The Guardian: Calls grow for public inquiry into Brexit

Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, said an inquiry was needed into “the biggest humiliation since Suez, certainly since the IMF crisis [in 1976]”. The cross-party peer said he believed the civil service “is both expecting and preparing for this”. [...]

Peter Ricketts, the former national security adviser and former head civil servant in the Foreign Office, cited the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. “Chilcot took a long time, but it was cathartic,” he said. “The report was widely seen to have done the job and I think you can say the British system is better for it. I think the handling of Brexit has been such a failure of the process of government, with such wide ramifications, that there needs to be a searching public inquiry.[...]

Many figures are already pointing to May’s early decision to set out strict red lines that seriously limited Britain’s ability to negotiate. John Kerr, Britain’s former EU ambassador who drafted the article 50 process of leaving the bloc, said: “Those red lines laid down in 2016 emerged with no consultation with the country, the devolved assemblies, parliament or with the cabinet. Then there was the decision to trigger article, 50 still with no agreement in cabinet of where we wanted to end up.”

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Salon: U.K. Parliament report details how NATO’s 2011 war in Libya was based on lies

“Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options,” an investigation by the House of Commons’ bipartisan Foreign Affairs Committee, strongly condemns the U.K.’s role in the war, which toppled the government of Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi and plunged the North African country into chaos.

“We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya,” the report states. “UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee concludes that the British government “failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element.” [...]

This flies in the face of what political figures claimed in the lead-up to the NATO bombing. After violent protests erupted in Libya in February, and Benghazi — Libya’s second-largest city — was taken over by rebels, exiled opposition figures like Soliman Bouchuiguir, president of the Europe-based Libyan League for Human Rights, claimed that, if Qaddafi retook the city, “There will be a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda.”

The British Parliament’s report, however, notes that the Libyan government had retaken towns from rebels in early February 2011, before NATO launched its air strike campaign, and Qaddafi’s forces had not attacked civilians. [...]

The report explains “the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change.” This view has been challenged, however, by Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Zenko used NATO’s own materials to show that “the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start.” [...]

The report also notes that the primary reasons France pushed for military intervention in Libya were Qaddafi’s “nearly bottomless financial resources,” the Libyan leader’s plans to create an alternative currency to the French franc in Africa, “Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa” and the desire to “Increase French influence in North Africa.”

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Jacobin Magazine: Why They Invaded

I became ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after the invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. The British government had a policy of collaboration with the Uzbek dictatorship, which provided an airbase for the Americans to operate into Afghanistan.

However, I discovered that this policy of collaboration not only included downplaying the terrible human rights abuses of that dictatorship, but also intelligence collaboration, by which I mean that our government was knowingly getting intelligence from the Uzbek torture chambers, very often from the torture of dissidents who had no connection with terrorism whatsoever. [...]

For example, when I was on the Foreign Office South Africa desk during apartheid, everyone knew that Thatcher was very supportive of the existing regime. The official government line at that time was that Mandela was a terrorist and he should be in prison.

There would have absolutely no point in me drafting minutes saying “he is a good man and we should be campaigning to get him out,” because they wouldn’t get anywhere.

So I drafted minutes explaining that it was in the British “business interest” to secure his release, arguing that it would be best not to annoy the black community in South Africa, because one day they might be in power and we would have to deal with them to make money. That’s the only kind of argument that would get anywhere with the government. [...]

That was part of our attempt to push back against Mi6 and the government. There was a lot of that kind of resistance. And around 120 former ambassadors also signed a letter opposing the Iraq War, which was also the view of the serving ambassadors.

But one of the fascinating things about all of this was the unwillingness of people to push things to the point of losing their job. [...]

Motivation is something we all wondered about at the time. It seemed to me to be primarily a matter of Tony Blair’s huge desire for Britain to be seen as a great power and important in the world, and the way to do that was to be indispensably connected to the United States. I don’t think it was much more detailed than that.

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Business Insider: You can't explain the Iraq War without talking about oil

But reducing the war in Iraq to this motive alone would be too simplistic, and as the Chilcot Report makes plain, the explanations for the war are highly complex. Still, some factors are more significant than others. [...]

Above all, oil is part of a general strategy to maintain and exercise global power, and it’s a central part of the US-centered global system. Middle Eastern oil has played a central role in the rise and continuation of the supremacy of the US and its close allies, arguably the central geopolitical story of our times. [...]

As for Britain, which enthusiastically supported the US-led war in Iraq in sharp contrast to most of the US’s European allies, the partnership with the US wasn’t simply a maneuver for influence on the global stage, and nor was it the fruit of imperial delusion. Britain also had a clear material interest in being awarded a share of the spoils in the form of trade, contracts, and access to markets and natural resources.

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Business Insider: CAROLINE LUCAS: The Iraq War was illegal, Tony Blair was lying, and David Cameron should apologise too

So, absolutely, I think it's really clear that there are big constitutional lessons to be learned, not to least of which I think will be that, in future, the Attorney General ought to be an independent appointment of Parliament, rather than an appointment from the Prime Minister and of one of his old chums. I don't think that gives me confidence in the decisions coming out of it. [...]

On the issue of whether Tony Blair was lying, you can see from some of the timings of the different statements that were made. There he was, on the eve of war, claiming in Parliament that Saddam Hussein could still avoid the invasion if he were to comply with the UN Security Council resolution. Yet, six months earlier, not only was he saying to President Bush that "I will be with you whatever," but also we have Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, saying very clearly that the US had already stated that they would be invading, the question was only about when. [...]

When it comes to Blair himself, I would like to see him held to the very strongest possible account but, in the absence of the ICC, if there are other legal avenues, it might make sense to explore them.

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Deutsche Welle: Opinion: No remorse - Tony Blair fails to understand

The report, prepared in infinite detail by a former high-ranking government official, is a quiet, yet perfectly focussed annihilation of Tony Blair. Britain's old government apparatus has once again demonstrated its qualities amid the political chaos of the day. In the 2.6 million word report, Sir John Chilcot explains how Tony Blair decided to go to war in 2002, and how he subsequently shaped intelligence to justify that decision. [...]

The former prime minister laid the foundation for the hate and opposition that politicians are so often confronted with today. He committed the original sin that feeds the distrust with which so many people regard politics. [...]

"I will be with you, whatever," wrote Tony Blair to George W. Bush in the summer of 2002. One should carve that on his gravestone as an eternal deterrent to blind allegiance and political hubris. With the report, Tony Blair's reputation has been utterly decimated.

The positive things that he achieved in office - such as the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland - will be buried under the ruins of the Iraq War. Whether Tony Blair can now be brought to trial remains to be seen. But history will ultimately judge him: Here is a man that fought the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, with the wrong plan.

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The Guardian: The US needs its own Chilcot report

The only thing close to the Chilcot report in the US was the Senate intelligence committee’s long-delayed investigation on intelligence failures in the lead-up to Iraq, released in 2008. The Democratic-led committee faulted the CIA for massive intelligence failures and the Bush administration for purposefully manipulating intelligence for public consumption. It led to a couple days of headlines, denunciations from the Bush White House (still in office at the time) and that was it.

After that, the Senate intelligence committee continued to lavish the CIA with praise, increase its budgets and provide only a modicum of oversight, despite the many scandals that preceded and succeeded the report. When the same intelligence committee later investigated illegal CIA torture – also directed by the highest levels of the Bush administration – they didn’t even bother mentioning the top officials who designed and sanctioned the program, only the anonymous (read: redacted) underlings who carried it out. [...]

Coincidentally, a scathing new biography of Bush was published Tuesday by renowned historian Jean Edward Smith, and it sounds like it’s closer to an indictment than anything an official governing body has come close to producing. Smith, who devotes a substantial portion of his book to the lead-up and aftermath of the Iraq war, concludes: “Whether George W Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president.” [...]

It’s unlikely that anything will ever actually happen to Tony Blair or any of the other war architects in the UK despite the report’s damning conclusions. And he’ll continue to spend much of his time doing PR work for some of the world’s worst dictators, helping them avoid the same fate that he will almost certainly miss himself.

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Independent: As a Foreign Office Minister, I voted for the invasion of Iraq. I am still trying to understand my failure

The whole world agrees that Iraq, in Talleyrand’s words, was worse than a crime – it was a mistake. The oddest consequence was that, having seen the failure of Iraq, the British state went and made exactly the same blunder in Libya. Nicolas Sarkozy is not George W Bush (more a Napoleon III than the original), but twice in less than a decade a British prime minister tucked in behind a dubious ally and joined in the destruction of a Middle East state with disastrous consequences. [...]

There was no UN authorisation but the military pressure worked and Milosevic withdrew from Kosovo and the people there no longer faced the fear of a new Srebrenica. Soon after Blair’s triumphant re-election in May 2001 came 9/11 and the desire from Washington to hit out and punish someone, anyone for the biggest attack on US territory with more Americans killed than at Pearl Harbour. [...]

We all know that assessment and what followed was disastrously wrong. But all I can report from being in the heart of government at the time was that no official or adviser or “expert” challenged the right of Britain to intervene and protect Kurds and others in Iraq who faced oppression and worse from Saddam.

The fault in the end was Blair’s, as the fault to destroy Libya or send 500 British soldiers to unnecessary deaths in Afghanistan 2010-2015 is Cameron’s. Prime Ministers have the ultimate Yes or No decision and must live with the consequences.

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The Guardian: Chilcot delivers crushing verdict on Blair and the Iraq war

The report suggests that Blair’s self-belief was a major factor in the decision to go to war. In a section headed Lessons, Chilcot writes: “When the potential for military action arises, the government should not commit to a firm political objective before it is clear it can be achieved. Regular reassessment is essential.”

The report also bitterly criticises the way in which Blair made the case for Britain to go to war. It says the notorious dossier presented in September 2002 by Blair to the House of Commons did not support his claim that Iraq had a growing programme of chemical and biological weapons. [...]

According to Chilcot, Blair shaped his diplomatic strategy around the need to get rid of Saddam which – he told Bush – was the “right thing to do”. Blair suggested that the simplest way to come up with a casus belli was to give an ultimatum to Iraq to disarm, preferably backed by UN authority.

Chilcot rejects Blair’s view that spurning the US-led military alliance against Iraq would have done major damage to London’s relations with Washington. “It’s questionable it would have broken the partnership,” he writes, noting that the two sides had taken different views on other major issues including the Suez crisis, the Vietnam war and the Falklands.

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