iraq

The FCO is still stalling over the clearance of Craig Murray's forthcoming book.
Here is some of the latest correspondence between Craig and the Foreign Office.

A declassified document from the Department of Defense discloses that white phosphorous is indeed a chemical weapon

So, when Saddam uses WP it is a chemical weapon, but when we use it, it isn't.

Following on from TonyB's previous post, listen to this audio grab of last nights newsnight article on Iraqi Oil

...and then tell me it's not about oil.

Mr Blair is eager to tell us, or at least was, that the Iraq war was "not about oil". Well, Tone, I'm afraid I for one don't believe you. There are a growing number of voices who will tell anyone who wants to listen about "Peak Oil". This is the point at which oil production starts to decline, and oil becomes ever more expensive. There are those who say we're there now, but whether we are or we aren't, oil is a finite resource. Peak oil is going to happen, it's just a question of when. In the meantime, let's take a look at recent events in the oil industry.

A recent article in MITs Technology review pointed out :

As the oil industry contracts and we see merger after merger of oil companies, oil industry insiders are increasingly reaching the conclusion that peak oil is here. Even the oil companies are saying it.

Meanwhile, closer to home, we are warned of a possible energy crisis if the winter is as cold as predicted (been a bit chilly this weekend, hasn't it?).

Now, turning to recent foreign policy events, who could possibly forget this ? But surely only a cynic could suggest it might be linked to this ? And then today we have this.

And what of Mr Blair's long predicted turn-on to Nuclear power? Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Google Peak oil. You know it makes sense.

According to an article by George Monbiot in todays Guardian, the US Marines used Thermobaric weapons in Fallujah.

There follows a description of the effects of these weapons, used on a city still containing thousands of civilians.

Monbiot concludes:-

Doesn't it make one feel proud to be America's greatest ally?

Dick Cheney the Vice President for Torture, is doing his best to block John Mcain's ammendment in the senate calling for an outright ban on Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of ALL US detainees:

The UN have gone public about the fact they have been refused access to inmates at Guantanamo Bay:

Here in Britain, we are too are attempting to legitimise the use of torture:

So is it any wonder that such grotesque stories that are emerging about torture under our puppet regime in Iraq:

That simpering idiot Ann Clwyd tells us to get it in perspective. I am trying too Ann...

Interesting points:

Such 'smoke screens' are laid well away from our troops for obvious reasons
They move with the prevailing wind
It is very difficult to work out where the WP 'smoke' will end up
Being underneath is sort of like being in a snow storm, with burning snow...
I understand the UK did sign Protocol III

P.S. I loved the "We do not use white phosphorus, (quick panic when spokesman realises where this is heading)or indeed any other form of munition or weaponry, against civilians...
This is crap of course.

On the back of the Rai24 documentary, and subsequent coverage in the Independent and the Guardian, and in response to the number of emails they have received, Radio 4s PM programme covered the White Phosphorus story this evening.
I have archived the interview here before it disappears from 'Listen Again'. If you have even a passing interest in this story, then it is well worth 5 minutes of your time.

On Radio4 tonight, the Pentagon clearly contradicts the US ambassador's letter to the Independent this morning, where he restates the US position, and flatly denies that White Phosphorus was used against people [enemy combtants or otherwise].

Compare and contrast with the words of Pentagon Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable tonight:

As has been noted, White Phosphorus is not on the list of proscribed chemicals in the Chemical Weapons Convention. But the Convention does define chemical weapons and warfare.

Futher defined in the Convention as

Up untill today, the position has been that White Phosphorus munitions were not deployed against people [enemy combatants], but as "obscurants or smoke screens and for target marking".
Under the terms of the convention that is for, "purposes that are not prohibited (an important legal definition, known as the General Purpose Criterion)"

These points are covered in some detail here, on the Daily Kos, who concludes with this analogy:

This evening, Pentagon Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable confirmed that the US did use these weapons 'inappropriately', by directing them at people [enemy combatants] in the siege of Fallujah. Thus in breach of the Chenical Weapons Convention.

At the time of the siege, there were an unknown number of civillians remaining in the city, at unknown locations.
We have evidence of the accuracy with which these munitions were deployed, from the account of the Americans accidently shelling their own troops.

So, from tonight's news, it would appear that we can stand by what we initially said. That the US used chemical weapons against civillians in Fallujah.

It should also be remembered that we [UK] were only too happy to move up our troops to fill the gap left by US forces involved in the attack on fallujah.
If you hold the thug's coat while he stomps on his victim, and then calmly return it to him when he has finished, then you cannot later claim you weren't complicit in the attack.
The sad thing is, from our current leaders we are unlikely to even hear any attempts at distancing us [UK] from the actions of the Americans. Just resigned indifference and the familiar chorus of 'move along, move along, nothing to see here.'
The media have picked this up, it remains to be seen if they will run with it.

Blair's Surveillance of UK citizens is about to take a frightening turn:
24x7 national vehicle movement database

Needless to say, this hasn't been debated in Parliament. Scared yet?

John Keegan talking sense as usual.

I don't normally read the Telegraph but I don't think anyone else is covering this:
And I have to agree with the un-named senior officer who is quoted as saying:

If a battalion CO (or brigade or division) is responsible - can be cashiered and imprisoned - for anything done by troops under his command nobody is going to do anything. At best we are likely, as with Tim Collins, to lose another outstanding officer we can ill afford to do without. Who'd stay in the army after this?

What is wrong with this bloody government?

Afghanistan. It's been a messy affair and it's getting worse. The country is run by warlords, the President is no more than the Mayor of Kabul, the drug barons are so successful that the price of heroin in the UK is down to a shocking 25 quid (for comparison in the mid eighties it was 100 - 120 quid)and their most famous citizen, Mr Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Wow. The world's most famous terrorist, the one who ran the 9/11 operation that so galvanised the US, is still at large, albeit confined to a dry valley in the south. I bet the Americans are desperate to get at him and hold him to account in their War Against Terror.

Well, no. The US is scaling back it's operations, withdrawing 4,000 troops. According to them Afghanistan is a success and Condi is suggesting that they adopt the 'successful model' in Iraq.

Guess who's going to take up the slack? You got it. we are doing George's dirty work for him. Again.

I am puzzled as to why the US show such little interest in capturing Osama. Perhaps Osama might spill some embarrasing beans regarding the US and himself?

The furore over Sir Christopher Meyers book continues apace. From Jack Straw's initial outburst trying to downplay Meyer's role, the considered views of the old school mandarins Lords Armstrong and Butler and various opposition politicians, the establishment has rounded on him, in a way that makes it very difficult for anyone currently in a job to show any public support for what he wrote.

Personally I think we are better informed for hearing what Meyer has to say, but he muddied his message with the Major in his shirt tails stuff.
[Allthough Major did come accross rather well in comparison with the present incumbent , which may why I think I am right in saying Mr Major has kept his council on the matter so far.]

If the book is such a betrayal of trust, and such a flagrant abuse of his position, why was Meyer's book approved?
Jeremy Greenstock has had his book blocked, Craig Murray is still fighting through the clearance of his word by word, and the epic of clearing Annie Machon and David Shaylers book ran on for years.

Maybe the key is in who aproved the book.

Jeremy Greenstock, Craig Murray and Annie Machon all submitted their books to the Foreign Office, where presumably the interminable clearance process is undertaken undertaken under the supervision of a pygmy minister.

The Cabinet Office approval of Meyers book was sorted in weeks, with [here's a clue] reference to the Foreign Office being consulted, NOT to Jack Straw being involved.

The cabinet office is a true bureaucracy, the prominent figures in the cabinet office are civil servants, not politicians. If we were to infer that the clearance of the book was essentially a civil service process, rather than a political one, then we might begin to think that the civil service aren't quite so upset about the book as the politicians say they are...
After all, remember this letter:

There is a clamour of voices calling for Christopher Meyer to lose his current job as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission on the back of this.

The clamouring voices should be careful what they wish for.

While he has his job and thinks he can keep it, they have a hold on him. If he doesn't have his job or no longer thinks he can keep it, then he's got nothing left to lose...

Via Dateline::Bristol I read the other night that we were to see an [obviously doomed] offensive from the Bush Whitehouse to restate the justifications for the war, and it's handling in the face of belated opposition.

Today, Armistice Day here, and Veterans Day in America, Bush used his speech, to make a pathetic defence of the case for war in Iraq, and launch a pre emptive strike against the growing chorus of Democrat voices that have finally come out and said that the whole escapade was based on a pack of lies, and a zealous ideology.

Three years on, 2 years after he told us they won, a beleagured Bush is forced to hijack Veterans Day and turn it into a cheap Party Political Broadcast.

A sign of how desperate things are getting, and of how worried they are.

A horrific and dishonourable story about an honourable man. Sgt Steve Roberts, a tank commander with the British forces in Iraq who was forced to hand back his body armour, a move that led to his death. His widow has been keeping up the pressure:

Well, according to Channel 4 News:

The report is here