war criminals' gazette
Submitted by antarchi on November 23, 2010 - 15:48
UPDATED:
- Letter to Andrew Sparrow
- Reply (1) from AS
- My reply (1)
- Reply (2) from AS
- My reply (2)
- Reply (3) from AS
- My reply (3)
On the same day that Alistair Campbell reviews George Bush's memoirs in the Guardian, Jack Straw gets a long interview to talk about how he *didn't* authorise rendition: Jack Straw: I did not lie to MPs over rendition
3 war criminals in one day.
Oh - and question from Andrew Sparrow to Jack Straw:
"I don't want to ask a lot about Iraq [!] because you've covered that at length in your evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. But I want to raise something you told Chris Mullin. In the latest edition of his diaries, Decline and Fall, Mullin says you told him in 2006: "The one thing I learned from Iraq was that once the process starts rolling it's very difficult to stop." Looking back at the Iraq war, was there any point where you would like to have stopped the process, or moved it in a different direction?"
Would it be possible to find a softer and more pointless question to ask of someone who actively facilitated the march to war, who lied about the reasons and the evidence, who could have stopped British participation at any point he wished, simply by not lying?
The same question is repeated 2 more times, the author thinks it's so important.
Dear Andrew Sparrow
In your interview with Jack Straw, you ask him 'was there any point where you would like to have stopped the process, or moved it in a different direction?'. He replies, as you will recall, that "I was aware that if I had, particularly later on, in February or March [2003], had said that I opposed military action, that almost certainly would have aborted UK participation and would have led to a great government crisis"
I am surprised that this is the single question you think it worth asking about the Iraq war, given Jack Straw's active engagement in making that war come about. And even more surprised that you did not pursue his answer: is a 'great government crisis' really to be compared with the great human crisis, the enormous tragedy of Iraq, in which a country has been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of lives lost? Would such a response have satisfied you if you had been interviewing the Foreign Secretary of Brezhnev's cabinet, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan; or Tariq Aziz, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, or any other key player, capable of preventing participation in an illegal war?
I would be grateful for your thoughts.
With thanks
EK
Hi,
Thanks for your email. It's a fair question. I didn't pursue this because I did not think another question would elicit anything new. Straw has already spoken about this at length, and I deliberately included a link to his Chilcot witness statement (and to his evidence too, I think). If I had asked him to explain why a government crisis would have been worse than the human disaster that followed the war, I'm fairly sure he would have just given me the explanation he gave to Chilcot about why he thinks the war was justified.
In an ideal world you would ask everything. But I only had half an hour, and generally I think it's best to ask questions that might produce an original answer.
Straw's witness statement is worth reading. I think he has given more thought to this than most of the ex ministers who gave evidence to the inquiry.
Best wishes,
Andrew Sparrow
Dear Andrew,
thanks very much for responding. I have read Straw's witness statement, and the transcript of his evidence before Chilcot, and I have also read a number of other witness statements - including that of Carne Ross and Eliza Mannigham-Buller, both of whom make it clear that Iraq was no threat, there was no intelligence to show there were WMD, and both of these facts were widely known - including, of course, by the Foreign Secretary.Straw's testimony is undoubtedly clever - the careful work of a lawyer. But it is peppered with half-truths and untruths. (I have included a short selection at the end of this message).
You are clearly persuaded by his testimony. But we are talking about an international crime of enormous proportions, tens of thousands of deaths, and millions of lives disrupted, overturned, and all but destroyed. In such a case, even if Straw acted in 'good faith' (and I find it very hard to see that he did, given the inconsistencies in his testimony), he should surely be held to account. As Hans Blix put it:
'If you think your wife is being unfaithful, and you shoot her, but then find out you were wrong, it is no use claiming that you thought you were right at the time. You are still guilty.'
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233353/Blair-Bush-orchestrated-...)
I repeat the question I put in my previous message: if you had been interviewing Gromyko or Tariq Aziz - or indeed, von Ribbentrop - and even if you were persuaded of their 'good faith' - would you not have felt it important to press them on such an important issue? Do your readers not deserve that? And do not the millions of Iraqis deserve it, who have lost their lives and homes and family, because Jack Straw did not heed the advice of lawyers, the UN inspection team, his own advisors on Iraq, the majority of the British population - and act to stop UK participation although he could have done so?
Or do we just let him forget his little mistake, and treat him as an elder statesman. That is, after all, what they used to do in the Soviet Union.
Ellie
=====================
A selection of half-truths from Straw's testimony:
Claim 1: "in late 1998 when the inspectors left, because the inspectors said they couldn't carry out their task, there was increasing anxiety about what the Iraqi regime was doing without the inspectors being there"
In fact:
Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector at that time reported that:
"When I left Iraq in 1998... the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There's no doubt about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything." (War on Iraq, 2002)
Claim 2:
"during this period -- and especially from the expulsion or removal of the weapons inspectors at the end of 1998 -- we had this stream of intelligence about what Saddam was doing and the intelligence did not say he has packed up. It didn't say that at all."
In fact:
See previous quote concerning the 'stream of intelligence' and what it showed. Furthermore, the inspectors withdrew from Iraq (they were not expelled) on the command of Richard Butler, head of UNSCOM, because the US and UK began bombing under Operation Desert Fox, again without UNSC approval.
Claim 3:
"there was the absolutely profound belief that Saddam still had chemical and biological weapons, which he could deploy,"
In fact:
"Throughout my posting in New York, it was the UK and US assessment that while there were many unanswered questions about Iraq’s WMD stocks and capabilities, we did not believe that these amounted to a substantial threat. At no point did we have any firm evidence, from intelligence sources or otherwise, of significant weapons holdings: most of the unanswered questions derived from discrepancies in Iraq’s accounting for its past stocks and the destruction of these stocks." Carne Ross, Testimony to the Iraq Inquiry
Claim 4:
"So far as Iraq was concerned -- as I say, the threat from Iraq, as at 11 September, as at 20 March 2003, was a threat, as we perceived it, from its weapons of mass destruction."
In fact:
"at no time did HMG assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. " Carne Ross, testimony to Butler Inquiry
Also -
SIR RODERIC LYNE: ... there is an indication that you did not at that time [before 2003] see Saddam Hussein's regime as an important sponsor of terrorism directed at least against this country.
BARONESS MANNINGHAM-BULLER: That is correct.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: Does it therefore follow from that that you don't subscribe to the theory that at some point in the future he would probably have brought together international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in a threat to western interests? BARONESS MANNINGHAM-BULLER: It is a hypothetical theory. It certainly wasn't of concern in either the short term or in the medium term to my colleagues and myself."
(Chilcot Enquiry)
Claim 5:
"it is quite difficult to argue that, at May 2002, the whole apparatus of containment was working."
In fact:
"if I can refer to the letter from me as Deputy Director General from March 2002 ... we felt we had a pretty good intelligence picture of a threat from Iraq within the UK and to British interests, and you will see from that letter we thought it was very limited and containable. ... we regarded the threat the direct threat from Iraq as low." Eliza Manningham-Buller, evidence to Chilcot
"The UK believed that the Iraqi threat had been effectively contained. Indeed, at many of the UK/US FCO/State Department bilateral discussions of Iraq policy which I attended between 1998-2002, discussion would often begin with an overall assessment of whether containment was working or not. Invariably, the conclusion, shared by both the US and UK, was positive. The last of these discussions that I attended took place in June 2002." Carne Ross, Testimony to the Iraq Inquiry
Hi,
Thanks. Actually, I'm not persuaded by his testimony. Or rather, I am persuaded that he has thought about this seriously and that he acted broadly in good faith. But I'm not persuaded by his argument that the war was a good thing. I suspect, at some level, that he doesn't actually believe this either. That's why I asked about the quote in the Mullin diaries, because that suggests that he thinks there was a moment where he should have acted differently. But when I asked him about this, he clearly wasn't going to open up about this. That's why I decided to move on.
I don't think I, or anyone else at the Guardian, has ever presented the Iraq war as "a minor mistake".
Best wishes,
Andrew
But then I must admit I'm baffled: why do you give a voice to this man? He has 'killed his wife'. A million wives, to be more accurate. Why does he deserve to be given any sort of platform in the media, let alone to be consulted on his views as if nothing had happened? If you must give him a platform, why do you not tie him up in knots with the lies he has told and the damage he has done?
Would you pass over the issue of wife-killing if you had a genuine wife-killer in front of you a killer who admitted he had killed, but said that he had done so in good faith? Forgive me for what may be an offensive question: but would you pass over the issue if you had in front of you someone who had killed all your relations, or the wife of your best friend? Would you ask him for his opinion on the leader of the opposition or the President of the United States, and tell him you would not really touch upon the killing of your friend's wife, because he had discussed it in another forum?
What is the difference - except that Straw has been responsible for the deaths of more wives than anyone can count, or cares to count?
That is why I say you (and the Guardian) must regard it as a minor mistake. I cannot otherwise understand how you can interview this man and fail to challenge him on having brought about the what the Nuremberg Tribunal referred to as the 'supreme international crime', an unprovoked war of aggression, whose consequence has been to rip apart a people and a country.
thanks
EK
Hi,
Thanks. I don't think we're going to agree, but I think it's good for me to know what you think. As for your question about why I bothered to interview him; well, it's because the Iraq war wasn't the only interesting thing that happened over the last 13 years. I don't think I would want to interview Geoff Hoon, because I know what he says about the war and he would not tell me anything new if I sat down with him. I didn't particularly expect Straw to tell me anything new about Iraq. I tried, but when it became clear that we weren't going anywhere, I moved on. But there are plenty of other things to ask him about. There's a difference between interviewing someone, and prosecuting them, or passing moral judgement on them.
Yours,
Andy
NB:
1. the iraq war was 'an interesting thing which happened', just as many other things did
2. the only reason for asking a war criminal about their crimes is if [you think that] he will add something 'new'
3. (implied) an interviewer should keep his moral scruples to himself
Or, as 'scrabble' puts it much more eloquently on the Media Lens board: 'That aside, Adolf, do you favour the post-Impressionists over the Pre-Rafaelites?'
OK, I agree we won't agree.
You never answered my questions about interviewing the wife-killer (or Gromyko, Aziz etc), and I suspect that you might have found it a little more difficult to detach yourself in such a case, or to be interested in their views on other matters. I believe the crime was bigger in Straw's case, but we'll leave it at that.
Best wishes
EK
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