The Chilcot Inquiry was summed up for me ten minutes ago, when Tony Blair quoted an extraordinary passage – I believe from George Bush, but didn’t catch his attribution. The quote said that WMD were not things that had a physical existence, but rather existed in the minds of scientists who could create them, other [...]

That was my comment on Guardian cif. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/19/george-bush-decision-points-review?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments How long before it is moderated out?

Quite a few internet articles have popped up, although absolutely nothing in the mainstream media. Here is one from Dandelion Salad: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/wikileaks%e2%80%99-julian-assange-accepts-intelligence-experts%e2%80%99-whistleblower-award-on-behalf-of-our-sources/ Which leads me to an interesting observation. The Wikileaks press conference was attended by at least 30 TV crews and hundreds of journalists, from all over the world. But I did not see [...]

As usual I did numerous interviews today for international media but was invited to none at all for the British media. Sky News have just farcically had a spokesman for the ultra-right Henry Jackson Foundation and a US army Colonel “debating” the Wikileaks release and both condemning it. Anyway here is a piece I did [...]

I had the great pleasure today to present the Sam Adams Award for Integrity to Julian Assange at the big Wikileaks press conference in London. I fear I did not do this very well. In fact I was merely trying to pass the award to Dan Ellsberg to present at the end of his talk, [...]

I remain grateful to emptywheel for the perception that the US defence of the Israeli killings is of a piece with its own claim to the right to murder anybody, anytime, anywhere. http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/06/04/the-us-is-defending-not-just-its-closest-ally-in-israeli-raid-but-also-approach-to-war/ This is starkly illustrated by the news that the US killed 35 women and children in a cluster bomb attack on the [...]

This really is a stunning video. I had not seen it before. Hat tip to Scunnert Nation.

I can’t be bothered watching Brown at Chilcot any more. Mildly interesting but unsurprising that Blair kept him out of the loop on dealings with Bush, Brown’s primary concern is to deny that Treasury constraints cost British soldiers’ lives. He has therefore said six times in the first half hour that, as far as the [...]

Lovely moment from an unpublished interview by Matt Kennard here, dating from 2006, in which Jack Straw forgets the particular lies he is supposed to be telling and dissolves into incoherence a la George W Bush: MK: I was going to ask you about Craig Murray and Uzbekistan ?” the situation there. I was reading [...]

Straw has just been questioned on precisely the point I made about the huge gap between his evidence and what was said in the contemporary Foreign Office telegrams. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/jack_straws_big.html#comments This relates to Security Council Resolution 1441 and what it means. Straw is holding the line that if the Security Council were to meet again “to [...]

I was watching the Andrew Marr show when Alistair Campbell broke down, apparently overcome that anybody could doubt the integrity of Tony Blair. A minute later Andrew Marr asked him if he were not troubled by the 800.000 deaths following the invasion of Iraq, and Campbell snapped back: “You can’t prove that”. It was a [...]

Blair just said “You would be hard pressed to find anyone who in September 2002 doubted that Saddam had WMD”. It wouldn’t have been that hard. If he had asked members of the Near East and North Africa Department of the FCO, the Middle East experts in the FCO’s Research Analysts, or in the Defence [...]

I am astonished that Blair had not prepared a convincing answer to the question of why he told Fern Britton that, if he had known there were no WMD, he would have found another argument “to temove” Saddam. Blair blustered, failed to finish several sentences and then concluded that he had not used the words [...]

One of these two was an honest man. The other one caused his death. Lord Goldsmith is partial to war. He likes to sit his well-padded bottom on comfortable leather chairs in expensive offices, and be flattered into agreeing that a bit of war would not be a bad idea. Baha Mosua was a very [...]

Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular. I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would [...]

Fascinating to watch Lord Goldsmith this morning. A great contrast in demeanour. Wood and Wilmshurst sounded open, painstakingly careful to be accurate, and honest. Goldsmith, by contrast sounds slick and extremely well rehearsed. The stream of verbiage never halts and he hardly seems to draw breath. Glib.

UPDATE Feeling much better now. Many thanks for the many kind – and often very wise – comments. I know why I can’t sleep, why can’t you lot? I hate being away from Nadira for lengthy periods and am not well equipped to pass the small hours alone. Still feeling an immense frustration that truly [...]

Not content with spending ?250,000 on “security” for the war criminal Tony Blair’s appearance on the Iraq Inquiry, the government have banned protestors from areas where Blair will see them. This from Stop The War: Negotiations between the police and Stop the War broke down today when it became clear that the government is trying [...]

Sir Michael Wood confirmed today that the consistent advice from the FCO’s Legal Advisers was that it was illegal in international law to invade Iraq without a second Security Council Resolution following UNSCR 1441. He also made plain that he consistently over two years advised both Blair and Straw direct that the war would be [...]

STOP PRESS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MICHAEL WOOD’S TESTIMONY, THE GOVERNMENT – NOT CHILCOTT, THE GOVERNMENT – HAS RELEASED MINUTES FROM JACK STRAW ATTACKING SIR MICHAEL WOOD AND HIS LEGAL ADVISERS FOR NOT OFFERING “A FULL RANGE OF VIEWS”. WOOD’S DAMNING EVIDENCE WAS INTERRUPTED FOR TEN MINUTES, AND NOW THE COMMITTEE ARE ATTACKING MICHAEL [...]