We still have not seen the Chilcot enquiry into Iraq. It is still being suppressed as the folks in power work out how to spare the blushes of many, principally the man who led us into this war, Tony Blair.
Blair’s excuse for war was that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction which needed to be destroyed. That was, of course, a lie. And Blair knew that it was a lie yet he repeated that lie to the House of Commons and to his people to get away with starting an illegal war. For that he deserves to be put on trial for war crimes. If only to deter future British PMs from making the same cardinal blunder but also because justice demands that Blair stands trial.
Those folks who seek to defend Blair will these days say “The WMD issue is blurred but Blair is justified at least in moral terms because he got rid of an evil regime.”
The WMD issue is not blurred it is clear cut. Blair lied and that makes the war illegal. But was it moral?
The late Saddam Hussein was a wicked man. There is evidence that he tortured and killed his own people but on a relatively minor scale. More seriously he clearly did use chemical weapons against the Kurds. His genocide against the Marsh Arabs in the early 1980s was obscene but the West never mentions that one because Saddam was on our side then (against Iran) and we gave him the weapons and turned a very obvious blind eye.
So Saddam will not be sitting at the right hand of Nelson Mandela, ooops I meant Jesus, as of now. But what have we replaced the Saddamites with?
Last week 42 men were hanged in batches of 5 at a time within 48 hours in Baghdad. Their crimes? Speaking out against the State. All had been tortured in dreadful ways and then confessed to their sins to a recorded but brief show trial. That level of torture and execution is on an industrial scale compared to that which took place under Saddam. Yet this is a regime that Allied forces are risking their lives to protect?
Sunni/Shia violence has claimed more civilian lives since Saddam was ousted than Saddam managed during his entire tenure. And there is no sign of an end to this dreadful carnage.
That is what the Blair/.Bush invasion has left as its legacy in Iraq. To his credit Bush has rather gone to ground since retirement but Trust Me Tony struts the world stage earning a nickel here and a dime there without any sense of shame.
At all levels he has more to be ashamed of than most.
And that is even assuming that he did not shag Mrs Murdoch.