- The British and United States governments are on course
for another confrontation with the United Nations over the proposed
elections
in Iraq.
-
- Downing Street yesterday confirmed Tony Blair's
"determination"
to see elections being held in Iraq in January despite the fast
deteriorating
security situation in much of the country.
-
- Although Downing Street insists it is working towards
an electoral timetable approved by the United Nations, the UN's secretary
general, Kofi Annan, said last week in New York that it will be "very
difficult, if not impossible" to hold "credible polls" by
the end of January next year if there is no improvement in security.
-
- The potential of the UK and US governments to be again
at odds with the UN over Iraq, is likely to be emphasised today when the
US-appointed prime minister of the Iraqi interim government, Iyad Allawi,
arrives in London for talks with Tony Blair.
-
- Allawi is expected to tell Blair that the interim
government
believes a full nationwide poll will now not be feasible because only
limited
distribution of ballot boxes will be possible.
-
- Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph revealed details of secret
government papers showing that Blair was warned a full year before war
began against Saddam Hussein that a stable post-war Iraq would prove
impossible
and that ground troops would have to be kept there for "many
years".
-
- The documents also reveal that the foreign secretary,
Jack Straw, and officials from the Foreign Office, warned Blair of their
reservations about taking Britain into the US-led war and that political
post-war chaos could mean Iraq "reverting to type" with future
Iraqi governments obtaining the very weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
that the war was supposed to nullify.
-
- The documents also show the determination of the Bush
administration to "take out Saddam" regardless of UN legal
authority.
-
- In addition, this week the final report of the the US's
Iraq Survey Group's 15-month hunt for WMD will conclude that there was
no sign of alleged WMD in Iraq at the time when both the UK and US
governments
insisted they were active and ready to be used.
-
- The Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, said
"This
is game, set and match, to those who had warned against the
war."
-
- Kennedy added the leaked documents were the culmination
of a week that initially saw Annan declare the war was illegal and went
against the UN's charter.
-
- "We now discover that the Foreign Office was warning
of the chaos and shambles that would follow the aftermath of a pre-emptive
invasion, the consequences of which had not been thought
through."
-
- Robin Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet on the eve
of the war last year, said it was now clear that Blair had ignored all
advice given to him and had failed to spell out the evidence and warnings
that without the UN's backing the invasion would be illegal.
-
- "These documents show how Bush was obsessed with
regime change in Iraq. And Blair cannot pretend he got the UN's support.
They also show that if Blair had decided not to go along with Bush, then
Bush may have thought twice."
-
- The documents again place the Prime Minister ñ
despite the two inquiries by Lords Hutton and Butler ñ at the centre
of alleged lies and deception that refuse to go away.
-
- Yesterday saw more widespread and devastating violence
in Iraq. Insurgents threatened to behead two Americans and a Briton
captured
in Baghdad, and kidnapped 10 employees of a US-Turkish company, threatening
to kill them if the company does not leave Iraq within three days. In the
northern city of Kirkuk a car bomb attack on Iraqi security forces killed
at least 23 people outside the headquarters of the Iraqi National Guard.
Another suspected suicide car bomb targeted a US military convoy on the
road to Baghdad's international airport.
-
- Blair's desire to see the issue of Iraq at least
temporarily
shelved while he concentrates on domestic issues at his party's annual
conference in just over a week's time, now seems a wish too far.
-
- Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party leader who
is one of the key figures in a campaign to have an impeachment debate on
Blair and Iraq held in the Commons, said: "This adds to the evidence
already gathered. This week we will publish our legal evidence written
by a senior barrister from the Matrix chambers [headed by Cherie Booth
QC, wife of the prime minister]."
-
- Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, who
resigned in the wake of the government's exoneration by Lord Hutton, will
call for Blair's resignation tomorrow. Dyke criticises Blair's testimony
before Lord Hutton, and will say: "Go back to what Blair said to
Hutton.
Blair said: 'If any of it had been true I'd have had to resign.' Well now
we know most of it was true. So why is Blair still in office?"
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reserved
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- http://www.sundayherald.com/44922
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