Iraq war inquiry: former UN expert accuses Whitehall of cover-up

[go west young man]

Source: The Guardian UK

Before his appearance, large files were sent to him to read in confidence at the UK mission to the UN in New York, but "most of the key documents I had asked for were not there". In the hours before his appearance, Ross visited the Foreign Office, where he says "an official repeatedly sought to persuade me to delete references to certain documents in my testimony".

Ross claims he was told his evidence must not refer to a memo from a senior Foreign Office official. The memo, to the special adviser to the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, expressed concern that a briefing paper for the parliamentary Labour party had "dramatically" altered the assessment of Iraq's nuclear threat. Ross says the "paper claimed that if Iraq's programmes remained unchecked, it could develop a workable nuclear device within five years. The official's memo pointed out that this was not in fact the UK assessment, which was more or less the opposite: that the UK believed that Iraq's nuclear programme had been effectively checked by sanctions."

Despite the official's concern, the paper was used to brief the cabinet. Ross writes: "This paper was pure overstated propaganda, filled with almost ludicrous statements like 'one teaspoon of anthrax can kill a million people'."

He expressed incredulity that the Foreign Office wanted references to the briefing removed from his testimony, as it related to a public document. "It is very worrying that the government machine is still trying to withhold key documents, and silence those of us with detailed knowledge of the policy history. I have been told too... that members of the panel have been refused documents they have specifically requested."


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/25/chilcot-inquiry-iraq-cover-up-claim

---

More Iraq War lies being exposed in England. Too bad the American government is too weak to own up to the truth.

[go west young man]

1. Sunday morning kick.

[xocet]

2. Indeed...

Atty. Gen. Holder needs to get his act together and start working on prosecution of Bush et al.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Nancy Pelosi: "Impeachment is off the table." Barack Obama: "We need to look forward not

backward."

Eric Holder was the lawyer who achieved a handslap for Chiquita International execs, who admitted to paying tens of thousands of dollars to rightwing paramilitary death squads who murdered hundreds of union leaders on Chiquita farms in Colombia. Family survivors had sued them. The families got nothing. You think Holder is going to go after the Bush Junta?

Some criminals are too powerful to prosecute, or even to investigate.

I have my theory about how Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld got immunity. I think Daddy Bush was involved, with his "Iraq Study Group" as the front (current CIA Director Leon Panetta was a member of the ISG), possibly in coalition with military brass who didn't want to nuke Iran (at that time), and certainly in coalition with elements of the CIA (the "old CIA") whom Rumsfeld-Cheney had declared war upon. Bush Jr was in big trouble with the CIA, is my guess, over the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outings. Rumsfeld (my pick for the operational head of the CIA outings, and lead advocate for nuking Iran) was ousted. In essence, "the Deal" was: immunity from prosecution for Bush Junta principles (and underlings they chose to include) in exchange for not nuking Iran (and possibly not declaring martial law here), and jettisoning Rumsfeld and his "Office of Special Plans" (end of the war on the CIA). When Patrick Fitzgerald was investigating Cheney--and nabbed Libby--he said two things, a) that the problem was in the VP's office (a "cloud" over the VP), and b) that dealing with Cheney was a political matter. I think the problem was actually mostly in the Defense Dept (Rumsfeld), whom Fitzgerald could not even begin to get to, and "the political matter" was handled as I described: intervention by the "old CIA" who joined with the military brass to oust Rumsfeld and also to de-fang Cheney. These forces may also have had the intention of retaining the "cover"--that is, the illusion--of democracy here, to continue the Forever War.

The Democrats were given conditional permission to regain power in the executive and legislative branches, with these limitations: 1) no investigation/prosecution of the Bush Junta for its many dreadful crimes; 2) continuation of the Forever War; 3) no serious reform of any kind. ES&S/Diebold then permitted Obama to win (I think he really did win, by a bigger margin than we know--on the hopes and dreams of the American people for peace and justice and decent government) but they saddled him with a Congress full of "Blue Dog" Democrats and Pukes, to hamper him should he push reform too far. Obama was vetted, and agreed to all this. Whether that is good or bad, in the Big Picture of things, I really don't know. Maybe it was the best he and others could do in the context of the Bush Junta coup d'etat.

I think that the key point for "we, the people" to grasp is the role played by ES&S, which just bought out Diebold and thus gained an 80% monopoly over the U.S. voting machine 'market,' all of which is run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Voting IS our power as a people. It is the mechanism by which we transfer portions of our sovereignty to our elected representatives, to act on our behalf. And vote counting is either transparent--conducted in full view of the public--or this is not a democracy. Our democracy was STOLEN during the 2002 to 2004 period, when these private 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines were fast-tracked all over the country by means of a $3.9 electronic voting machine boondoggle, passed by the Anthrax Congress (in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, Oct '02). This coup was accomplished by means of corruption. There is no law that mandates 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting or says that we cannot count our votes in public view. And the power over voting systems still resides at the local/state level, where ordinary people still have potential influence.

We MUST restore transparent vote counting, or our democracy is over. It is not just that ES&S has far rightwing ties that are scarier than Diebold's. NOBODY should have secret control of the vote count! Transparent vote counting is the bottom line condition of democracy. Without it, we cannot even begin to achieve real reform, and we are under constant threat of another Bush Junta coup.

THIS is the "emperor with no clothes on." THIS is the thing that nobody in power dares to speak of! Cuz the far rightwing, in service to our corpo-fascist overseers, now has the capability--the EASY capability--of punishing anybody who does. No elected official in this country--not one of them!--can prove that he or she was actually elected. Election results are now the property of a PRIVATE CORPORATION...a far rightwing corporation!...with a monopoly!

This is both a symptom of our situation, and the key to changing our situation for the better. We are boxed in, in every way--by corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies, by a corpo-fascist Supreme Court, by vast, VAST corruption in Washington DC, by war profiteers, by our secret government--but we still actually have the power to restore transparent vote counting. It will take a big and widespread citizen movement and it will take time, but it is still doable.

[Hissyspit]

3. Diplomat Claims His Iraq Inquiry Evidence Was 'Blocked' ('Deep State' Elements Preventing...)

Source: BBC

Diplomat claims his Iraq Inquiry evidence was 'blocked'

The inquiry is investigating the background to the invasion of Iraq in 2003
The Foreign Office (FO) has declined to comment on claims by a former diplomat that it blocked key parts of his testimony to the Iraq Inquiry.

Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the UN from 1997-2002, said the FO withheld documents he requested, and warned him not to refer to a key memo. He told the Observer newspaper that he was subjected to a form of "subtle intimidation".

- snip -

Mr Ross, who appeared before the Iraq Inquiry earlier this month, alleged that "deep state" elements were preventing the inquiry from finding out the true reason for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

- snip -

He said he was told such documents could not be found - an explanation he said was "simply not plausible".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10754105

[xchrom]

4. Recommend

[alfredo]

5. Why aren't the people responsible in prison?

[asjr]

6. It will never happen. A few might

be thrown to the wolves, but those in charge will just go along without any punishment.

[alfredo]

8. Then why should we act in a lawful manner? If they can torture and murder, then why can't we?

[asjr]

10. Because then we would become the wolves.

[alfredo]

13. But living as sheep is not my idea of a democracy.

[asjr]

14. I am not trying to be philosophical, I just

do not feel there will be any retribution for the "evildoers". Scooter Libby was one that was sacrificed. And he did deliberately lie, but he was the only one I see that paid the price--almost, since he did not spend any time in jail. I've lost faith.

[alfredo]

15. We got to take the money out of politics. That is the only

way we can become more powerful than them. The pols know they can do anything they want because their corporate sponsors will support them.

[dotymed]

7. Big Brother

Winston worked in the history revision office. Documents had to be shredded constantly......

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Mr. Ross should be very careful from now on.

David Kelly found out how far they are willing to go when "subtle intimidation" doesn't work.

[Octafish]

12. Guy should be thankful he didn't end up like Dr. Kelly.

What's he want a medal?
For telling the truth?
What's he think this is, a democracy?

[Peace Patriot]

16. The document in question might be connected to David Kelly's murder.

That is the first thought I had, reading this article. This may be why it is so very "sensitive"--or one of the reasons. This is the issue that Kelly was working on, as an insider scientist. He was one of the dissenters among the scientists, who were trying to make the Iraq assessment more realistic and honest. Kelly's particular expertise was in bio-chem, but he had been part of the UN weapons inspection team for nukes in Russia. Kelly was also an experienced UN weapons inspector in Iraq. The item that I recall that he particularly objected to was the "45 minutes" allegation (that Saddam Hussein had missiles that could deliver bio-weapons to the UK in 45 mins). He was aware that the assessment was being "sexed up." That is apparently why he began whistleblowing to the BBC about the "Dodgy Dossier" in May '03.**

I wonder if there are ties to Kelly in this document (for instance, footnotes or other refs to his dissent).

-----

**(Why he began whistleblowing several months into the war, rather than before the war, may be an important question, as to his murder. Did he learn something even more dangerous to know--for instance, that Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans" was trying to plant WMDs in Iraq, to be "found" by the US soldiers who were "hunting" for the non-existent WMDs during that period with daily hype in the corpo-fascist newsstream about it? Or, possibly something more elaborate and even worse--a "find" of WMDs that led to Iran, to extend the war into Iran, then and there? If you look at things from Cheney's and Rumsfeld's points of view at the time, Cheney needed the political cover of a WMD "find"; Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iran. And this is the kind of thing that Kelly would most likely know about--weapons movements, weapons plots. So that's my guess as to what got Kelly murdered. The BBC whistleblowing was not sufficient reason. In that, he anonymously stated things that a whole lot of people already knew--including everybody who read Plame's husband Wilson's op-ed in the NYT, ten days before Kelly was murdered. The op-ed was published on 7/6. Plame was outed on 7/14. Kelly was murdered on 7/17. And all of Plame's agents/contacts in the WMD world were then outed on 7/22. Why were Wilson and Plame not killed, if the precipitater of these events was mere bad publicity? Possibly because they were protected by the CIA. But possibly, also, because Wilson said nothing more than what most informed people knew at the time--the WMDs had been hype. Kelly was apparently more of a threat. Why?)

[The abyss]

17. As always Peace Patriot

You speak the truth!

Please continue on.

[Nihil]

18. That's the right question (and a good guess behind it).

> And this is the kind of thing that Kelly would most likely know about--weapons
> movements, weapons plots. So that's my guess as to what got Kelly murdered.
> The BBC whistleblowing was not sufficient reason.

> Kelly was apparently more of a threat. Why?

Keep shining the light into the dark corners.