn, Tulip Siddiq is challenged by Green candidate Rebecca Johnson, who has a long and distinguished record in the peace and disarmanent movement and is a member of Women In Black.  LINK

Footnote: In case you are wondering, Barry Gardiner, speaking in 2003 after Robin Cook resigned over Iraq stated: 'The Prime Minister has behaved with absolute integrity' but had a different position by 2011 over Libya:  LINK

BBC June 7th 2011

Amid growing unease about Nato's role, MPs are expected to press for a statement on Libya on Tuesday when Parliament returns from its 10-day recess.

Although he voted for the Iraq invasion in 2003, Mr Gardiner says the parallels between the two situations are "ironic".

"Every single argument that has been used over the last eight years to decry what happened in Iraq is being used to justify - with much less justification - what is going on in Libya," he argues.

Despite the frequent military interventions of the Blair years, he believes Labour should be looking further back into its history for its foreign policy principles.

"There is a historic role for Labour that is not being followed through here - as effectively an anti-war party that recognises war is the worst option and something that should be avoided becoming embroiled in at all costs."

And while in no doubt about the nature of the Gaddafi regime, he worries that the current intervention sets a worrying precedent for the future.

"The danger is we are being drawn into a position, in terms of what we should be doing internationally, of it 'does not matter because it is only Gaddafi'."

We must not let Blair get away with murder

The comments on my story about the Youth Parliament show how angry, frustrated and disenchanted people feel with local politicians. At a national level the expenses scandal got massive publicity, but to my mind the public lies told by Tony Blair and his government over Iraq are of a different magnitude. The number of British soldiers killed is in the hundreds - the number of Iraqi civilians killed is in the hundreds of thousands. War crimes are more important than financial crimes.

That was the reason I went down to the demonstration outside the Chilcott Inquiry on Friday when Blair was due to testify. Interviewed by Australian TV for Channel 9, I stated baldly that the Iraq War had been illegal and that therefore Blair should be put on trial for war crimes. I predicted that he would easily manage the Inquiry Panel and would be unapologetic.  I stated my belief that his action had been predicated on staying onside with President Bush and the US at any cost.

So it turned out. The low number of people attending the demonstration, after the hundreds of thousands who marched against the war in the first place, was a big disappointment. It may be that everyone expected Blair to dance circles around a toothless panel but I fear that our failure to express massive anger about Blair's actions is a sign of our feelings of helplessness and resignation. If this is part of a wider political disengagement we leave the way clear, internationally for an attack on Iran, and nationally for the shadowy Right to exert more influence. 

Earlier in the week I read an account on the front page of the local paper in Leighton Buzzard of a row about the BNP renting the local British Legion club for a meeting. A BNP spokesperson was quoted as saying that the BNP should be heard because it was the only political party opposed to the British presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a stance opens up all sorts of scenarios for the General Election.