The ISG Report, Margaret Beckett Responds [sic]

I wonder if she really read the report. Just in case she missed it, I'd like to hear her thoughts about these recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group:

RECOMMENDATION 63
• The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.
• The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a
commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
• To combat corruption, the U.S. government should urge the Iraqi government to post all oil
contracts, volumes, and prices on the Web so that Iraqis and outside observers can track
exports and export revenues.
• The United States should support the World Bank’s efforts to ensure that best practices are
used in contracting. This support involves providing Iraqi officials with contracting templates
and training them in contracting, auditing, and reviewing audits.
• The United States should provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Oil for enhancing
maintenance, improving the payments process, managing cash flows, contracting and
auditing, and updating professional training programs for management and technical
personnel.

RECOMMENDATION 26
Constitution review. Review of the constitution is essential to
national reconciliation and should be pursued on an urgent basis. The United Nations has
expertise in this field, and should play a role in this process.

RECOMMENDATION 28
Oil revenue sharing. Oil revenues should accrue to the central
government and be shared on the basis of population. No formula that gives control over
revenues from future fields to the regions or gives control of oil fields to the regions is
compatible with national reconciliation.

I wonder if Beckett is aware of the fact that the word "oil" is used 63 times in the report. Perhaps she is, since she remains supportive of the occupation. Her comments are as preposterous and ridiculous as people over here like Hillary Clinton and of course those on the Bush Cabal.

Sabretache Blog

Dahr Jamail's got it. OIL. That's what it has always been about and the ISG report changes - well - nothing much.

Baker is the Bush family Consiglieri. His report was never going to be about abandoning the primary objectives of the invasion, and so it has proved. Even Nial Ferguson can see through all the 'for public consumption' rhetoric to the real intent of the report. See here

The troops aren't coming home; they're to be 're-assigned' or 'embedded' in the Iraqi security forces. Oh the irony of a course which will very likely see them up against their principal historical ally in the region (Saudi Arabia) in a civil war of their (our) own making - but then again, with the knowledge that the Saudis remain the principle source of 'Al-Qaida' type inspiration and finance, maybe that was the intention all along.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, the rule of law is trumped by Saudi demands to halt a criminal investigation so that we can continue to supply them with state of the art weaponry that, in all probability, will be used against us.

You just couldn't make this up could you?

Unfortunately I missed this priceless interview when it was first broadcast.

Having just listened to it I am completely stunned. Margaret Beckett is clearly barely possessed of the intellect of a dog turd. How did someone so completely devoid of even rudimentary intelligence and analysis ever become our Foreign Secretary with all the reponsibilities and pressures that job entails ? Oh, of course I forgot. It is precisely because she is so stubbornly stupid and supine as to cling to the now completely unsupportable position that our actions in Iraq were both justifiable AND legal that she is in that very position.

But please listen to this interview if you missed it the first time around, it really is a classic. There are many gems, not just the first response of not being entirely sure of the exact words the study group used; incredible really when you are being interviewed entirely within the context of the publication of the study group's report...A later probe from the redoubatable Jim questioning the effectiveness of Iraq's democratically elected goverment elucidated the following : "I would say that there are probably areas in which the goverment's (of Iraq - my comment) writ does not run".

The really frightening aspect to all of this is the fact that we, the by now hopelessly bemused electorate, share a common responsibility for actually voting these people into office in the first place. The other, and possibly even more frightening, reality is what is the alternative ? The only long term alternative is to change our voting system such that it correctly reflects the votes cast across the board. This would inject new life into our politics as every vote would count. It might also lead to politicians being held more immediately accountable for their actions. But I am not holding my breath, I am after all a scuba diver...

On a lighter note, all the very best to you and yours over the coming festivities - just spare a thought for the poor bastards in Iraq, The West Bank, Lebanon, Dafur...etc - oh and I nearly forgot, the recently traumatised executives of BAE who so nearly had their collars felt...

All the best

Ian

That has to be the most reprehensible person I have ever heard. Perhaps at some stage she could have a chat to some of the Iraqi people I've met and listened to as they describe the deaths of their friends, people I have met, in roadside bombs. Perhaps she can try and explain how the behind-the-scenes people in government are working to reconcile the country and avoid this 'alarming picture' to the fathers and brothers of those that have been killed out there as a result of our illegal action, the ones that are picking up weapons that are now readily available to go out and return the violence. Perhaps if she talked to the people I have met, they could really tell her what's happening out there, it's obvious they aren't faking it, the looks on their faces when they tell you how the fiancee, wives, and children will never be the same is something so real that it is physically painful to those listening and watching the facts being related. But then I am mindful that this bitch just tried to take the words out of Kofi Annans' mouth by trying to state that everyone else was trying to put words in so I am mindful that maybe it would be just insulting to those that have suffered to have to listen to this fool of a foreign secretary try and tell them that actually everything is alright really and if they think it's bad it's because they are reading too much press. Sick is too small a word for this idiot.

Ian as you have realised, I think there is a checkbox question on the application form saying "Are you completely devoid of even rudimentary intelligence and analysis to enable you to become our Foreign Secretary"

It appears at the top of the form just before "Name..."

"That has to be the most reprehensible person I have ever heard".

A very natural reaction, legion, but what about Dubya? There's a lot of competition for the title of "world's most reprehensible person", and Margaret Beckett hasn't accomplished enough actual physical carnage to be a serious contender.

According to the egregious Gerard Baker in today's Times, "George Bush has wisely decided not to ruin everybody’s Christmas by announcing his plans for a new strategy in Iraq before the end of the year". That may be Baker's idea of a joke, but the remarkable impression he gives of being a truly moronic redneck Republican leads me to discount that possibility. (In fact, I believe he is British but has gone native).

Of course the people whose corpses are piling up in towering heaps all through Iraq don't celebrate Christmas, but why upset the delicate sensibilities of American voters at such a jolly festive time? Now that's reprehensible thinking for you, but it's the kind of thinking US voters chose at the polls - twice running. (And British voters too).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2505153,00.html

I have no loudspeakers: is the interview short enough to be "worth" writing a transcript?

"I have no loudspeakers"

Most computers have a socket that will operate a pair of headphones. Almost any should fit.

HTH

As for the main topic, I heard La Beckett on R4, and it's beyond parody. Is there no-one in cabinet able to stand up and say "enough"?

Crink -- it was just more playing for time, so i wouldn't bother. The Niall Ferguson linked above is more worth a read.

As usual the Today man sounded tough, ( give you that nice warm feeling they are working for you ) but avoided either by bad briefing or consummate art posing real killer questions.

No apparatchik in a Blair gov is going to admit it is a fucking disaster, which Today was pretending to play for, so just more mini-drama.

The quote from ISG posted by DAHR ----- Just trying to imagine the US gov giving advice to the Iraqi gov on proper accounting and tendering in the OIL industry, post Halliburton and CusterBattles etc, is a hollow laugh.

Privatising the lot is not.

Beckett should remove that dildo from between her legs.Help her focus better.

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG Her Majesty's Government assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2076137.ece

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG Her Majesty's Government assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

Remember that Margaret Beckett became caretaker leader of Labour after John Smith died, and "managed" the process of getting Tony Blair into power. At that time, I wondered how she had got herself into such a position of power.

Over the last three years, I have heard various ministers trying to defend Blair over the appalling situation in Iraq, but Beckett came across as being totally committed to bolstering the lies, and second only to John Reid in her passion for supporting Blair. At that time, she was Environment Minister. Why such loyalty?

In his last interview before carrying his belonging out of the Pentagon in a box, Rumsfeld said much the same as Beckett.

Footage was shown on Jon Stewart's Daily Show last night. When asked by a cretinous interviewer had he read the ISG report, Rummy moved his hand from side to side and said no, I've only I've scanned it....

So, the two people in foreign affairs posts on both sides of the Atlantic, whose job it is to read all the shit that lands on their desks, to enable them to formulate a considered foreign policy strategy in Iraq, didn't bother to read it. No change there then.

I wondered how she had got herself into such a position of power.

Thats an interesting comment and one worthy of a reply. It is of interest that after talking to a respected Psychiatrist both he and I are of a mind that our Maggie and other close members of the Bliar brood are suffering from a derivative of the Stockholm syndrome in which their own personal values of normal human decency and baseline intelligence are devolved into a mindless support of someone who they know can, and will hurt them if they fail to stay on the right side of them. It is worthy of note that Bliar is also suffering a host of mental conditions, not-withstanding the glaringly obvious sociopathic disorder within which its sustainable environment is now being systematically destroyed.
read this, it explains a lot, it also explains why the Blears Beckett crew are so trapped by this insane fool. It also explains why we desperately need to get rid of him as soon as possible, for the sake of the world. It will be interesting to see the fall out of Bliar leaving office. I am reminded that the behavior he displays, his method of operation and delivery are extremely reminiscent of another historical leader, A. Hitler.

All About Oil?

While Iraq's reserves are not to be sneezed at, their value in the short term is not massive. They were poorly maintained and husbanded.

Take a look at the McKinsey estimate for Iraq reconstruction from 2003. 10 years to rebuild the oil industry - and that was before three more years of war, sabotage and under maintenance. Moreover, as McKinsey observed, an oil-based economy alone could not sustain Iraq.

The permanent military bases appear to me the prime objective and, as it happens, the only 'reconstruction' projects on target.