Chilcot inquiry and the Iraq war

digitalscream

Just watching Iraq: The Final Judgement on the Beeb.

Fucking hell, it was even worse than any of us thought. Certainly worse than I thought; it's odd to think of us as the bad guys, and it's pretty much an inescapable fact that we made things immeasurably worse for the Iraqi people, not to mention our own soldiers.

Ugh.

TTony

But "we" brought them democracy.

Whether they wanted it or had asked for it, or not.

Democracy is always a good thing.

Intervening in things that you don't understand and for which you have no concept of how you can "de-intervene" successfully (aka an exit plan) won't end happily.

Nitefly

I'll have to get it on catch-up later - OM is currently bingeing on catch-up Corrie.  :x

octatonic

I'm watching it too.

Very sad.

littlegreenman

I can imagine Blair watching Peter O'Toole before it all went off, thinking "How hard can it be?"

Blow up a few things, draw some new lines in the sand and Hey Presto!

ICBM

It's really going some to make things worse for people than they were under a psychopathic dictator, but we managed it.

Not to mention that the final consequence was Daesh.

I just hope the publication of the report doesn't get lost in the ongoing fallout from our latest catastrophic Prime Minister-inflicted screw-up. (And I'd be saying that even if I had voted Leave…)

I'll download this and watch it later.

TTony

littlegreenman said:

I can imagine Blair watching Peter O'Toole before it all went off, thinking "How hard can it be?"

Blow up a few things, draw some new lines in the sand and Hey Presto!

To be fair (just for a moment), I've never seen Blair as being malevolent or a war monger.

Did he get some stuff wrong?  Well, with hindsight, very probably.  But I have no idea what advice he was given by "experts", nor what pressure he was under to support George Jr.

Who knows what would have happened in the absence of an intervention.  There'd already been one incredibly destructive war (Iran/Iraq) with a lot of the underlying issues still unresolved and festering.  The whole "has he / hasn't he" question could have been answered by Mr Sadam if he'd chosen to, and waiting to find out for sure really wasn't an acceptable option (imagine the outcry that there would have been).

Did "something have to be done"?

Probably.

Did it have to be the US/UK that did it?

Who else would have done?

Was it done sensitively and with a credible exit plan?

Clearly not.

So, going in was possibly right as the only option given the absence of certainty.  But the means of getting out again afterwards should have been much more carefully thought out.

If only all politicians could run the world from the comfort of my armchair, watching Glasto catch-ups, with a glass of wine to hand, and the benefit of 20:20 hindsight ...

Paul_C

How could they have known though ?

If you look at what happened in Yugoslavia once the tyrannical leader was no longer there, you'd have reasoned that Iraq would become a land of milk and honey, surely ?

littlegreenman

TTony said:

littlegreenman said:

I can imagine Blair watching Peter O'Toole before it all went off, thinking "How hard can it be?"

Blow up a few things, draw some new lines in the sand and Hey Presto!

To be fair (just for a moment), I've never seen Blair as being malevolent or a war monger.

Did he get some stuff wrong?  Well, with hindsight, very probably.  But I have no idea what advice he was given by "experts", nor what pressure he was under to support George Jr.

Who knows what would have happened in the absence of an intervention.  There'd already been one incredibly destructive war (Iran/Iraq) with a lot of the underlying issues still unresolved and festering.  The whole "has he / hasn't he" question could have been answered by Mr Sadam if he'd chosen to, and waiting to find out for sure really wasn't an acceptable option (imagine the outcry that there would have been).

Did "something have to be done"?

Probably.

Did it have to be the US/UK that did it?

Who else would have done?

Was it done sensitively and with a credible exit plan?

Clearly not.

So, going in was possibly right as the only option given the absence of certainty.  But the means of getting out again afterwards should have been much more carefully thought out.

If only all politicians could run the world from the comfort of my armchair, watching Glasto catch-ups, with a glass of wine to hand, and the benefit of 20:20 hindsight ...

Yeah, I was being deliberately flippant.

The lack of a defined exit strategy and means of leaving behind a stable country/ regime was more my not-so-subltle point. Just as has been done in Afghanistan. Power abhors a vacuum, and we pretty much knew which powers were around to fill them.

I'll be watching that BBC doc as soon as I have the spare hour for it. Don't doubt it'll not be comfortable viewing.

Although, "Glasto catch-ups"? How very dare you sir!? The armchair and wine, I'll concede that. The 20:20? My optician would argue otherwise

ICBM

TTony said:

There'd already been one incredibly destructive war (Iran/Iraq)

This is very important to remember - particularly as the Kuwait war is now being referred to as 'the first Gulf War', usefully sweeping the real first one under the carpet.

It was the second. The first was when Saddam - with western support and armament, including ours - invaded Iran as a pure act of aggression, which we supported because we didn't like the nasty Ayatollah in Iran. Who coincidentally had taken power in a popular revolution against the abuses of the western-installed Shah.

Over a million people died in that war, which saw the use of chemical weapons and WWI-style trench warfare.

And we still haven't learned, but this time it's come back to bit us more directly than just our former regional puppet getting a bit above himself and invading somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

digitalscream

TTony said:

To be fair (just for a moment), I've never seen Blair as being malevolent or a war monger.

Did he get some stuff wrong?  Well, with hindsight, very probably.  But I have no idea what advice he was given by "experts", nor what pressure he was under to support George Jr.

The central problem with all this, according to the reporter/narrator, is that he was warned - quite a number of times - that there was no basis for invasion and that it was going to make things considerably worse, and he simply ignored it.

That, for me, is the unforgivable part. It's the same problem we always seem to have in this country - ignore the experts on the basis that we don't like being told what to do, and surround ourselves with an echo chamber of people who agree with us.

The fact that the only reason our forces got out of Iraq alive is that they effectively negotiated a surrender by releasing all their prisoners to safeguard passage out of there...that's the icing on the cake, particularly since it was never reported (to my knowledge).

TTony

littlegreenman said:

Although, "Glasto catch-ups"? How very dare you sir!? The armchair and wine, I'll concede that. The 20:20? My optician would argue otherwise

@littlegreenman - that wasn't a dig at you - it was a dig at myself as I'm sat here, watching recorded Glastonbury, with the glass of wine and my perfect hindsight

hugbot

So....if this is whats already known, Whats left in in the report?

littlegreenman

TTony said:

littlegreenman said:

Although, "Glasto catch-ups"? How very dare you sir!? The armchair and wine, I'll concede that. The 20:20? My optician would argue otherwise

@littlegreenman - that wasn't a dig at you - it was a dig at myself as I'm sat here, watching recorded Glastonbury, with the glass of wine and my perfect hindsight

comme ci, comme ça

digitalscream

hugbot said:

So....if this is whats already known, Whats left in in the report?

Spin, I'd imagine. Which way, however, is anyone's guess.

axisus

I remember one of the first days of the war, there was a big picture of a wailing old man who had lost 9 members of his family, including women and children. I just thought WHAT THE F*** ARE WE DOING????!!!!!?!?! 

Utterly shameful.

Garthy

Paul_C said:

How could they have known though ?

If you look at what happened in Yugoslavia once the tyrannical leader was no longer there, you'd have reasoned that Iraq would become a land of milk and honey, surely ?

Blair was told repeatedly that he was talking nonsense, especially by Chirac and Schroder- even on live TV with them both shouting back from the audience while Blair was on the podium.

Saddam and his sons, especially the eldest were monsters, that is beyond question, Uday was perhaps one of the most wicked men of the 20th century (sadly he has some stiff competition) but after Shock and Awe, Dubya and Blair didn't actually have a plan. It makes Brexit look like one of Woy Hodgeson's tactical errors in severity.

Nitefly

Well, I'm glad I watched it, but it wasn't easy viewing.

I wonder how much whitewash there will be next Wednesday.

Ro_S

chilcot report shall be released tomorrow.

anyone think blair will get end up being charged for illegal war? 

breakstuff

No,he's too slippery (and rich) for that to happen.

digitalscream

Ro_S said:

chilcot report shall be released tomorrow.

anyone think blair will get end up being charged for illegal war? 

All the reports suggest that he won't, but individual soldiers might.

He and his lawyers have had the report for over a week now, in order to prepare.