Iraq: 20 years on

Lies, war and the ‘rules-based order’

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T[ony] B[lair] gave me assurances when I asked for Iraq to be discussed at Cabinet that no decision made and not imminent.

Clare Short, Diaries, 9 Sept 2002

Mr Blair was ‘economical with the truth’ in his assurances to Clare Short, a member of his cabinet. He was likewise economical with Parliament, the press and the people of his country. Papers leaked to the Daily Telegraph (18 Sept 2004) and further papers published by the Sunday Times (1 May 2005) [collected in The Dodgiest Dossier, Spokesman 2005] make this clear. The lies were not simply about the point at which he and his closest allies had decided - along with the Bush Administration - to wage war against Iraq but about the basis for such a decision. As Ken Coates noted:

These papers showed in graphic detail how weak was the pre-war evidence for attacking Iraq ... The briefing papers made the bald claim that ‘the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’. They reveal that the British Government knew that there was no major threat from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they also knew that the claim that Iraq had links with al Qaeda was ‘frankly unconvincing’.

Ken Coates, The Dodgiest Dossier

Despite the “frankly unconvincing” claims, the lack of evidence, the absence of UN consent, divisions in the ‘international community’ and an enormous global anti-war movement and its heroic efforts to avert the very worst, the very worst unfolded. The US and UK went to war against Iraq.

In short order, the toll of Iraqi deaths rocketed as the bombs and rockets rained down. Destruction was unleashed upon the land and two decades on, the legacies of war and occupation leave their mark.

Ken Coates relentlessly analysed the roots, conduct and outcomes of events in Iraq. In his pamphlet, Tony Blair: The Old New Goes to War, Coates writes: 

The enforcement of international law is commonly not advanced by the outbreak of war. When the war itself is arguably illegal, this perception applies with redoubled force.

He then details cases of torture, the undermining of the United Nations and breaches of the Geneva Conventions which, in addition to the death-toll and destruction, reveal much about those who claim to ‘uphold the rules-based order’.

Jack Straw - who served as Blair’s Foreign Secretary - told a House of Commons Select Committee (4 March 2003) that:

... you are right it is the United States which has the military power to act as the world’s policeman, and only the United States. We live in a uni-polar world ... We will reap a whirlwind is we push the Americans into a unilateralist position in which they are the centre of this uni-polar world.

This uni-polar moment is over. The US, in desperation to maintain influence, continues to act recklessly and dangerously. The UK and other NATO members show no signs of dissent. What new horrors are planned in the name of a ‘rules-based order’? Where will this end?