This is the moment when Jonathan Powell admitted that Downing St was set on war irrespective of whether Saddam had WMD or not. This admission contradicted all the carefully constructed lies of key war criminals David Manning, Alistair Campbell and Jonathan Powell himself.
The implications of this passage could not be more stark. The aim was war. Whether or not Iraq had WMD was irrelevant. There was no interest in knowing the truth about WMD. Indeed to know the truth would be negative.
A ten year old could understand the crucial importance of what Powell said here. But the hand picked committee of pro-war cronies failed completely to pick up on it.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: I mean, Sir David Manning and
8 Sir Jeremy Greenstock both said, but differently, that
9 they would have liked to have had more time, but you
10 don’t agree with that?
11 MR JONATHAN POWELL: No, we asked for more time repeatedly
12 from January onwards of the President, and we got more
13 time in each case. Eventually, by the time we got to
14 midMarch, he wasn’t going to give us more time and the
15 French veto knocked any chance
16 SIR RODERIC LYNE: He wasn’t going to give us more time. If
17 we had had more time, if the inspectors had had longer,
18 there had been longer to build up the picture and you
19 had continued these extraordinary diplomatic efforts
20 that you described, would there not have been a chance,
21 at that stage, of actually gathering the international
22 support that we had not managed to gather by then?
23 MR JONATHAN POWELL: No. I mean, if you think about it,
24 Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. We were
25 wrong. The intelligence was wrong. So, no matter how
82
1 long you had carried the inspections on, they weren’t
2 going to find anything, and, from what we know of
3 Saddam, it is extremely unlikely that he would have
4 cooperated. So we would have been in exactly the same
5 situation for months and months and months. There would
6 have been no discovery of weapons of mass destruction,
7 but 8
SIR RODERIC LYNE: But one way or the other they might have
9 built up a more convincing picture, if they had had more
10 time.
11 MR JONATHAN POWELL: A convincing picture of what?
12 SIR RODERIC LYNE: Well, a picture to convince the people
13 who weren’t not convinced by our arguments in March.
14 MR JONATHAN POWELL: But if there weren’t weapons of mass
15 destruction, we wouldn’t have been able you are
16 asking me in retrospect, “Would we have had more time?”
17 The answer is more time would have achieved nothing.
18 SIR RODERIC LYNE: Thank you very much.
angrysoba,
glenn is correct.
From ‘Fowler’s Modern English Usage’:
– ‘You clearly infer that your policy was influenced to some extent by your feeling of loyalty to the Labour government.’ –
This misuse of ‘infer’ for ‘imply’ is sadly common – so common that some dictionaries give ‘imply’ as one of the definitions of ‘infer’ without comment. But each word has its own job to do, one at the giving end and the other at the receiving (‘What do you imply by that remark? What am I to infer from that remark?’) and should be left to do it without interference.
hawley_jr:
It’s your appeal to authority against mine.
I know it existed before then. And of course people knew about it. No story exists in thin air. By break, I mean that the story didn’t get out into the public until the Big Issue ran it (good for Caroline Moorehead though).
I am aware that the existence of the Bilderberg gives rise to all sorts of complaints about a powerful elite operating in secrecy without accountability. I can’t see the problem myself. But then I haven’t read the 64 pages of leaked minutes from 2007 which appear to give Russia carte blanche to ‘intervene’ in Chechnya: those lucky Chechens.
@angrysoba: “It’s your appeal to authority against mine.”
Now you’re making yourself look silly. Though I must admit I wouldn’t expect humility from you.
ps ‘perhaps without power’ is stretching it a bit.
George,
Interesting – I am unable to resolve sacc.org.uk and I receive emails from them.
I had to go proxy to reach the address George! and I tried an encrypted (128 Bit AES) connection using ‘ghost’ software (very useful) AND MANAGED TO CONNECT –
What does that tell me – no sure yet but investigating!!!
“ps ‘perhaps without power’ is stretching it a bit.”
Maybe, but I think the term “power” here is referring to official decision-making power as in that held by governments, hence it is being contrasted with “influence”.
Of course. But a) we increasingly have a presidential system (decisions taken by inner coterie and spun) and b) see issue of Chechnya, above.
technicolour,
“I am aware that the existence of the Bilderberg gives rise to all sorts of complaints about a powerful elite operating in secrecy without accountability. I can’t see the problem myself.”
Initially I was of that view, even after reading Estulin’s book on Bilderberg. In principle I could see nothing much wrong with extremely rich influential people meeting with each other in private and discussing world wide policy issues.
But the more I thought about it, the worse it seems. The end result is completely anti-democratic. It literally ends up, with an extremely small group of people becoming Dictators of virtually the entire World.
I am very much against dictatorship, because it is an extremely inefficient system of running anything. It results in powerful people who have no detailed understanding of how things actually are and can become imposing ridiculous unworkable and even disasterous decisions because of their ignorance.
An example of dictatorship is in Guido’s blog today, where someone is complaining that Cameron, never even meets his most senior politicians to discuss policy – ie just like the Blair dictatorship.
Dictatorship is rampant across society, and it has resulted in us being in the current total mess.
We need to break down large structures, both Government and Company into much smaller units, and return democracy to the local level. Having bureaucrats based over 1,000 miles away making decisions with regards how a local community should or should not be run, is ludicrous. What the hell does someone in an office in a different time zone know about the detail of making Lancashire Black Puddings? Its none of his soddin business and Lancashire should tell him to keep his nose out and piss off.
As regards accusations of certain people being anti-semitic because they point out for example that the State of Israel is an apartheid state that commits genocide, and that Israel pays most US & UK politicians enormous sums of money in a highly successful attempt to gain undue influence – which is totally corrupt and against the interests of the US & UK – well so far as I can see that is not only perfectly acceptable criticism, but also so politically correct, that even people like Naomi Campbell are calling for total trade sanctions against Israel. It seems to me that the people running Israel are the height of evil, perhaps even worse than the likes of Cheney & Blair.
Tony
I was being ironic, Tony. Have you read ‘Them’ by Jon Ronson? Somehow very reassuring: thoroughly recommend.
I agree, though it’s a bit dull to have to say it again, that criticising the Israeli government is not anti-semitic. However there are (gosh) people who are anti-semitic, and anti-Muslim, and homophobic, and anti-people of all colours, including lefties. Which is, of course, their privilege, but not if they’re trying to enter politics. So would you say that the ‘legal advisor’ to the BNP was none of these things? Go and look at his posts on Harry’s Place if you have the inclination: he’s called Lee John Barnes, in real life.
“It seems to me that the people running Israel are the height of evil, perhaps even worse than the likes of Cheney & Blair.”
Zionists Tony?
What on earth does that mean, Mark? Don’t start again with the Zionist stuff, please. I think we all know where we are with that one.
Technicolour,
Where are we with that one?
We are at the point where if every decent commentator on this board who objects to slurs, insinuations, abuse etc has to come on again pointing out that they object to Zio-conspiracy shit they will get very very bored.
There are different types of Zionism. Did you know that?
No – I didn’t know – but willing to learn.
I only know the right to self-determination in their national home.
If that involves slaughter – then so be it!
Which is absolute total and insulting bollocks.
I do apologise, Mark, I was under the impression that before throwing words like ‘Zionist’ around, people would have read a little about the subject. Or perhaps, even know a Jewish person to talk to. Obviously not. Fortunately, it is not hard. If you read all the way down the Wiki page, you will find this:
General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class (or bourgeoisie) to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Chaim Weizmann aspired. Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights, although Kadima does identify with many of the fundamental policies of Liberal Zionist ideology, advocating among other things the need for Palestinian statehood in order to form a more democratic society in Israel, affirming the free market, and calling for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel.
technicolour,
I abhor people like the Ku Klux Klan, or anyone who is so ignorant, that their hatred is such that they literally want to kill purely on the basis of skin colour, race or religion.
However, I can fully appreciate how many indigenous people feel when their local community is totally overwhelmed, by a completely different culture, without them having any means whatsoever to protect themselves from such invasion.
It has happenned to the indigenous Native American, and the indigenous Native Aborigini, and the indigenous Native Oldhamer.
To quote just 3 examples (I could even say the Native indigenous Londoner).
Now, personally, I am not that bothered, because it is simply a natural result of the British formerly running an Empire.
But when I went back to Oldham after 20 years to show my 5 year old son, where I was born and grew up, I may as well have taken him to a town in India of Pakistan. I was completely astonished at the change.
In fact their are some parts of India, that have a much higher concentration of English people than does Oldham.
Now if you are of the view, that all people from all over the world – are pretty much the same – regardless of their culture etc, then you may well see this as a good thing.
But not everyone shares the same view. It is a fact, that all over the world, people really are tribal. Its very evident in the UK in many towns, where a former English culture has been almost totally replaced.
Pointing this out and objecting to it, is not being racist.
The kind of harrassment, leading to genocide that was committed against the Jews in Germany, and is now being committed by UK & US governments against Muslims most definitely is racist.
Tony
technicolour,
accepted
My boss (Ronii) in Victoria London was a lovely kind Jewish man – all I know, he taught me = he advocated a Jewish state for ALL its citizens.
Oddly, the BNP vote in Blackburn, after years of campaigning, was about the same as Craig Murray’s after 3 months. I don’t know about Oldham.
All you have to do is look around a place like Oldham, or Blackburn, or Tottenham, and imagine the scene if the BNP had their way. They believe in forced deportation, remember? These places would be deserts. Parts of London would look like 28 Days Later. And yet most of the UK would hardly notice, because the TOTAL ethnic minority population in the UK is 7.9 percent. That’s less than 8 people out of a hundred. Hardly an ‘English’ culture being nationally displaced. As for Muslims, the BNP’s favourite bete noir – around three percent. Yes, I can see they’re going to take over our morris dancing in a hurry.
I have every sypathy for the people who vote BNP out of ignorance, or because they’re misguided, or because they’re desperate, or because they’ve been bullied into it. I have very little for the BNP’s ‘leaders’.
By the way, is Oldham by any chance ruled by a corrupt and inefficient Labour council? Seemed to be a lot of the real problems behind Blackburn.
Most definitely racist Tony – I agree – a subject close to my heart and one in which I have spoken about at ISB conferences.
The fact of the matter is that it is no longer acceptable in the developed world for a state to exist and operate based on religion, race or skin colour.
Regardless of where in the world people live, they should all have equal rights regardless.
Whilst history cannot be rewound, Apartheid states such as Israel are a blot on humanity.
The vast majority of Israeli’s have no more historical, racial or religious right to live in Israel, than did Europeans to run the Apartheid State of South Africa.
Most Israeli’s have exceedingly white skins which reflects their real historical origins. They have as much right to take over Palestine and expel the indigenous Semites, as would Catholic Eskimos taking over the Vatican.
khazaria.com
jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/whatis.cfm
Tony
Having allowed the invasions, and allowed the word ‘muslim’ to become of any interest whatsoever, the government are now damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Was anyone wondering whether the Nazis were ‘racist’ because they invaded Poland? What bothers me is implicit support for a new group of people in this country who actively hate, who are actively anti, who actively try and conflate every beef going into one mass theory of awfulness (Zio-Muslim_banker-corporate-shill-bloodlines-fuckthegovernment-wank). Where’s your stand against them?
“But when I went back to Oldham after 20 years to show my 5 year old son, where I was born and grew up, I may as well have taken him to a town in India of Pakistan. I was completely astonished at the change.”
I doubt that very much, unless people were speaking Hindi or Urdu. And does it not bother you to use words like ‘invasion’ about legal and peaceful migration? Iraq was an ‘invasion’.
the above was to tony-opmoc.
CARTOONIST re your January 20, 2010 10:22 PM comment.
I do apologize for using your well translated quote alongside my bad German spelling. If I use your quote again, I will spell the word zersetzung your correct way so as not to leave any erroneous impression that my misspelling is associated with you. Otherwise I have to continue to spell in my mistaken manner (zerzetsen or zerzetzen ?” I’m not even consistent) because the search engines have a considerable body of material referenced to my old erroneous spelling. Incidentally, I appreciated your comments.
Roderick, why don’t you contact the Cartoonist directly? I am sure he will be delighted to hear from you. In the meantime, you are way off topic, please don’t muddle this thread, as I’m interested in it. Don’t bother replying to me, just to the Cartoonist.
and tony-opmoc, how you can unblushingly equate what happened to the Native American Indians and the aborigines with what has happened to the ‘indigenous’ people of Oldham is extraordinary. Were the people of Oldham massacred? Were they deliberately infected with small pox? Have I missed something?
You, my friend, are hanging out with some strange leaps of logic. I’d watch them, if I were you. It doesn’t sit so well with your ‘most people are lovely’ approach, or were those sops to the board?
I see. Now you equate the arrival of Pakistanis and Indians in the UK with a Nazi invasion. So, to recap, the people with darker skins living in areas of the North and London are
a) Carrying out genocide, as was committed against the ‘indigenous peoples’ of North America and Australia
b) The equivalent of the Nazis.
I think it’s quite clever of the BNP to start throwing the word ‘Nazi’ around as though they despised it; and also to accuse of other people of anti-semitism. This does not detract from the fact that at BNP festivals, the festival goers give Nazi salutes and sing the Horst Wessell song. I guess you can have your cake and eat it, right, tone?