Adetunji writes: "Tony Blair could have stopped the Iraq war had he decided to walk away from a partnership with the US, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan has claimed."
Tony Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with President Bush ahead of the 2003 invasion. (photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Archive)
Kofi Annan Says Tony Blair Could Ultimately Have Stopped Iraq War
29 September 12
Former UN secretary general says in memoirs he admired ex-British PM until he failed to stand up to US over invasion
ony Blair could have stopped the Iraq war had he decided to walk away from a partnership with the US, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan has claimed.
In an interview to launch his memoirs, Annan said he had reflected on what would have happened if, without a second UN resolution over Iraq, Blair had refused to go to war with Iraq in 2003.
"I will forever wonder what would have happened if, without a second [UN] resolution ... Blair had said 'George [Bush], this is where we part company. You're on your own'," he told the Times. "I really think it could have stopped the war ... It would have given the Americans a pause. It would have given them a very serious pause to think it through ... All this would have raised a question: 'Do we go this alone?'"
While Annan argued that neither his resignation as UN secretary general or that of then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, would have changed the course of military action, Blair could have made a difference had he spoken out. "Because of the special relationship and also the fact that ... when you think of the big countries, Britain was the only one that teamed up with [Bush]," Annan said.
Annan said he had done everything in his power to stop the war, which was justified heavily on the case that Iraq's ruler Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. No evidence of these were later found and Blair came under fire for relying on a "sexed-up" dossier, which claimed that Hussein had the capacity to activate biological and chemical weapons in 45 minutes. The US-led invasion led to a war that lasted for eight years and is believed to have cost more than 100,000 lives.
"Blair had the potential to be one of the most brilliant politicians of his time and really for a period was a star. And now you ask me the questions, 'What went wrong? What changed him?' It is very difficult to say," he said.
Anann's disappointment in Blair is also reflected in his memoirs, Interventions – A Life in War and Peace, co-written with Nader Mousavizadeh, Annan's former special assistant at the UN. Annan recounts a meeting with Blair in 2006 over a bloody conflict between Israel and the Shia Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which he said the former British prime minister saw simplistically – like Iraq – "a meta-conflict between modernity and the medieval, between tolerant secularism and radical Islam".
"This was not the Blair with whom I had agreed so passionately about the moral necessity of a humanitarian intervention to halt the Serbian attacks on the Kosovar Albanians in 1999 ... Something had changed in Blair, and with it, I felt, his ability to act as a credible mediator," he said.
However, Annan said he did not agree with fellow Nobel peace prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, over his suggestion that Bush and Blair should face proceedings in the international criminal court. Annan said they were democratically elected leaders acting in what they believed were their national interests.
Writing on Syria, and his recent experience as UN and Arab League envoy, he said the country's sectarian rifts were "as deep and bitter as those of Lebanon and on a scale that threatens a clash of sectarian animosities that could dwarf even those that shook Iraq after 2003" and estimated that thousands would die as a result of the conflict.
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Comments
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And so did Saddam, his sons and the people who really destroyed Iraq ... how else would that have happened?
You know, Saddam's sons used to ride around Iraq and kidnap, rape and sometimes kills women. There are well documented stories about this, as well as Saddam. How can you argue in favor or that, they only thing it seems to me someone who cares about human rights can do is to try to stop it in better more human and less violent ways. BUT, the only way we can do anything is if we start and get experience with it.
So, how is that different than all too frequent occurences in the good ol' USA?
Does that justify a Shock and Awe carpetbombing, the Massacre of Falludjah, poisoning the country with depleted uranium and torturing and murdering unconscionable number of civilians?
Perhaps if someone got their head out of the right wing blowhole, expanded their information sources, they just might come to realize the "the people who REALLY destroyed Iraq" were the BUSH Regime criminals and its bogus "Coalition" partners ... chief of which was George's poodle , Tony Blair.
Notice that my comment did not attempt to justify anything in the war, war is always chock full of mistakes and death, but somehow that is what happened and until there is some question or plan to present to people on how change it, it's pretty much been the pattern of humanity for thousands of years.
Having fewer superpowers and one great superpower seems to mathematically reduce the number of such conflcits, but the increated population and superior weaponry works the other way, just the facts.
Maybe someday people will have the power to do what you seem to be suggesting, but still there is no proof it would be the right thing to do either?
==========
Yes there is such a plan. The newspapers were full of it at the time. The plan is in the moral and legal principles laid down in the trials that followed the war against German and Jap aggression. The crimes had been committed in plain sight (like the aggression against Iraq). The only proper business of a trial is "did the defendants do it or didn't they?. Those who didn't do it can walk, those who did can go to prison or hang".
Note that the role of lawyers was severely restricted (not like in the current farce at The Hague). The postwar authorities knew latitude for lawyers meant the trials would be endless debates about non-issues like jurisdiction. In The Hague the lawyers string the trials out with blather until the perps die of old age.
The capital offence of aggression was defined at Nuremberg in crystal clear detail, and there were to be NO excuses. Attack a country that is at peace - guilty as charged.
That's the bare bones of the "plan" to promote.
Iraq was not at peace.
There is no such thing as a "Just" war unless it is in self-defense and we all know the lies that have been proven to against Domwits, Blair and their parcel o' rogues to falsely justify invasion. Again, he was "Our bad guy" at the heights of his atrocities.
And how about the injustices all over the world that were been ignored and the all wars for corporate greed -which most of them are anyway.
Try reading Maj-Gen' Smedley Butlers' "War is just a racket".
All arguments to justify wars as "Just" are useless.
If that doesn't turn your mind around, nothing will!
sadly we do not have any people like him anymore
in this country. I know all about Butler, probably as
much or more than you. I doubt he would put the
current US foreign policy in the same class as 100
years ago.
If, it is true, that Manning gave Wikileaks the docs as the US is accusing him, well it was those docs that were then read about by the Tunesian vendor who then immolated himself which was the spark that ignited the revolt in Tunesia which then spread to Egypt (which then spread to Wisconsin....as the Hosni Walker t-shirts made clear), Yemen, Syria...etc.
So, it was hardly outside pressure on despots (the US doesn't care about despots as long as they are "our" despots...as our support for Saddam, Mubarak, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc clearly demonstrates).
Citizens were interviewed and at least a handful declared that they followed what their fathers taught them: don't involve yourself in politics and you will do fine, which they did, and they did.
There was little reason to rise in rebellion as in other countries, and citizens of Iraq were 100 times better off under Hussein than they are now. The recent of rebellion of other Middle East countries is still suspicious considering the motives of the U.S. and Israel.
As for Kuwait, that poor nation, organized for the benefit of the British during WWII, was left hanging out to dry by the U.S., which was a signal and a stimulant for the small number of aggressors in Iraq. That event was the most blatant example to me of how the U.S. lies. George H.W. lied through his teeth when he stated he did not know Iraq had tanks on Kuwait's border. With the number of covert ops, satellite images, and George's own plan for attack, it was obvious Iraq had been set up.
Iraq, years ago, was the beginning of the end of U.S. credibility, even though the U.S. had illegitimately been attacking countries for quite some time.
But even if you are right, think about, what do you intend to do about it? What could you do about it if happens again?
Yes, I have read my history, I know the US has attacked many, hundreds of countries, it is a well-known fact, but so far as I know we do not really understand the history and details of all this ... who was it for, where are they now.
The prgamatic question is who wins and who loses on these things, so maybe a way to do these kinds of actions better would be to pass a law that no one can profit from war.
The problem with that is that if world history is any record we may need a real war making capability at some point and putting limitations on what we do or how we do it could be very bad for us.
I see the peace movement as important, but impractibal because of its irrelevance. it would hinge on having a better version of democracy up and running.
Was Iraq NOT destroyed, brux? And for what? There are no winners, brux. The U.S. now has dishonor on its head, dead, maimed, and suicidal soldiers, and Iraq has been destroyed with millions dead or seriously affected forever.
The countries being subjected to drone bombings and NATO attacks: why? Have they threatened anybody? Or have those countries been destabilized for the benefit of the U.S. and its need for control and to symbolically threaten Russia and China.
You decide, brux. Please don't support the deaths of millions to prove your point.
You have to be sure to get that dig in about depleted uranium, you probably do not know what it is or have any proof of problems with DU. By the way, I am against causual DU use, but if you have a tool that is going to save American lives and increase efficiency of our forces I think we will choose to use it.
I am sure there is a hegemonic element to this conflict, there always is. I think the US/West is a better hegemony that stands a better chance of democratic reform than Russia, China or radical Islam.
It is one more example of allowing dispute as a means of moving in and "punishing" the participants. Our government is expert with such tactics. Remember the glaring example of Reagan as governor of California and his method of stirring the demonstrators with plants, enabling him to move in with cops and national guard?
That is the perfect example of U.S. foreign policy.
Explain the logic behind this please.
So, the US ambassador tells Saddam to invade Kuwait, and that is OK with you? Or what, you have sympathy for Iraq because they were fooled by the US? This line of logic is just silly.
The rights of Iraqi women are screwed up because of Islam, and if Saddam could use Islam to keep or increase his power we would have and indications are that he was moving in that direction.
Some of the governments of the countries the Germans and Japs attacked in 1939 and 1937/1941 were no oil paintings, but (a smattering of) those who launched war on their people were rightly hanged for aggression.
Those who try to excuse the aggressors' crimes by references to the governments of the countries they attacked or try to exculpate them as "mistaken" in how they went about it share the responsibility for the crimes. The criminals are monstrous and so are those who try to excuse them.
Blaming the victim commits the crime all over again. It is inexcusable.
Remember the now-famous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam and grinning widely when he was "Our bad guy", the US arming him against Khomeini's Iran (Like they armed Osama Bin Laden's Mujahadeen in Afghanistan)?
I can't say much in Hussein's favor as he was a ruthless thug -but Iraq was the most permissive and even progressive country in the Middle East as long as they didn't mess with the regime. Now you have a bunch of competing, murderous tribal warlords and Muslim extremists loose in a wrecked nation, it's capital city one of the great cultural centers of the ancient world with Tehran, now on the roster for destruction also.
It's all part of the great circle of selective association and being the world's biggest uneducated bully but is also part of the eventual not-so-selectiv e blowback by the former targets.
Blair should be holed up in the Bloody Tower in London like the other traitors before him, not strutting around getting rich and being a "Middle East Envoy".
I hope he can live with his newly acquired Holy Roman conscience; he'll probably join the secretive, elite Opus Dei, like Scalia and Thomas -a right parcel o' rogues!
Maybe he'll eventually move to Paraguay with his pal Dimwits and the former Nazi war criminals before them.
That is the question all of American should have asked of the Supreme Court and its hijacking of the presidency of the USA.
We wouldn't have been in Iraq for sure, Popeye. And we certainly wouldn't have had the near-depression that Barack Obama faced when he took office. Bush/Cheney was the most destructive administration in my 78 years. Just think, if John "Bomb, Bomb Iran" McCain had been elected, we'd be fighting in Iran in addition to keeping troops endlessly in Iraq and Afghanistan. And if Rmoney/Ryan are elected, more of the same on steroids. All they know is to send other people's children to fight their "wars". While lounging on beaches in France and actively supporting the draft and the Viet Nam War, Rmoney made certain that he stayed a safe distance away - and also his FIVE SONS!
I was really shocked that Tony Blair - who I really respected - fell under the spell of George Bush. He knew the whole business was ONE BIG LIE when he agreed to go along with the story. They all have blood on their hands.
Now that is funny, all of these people are doing the same jobs, they are actors trying to move public opinion to coincide with the corporatocracy.
What is needed over Iraq is not access to documents - just the public record leaves no doubt
IRAQ: Too much wealth in the hands of a single vindictive individual in an Islamic country with old scores to settle. Beyond the internecine beefs, Saddam was a classic Murder Inc. banker offering bounties to families of suicide bomber; a top sugar daddy for a religious belief system dedicated to removal of Israel from the Middle East Map. Our late friend Khadaffi likewise talked himself into a corner. Taking down the airliner was not nice...
In fact, the sorry state of Islam is now at the point a wealthy leader must either bribe the population as in the case of Saudi Arabia, or bankroll lonely men seeking passage on the cruise of 70 virgins... Bon voyage-
Hands aiming at the thumbs down position, take a look at "The Return To Mecca" book. Back to you, Mssrs Chomsky & Cole
So what the Hell d'y think you have here and now.
The wealth is hardly evenly distributed in the US, is it.
And by the way, I've read extensively on Islam and it's history; Hussein's Iraq was actually minimally Islamic and the most progressive nation in the region (as was Iran in 1953 before another US/UK -engineered coup on behalf of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP). I personally refused a senior profession position in Riyadh offered to me by the Saudi minister of finance personally in a London interview, that would have made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams in two-three years -but I coudn't live in that medievalist nation that the US one continues to court, support and arm.
Talk about double standards!
It was only at Ike's farewell address he felt emboldened to lament the "Military Industrial Complex", after putting a GM Boss into Secretary of Defense position. By 1960, America had rubber tire economics in full swing, with hundreds of railway branch lines demolished annually. Of course, with plenteous Muslim oil coming our way, who needed a local rail component?
Respectfully, another book for all hands: "The Blood Of The Moon" by George Grant. Insights into the spiritual component- we are talking about religion here, are we not...
Oh, you neglected to mention Iraqi attempts to gang bang Israel in 1967, and 1973. Israel took away the Osiris toy circa 1982, or who knows what next?
We note your honorable refusal to work with the House of Saud...
Had Saddam gotten his hands on Al Qaida they would had gone the hard way - and vice versa.
Stop the BS and I might read you.
I was very angry as I followed the war from the beginning. They bombed innocent people in residential neighborhoods during the way when they would gets some tip, maybe untrue, that Saddam Hussein or high-value targets were there, they never got Saddam Hussein or his sons that way. Killing innocent civilians is wrong and did not help anything.
Not guarding Iraqi antiquities and museums was a major screwup too. That is also not a good way to make friends and get the people's confidence. If America is going to be the world's policeman, we cannot be on the take.
Still, compare what is happening there now with what happened under Saddam and I think things are better, and the signal sent to these other countries is starting to have an effect.
We need to keep an eye on things and not just jump to conclusions because they fit our preconceived notions of political correctness. Iraq could work out for the better in the long run. There are errors, criminals and stupidity in everything man does.
OK. let the negative rating flow! ;-)
But Bush didn't invade vecause Saddam was corrupt and intolerant. He invaded because, he said, the Iraqi dictator had built a huge arsenal of WMDs with which he was getting ready to attack his neighbors aand U.S. allies, and because, he said, Saddam had conspired with Osama bin Laden in regard to 9/11 (some Bushies even claimed Saddam was the real instigator of the attacks). None of this was ever proven, and there's reason to believe Bush didn't believe it himself.
The Freudians among us have some reason to believe that George W. was just trying to show he was a bigger man than George H. W., who also led a war on less than credible grounds, but who didn't "finish the job."
That aside, however, corporations from Halliburton (i.e., Dick Cheney) to the stalwarts of the oil industry all had a stake in it. And, of course, the military regularly needs an opportunity to prove it's worth all those trillions of dollars.
No, Bush the Younger is certainly partly to blame, but there's a lot more that needs to be spread around.
now too big to stop and too big to fail are even bigger, and people are talking like we have any choice over any of this ... it's a damn shame waste of time talking about this since it is not going to happen.
to get back control the people through the government have to get back in control of the money - that is why an economic reset and draconian taxes on the super rich are very important aspects of change, without it - kiss the country good-bye and always out of reach.
You think that things are better in Iraq now? Iraq was the most westernized, modern, educated and progerssive country in the middle east with a large middle class, who mostly didn't care or know who was Shia or Sunni. We have destroyed their country and sent them back to the stone age. the constant war is not over there
All the above applies equally to John Howard of Australia.
Since the lies were transparently obvious to anyone with two or more neurons from the getgo, everyone in the US congress and the Australian and British parliaments who voted any support for the war in any form at any time also committed the crimes of treason and aggression as accessories before, during and after the fact.
All countries involved need periodic reminders of this as long as the criminals remain at large.
to switch wars for a second, before the war there were stories about afghanistan, blowing up ancient buddhist monuments, and keeping women from education, keeping everyone from any politcal rights and telling people that pictures, music and video were evil and wrong.
before the war people on the left i suppose were saying we ought to do something. the left on these kinds of foreign policy issues is very capricious and non-serious.
the world needs some fixin' and so does our country, but these are two separate issues with two separate answers and priorities. obviously to me our own country has priority, but a lot of the rest of the world depends on us.
You are the one who has no idea of the "Real world" especially outside of the US, like so many of your compatriots. You persist in writing of what you know not an iota. Get out and see the world a bit then report back if you wish.
The national interests were the least of Bush's concerns. His first concern was for profits for Haliburton and the rest of his industrial war complex buddies. The one thing we can be certain of is that Bush did not give a second thought to this nation, the soldiers or any of the rest of us.
Kofi Annan is either supremely ignorant of human social responsibility or complicit in these crimes by ignoring adult culpability, including all professionals, for their actions.
Annan also goes on to ignore the massive armament industry from which the British, USA, Canada & other NATO nations silently make their world 'killing' by arming dissidents in 80 countries worldwide. Without arms, human disagreements are handled with the moderation of community elders and with human livelihood in mind. With arms diffusion, which Kofi Annan is ignoring, 'all hell breaks loose'. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/2-satyagraha
I would say Annan is a damned hypocrite and a tool of Western imperialism. Asad and Gaddafi might be called "dictators", but they were at least holding the country together and preventing sectarian violence. In Libya we now have Islamist militants urinating on Christian and Jewish graves and massacring blacks. Apparently we are now attempting to accomplish the same thing in Syria and Iran. And Annan is talking as if the Western powers who control the oil shiekdoms who fund the so-called "rebels" have nothing to do with it, it's just "sectarian violence" breaking out.
Goodsensecynic, Considering the consequences of US state authorized murder in Iraq, there is a lot of 'blame' to be spread around. The USA, Canada and all NATO nations are at a height of world aggression in our times. War is murder as well as a long list of crimes against humanity. Soldiers must be made aware that as Nuremberg established following the 2nd World War, all collaborators are culpable. War from those on the bottom to those on the top is the act of fearful inarticulate cowards. All war is unnecessary. Before war all can engage their perceived enemies in equal-time recorded published & widely distributed 'debate' (French 'de' = 'undo' + 'bate' = 'the fight'). The court of public & international opinion once informed 'dialectically' ('from both-sides') is more powerful than war. Our first act must be to establish 'Dialectic Rights' for all people & citizens everywhere, implementing 'debate' at all levels among ourselves from family to every workplace, institution, organization & government. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/1-both-sides-now-article
And one may ask what WOULD have happened if BOTH of them had stood up at that time too.
And yes, Blair was Bush's poodle, as so many correctly identified him. Sad that Obama never could get up to holding any of the Bush criminals accountable.
These were men with the best vantage points, the best (most expensive) intelligence, and a host of experts who advised that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda in the country. Yet Bush led the USA and the UK into an illegal invasion.
These were no small mistakes and cost many of us our loved ones. To allow leaders with such power and resources to be simply excused form culpability is shameful.
Investigations and, if necessary, prosecutions, are very much in order if the public can manage to demand such from the culprits.
Sweeping the Iraq invasion under the carpet is a shame on all who were victimized by the misuse and abuse of our forces.
That poor shmuck we hung as Saddam Hussein was not the real Saddam Hussein. He didn't look like him. Not at all.
The real Saddam was about 15 or so years older, had a big paunch (like in the above referenced picture with Donald Rumsfield, would have never, ever grown a beard as he was very proud of the dimple in his chin.
People do loose weight, but the real Saddam had a much broader face than "poor shmuck" You do not change bone structure when you loose weight.
There was a picture out before the war of "Four Saddams in a boat". I could not tell which of three of them were the real deal, but one stood out as NOT Saddam. He was too young. His face was too narrow. I call him, Poor Shmuck.
From what I have read, two of the fake Saddams were really cousins. From watching the History Chanel which showed all of them, two of them had tenor voices and one had a baritone voice. I call them cousin tenor and cousin baritone. The real Saddam had a tenor voice. The cousins had cleft chins, not dimpled chins.
US soldiers caring for "poor Shmuck" talked about how nice he was. The real Saddam was not nice.
The battle for Baghdad was over before it even begun. The real Saddam would have fighted big time.
I think he was already dead, from cancer, beore the invasion.
#1 George Bush in hiding in the USA. Must be having nightmares every night. I believe he is suffering serious guilt complex. From ABC Archive
"Former President George W. Bush was forced to cancel a planned trip to Switzerland this week over concerns of protests linked to the Bush administration’ s treatment of detainees."
Have you ever wondered why since leaving office he never travels abroad, why he was never involved in any public forum even to support his party, never participate in the RNC.. compared to Bill Clinton etc.
#2 Colin Powell, the liar and another weasel in hiding. Here are Harry Belafonte's thoughts about him. Quotation from CNN archives Oct 16, 2002
"Singer Harry Belafonte on Tuesday refused to back down from his remarks last week likening Secretary of State Colin Powell to a house slave in the Bush administration, saying his problems are not with the man but with the policies Powell is supporting.
"I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell," Belafonte said on CNN's "Larry King Live," referencing the Bush administration' s push to go to war with Iraq.
#3 Tony Blair -this one is still public trying to weasel his way out.
Why are these guys be above international laws and not tried for war crimes?
You should read Smedley Butler. Just about every war ever fought was to transfer money from the lower and middle classes to the upper classes. If you don't know that, you don't know history.
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