This is a guest post by Hippiepooter.
One cannot be without sympathy for the upset Alastair Campbell suffered in his interview with Andrew Marr today, both on a human level and as a staunch supporter of the Iraq war myself, but as a committed democrat one does feel the need to state that he and Tony Blair dragged British politics through the mud in coopting the already biased BBC as a propaganda weapon and are now victims of the monster they created.
As a youthful Tribunite member of the Labour Party in the late 70’s it was clear to me that the only real bias at the BBC was towards the Left, and I was against it as it was bad for democracy. When Tony Blair assumed leadership of the Labour Party, this bias went into overdrive. It was patently evident to anyone semi-politically literate that pre ’97 Tony Blair’s office was running an anti-Tory smear campaign in concert with the BBC to get elected, and once elected proceeded to govern with the same appalling contempt for democracy. Mr Campbell certainly wasn’t complaining when Mr Marr in both his Observer and BBC incarnations was doing New Labour’s dirty work traducing the integrity of the Conservative Party in the same manner that he has traduced his own and Mr Blair’s over Iraq.
What our former Prime Minister Mr Blair showed, to me at least, over the Iraq War, is that his heart was in the right place all along. He is, despite all his manifest shortcomings in attaining and retaining power, a personal hero. The Iraq War was just that critical. But if one’s ego is large enough to believe that the means he used via Mr Campbell to attain power were justified, sympathy for their vilification over Iraq has to be qualified. As it is, many of the moral bankrupts who he’d previously exploited to his advantage and who are now vilifying him would be calling for Mr Blair to be strung up for not going to war if we had to suffer the consequences of that today. Saddam could restart his WMD programme at any moment of his choosing. He had given Al Qa’eda leader Al Zarqawi refuge after fleeing Afghanistan. Had we stood down from the threat of war to enforce compliance of UN arms inspection, the marriage between WMD’s and terrorists that Blair feared would have become a reality, with all the apocalyptic consequences that carries.
We dont need another Iraq inquiry into Tony Blair’s decision making. What we need is an Iraq Inquiry into how the BBC acts as a propaganda weapon for the enemy at time of war.
If Blair had good cause to go to war then why did he have to manufacture the evidence and bully people in order to convince us there was a case for war?
I’m sorry but you need to extract your head from the place where the sun doesn’t shine.
It was much the same in the US. The anti-this war crowd was screaming “No” (and I include the media in that crowd) for all the other reasons Bush and Blair gave. The BBC still takes a “Regime change is bad, m’kay” position on places like Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Honduras.
Those who were against invading Iraq at the time wouldn’t have changed their minds no matter what anyone said, and they’re not going to change now, either. So this whole thing is a pointless debate.
“Genuine emotion or shameless spin? It hardly matters. This cult of sentimentalism demeans public life” (by Melanie Phillips).
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1249253/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Genuine-emotion-shameless-spin-It-hardly-matters-This-cult-sentimentalism-demeans-public-life.html#ixzz0ew5NlGk7
As Guido pointed out on Radio 5, Campbell dodged the question and camp Marr didn’t try to follow it up.
What makes me laugh is how the BBC have been spininng this (and the story about Mong crying as well).
Blimey Campbell and Mong having Gazza moments.
Hi Martin, you can’t help but not be without suspicions when you get guys like Campbell and Brown (and Campbell’s now advising Brown!) blubbing – or coming near to it in Campbell’s case – in close succession, but then these things do tend to go in cycles. I dont know how old you are, but I remember in the 80’s Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Aussie cricket Captain Kim Hughes breaking down in tears within days of eachother. It seemed like you couldn’t lay eyes on an Australian without them squirting a few.
There’s very little I would put beyond an abject moral reprobate like Brown or a cynical political thug like Campbell, but on this I would give them the benefit of the doubt. I think if we’re going to put democracy before partisan politics we need to, and that is especially the case when our country is at war as it has been since the 11th of September 2001.
I presume the question you’re saying Campbell dodged and Marr didn’t press is the one over if the intelligence didn’t justify Blair telling Parliament there was an ‘absolute certainty’ Saddam had WMD’s will Campbell accept Blair misled Parliament? Well 1), its very improper and unprofessional of Marr to preempt a public Inquiry’s findings with hypothetical questions of this nature, 2) He did repeat the question add nauseum, and 3) Campbell did answer it. He said the intelligence wasn’t the only basis for the certainty, but Saddam’s history of WMD use and barring weapons inspections .. and I think he threw in the whole world was certain he had WMD’s. He said Blair had to use his judgement to make a decision on the range of information available and decided he was certain Saddam posed a WMD threat. I personally am without a shade of doubt that he made exactly the right decision to join Bush in waging war against Saddam for non-compliance with UN Inspections and that western civilisation and the entire world owes him and Bush a huge debt of gratitude.
Does noone on B-BBC think the BBC has a case to answer for acting as a propaganda arm for the enemy at time of war and should be subject to an Inquiry?
I think the persistent question by Marr “was there absolute certainty” was wholly improper. There kis seldom absolute certainty about anything – especially about what is going on in a closed police state. What WAS certain was that Saddam had had major WMD programmes in the past, and actually used chemical weapons against the Kurds. Plus he was a serial invader – Iran and then Kuwait. Plus he had refused proper cooperation wi8th bWMD inspections. Not even Saddam’s generals appear to have known what was happening.
Blair took a JUDGMENT about the risks that Saddam posed. There qwas month after month for Saddam to come clean.
I agree that in the circumstances at the time, and given the intelligenceappraisals by many other countries as well as our own, Blair took the correct decision – toeliminate the risk he genuinely believed that Saddam posed.
I also think Campbell was correct to assert that Marr is simply p,laying the never-ending BBC line – try to nail Blair as a comeback against Hutton. It is bloody blatant. I have damn all time for Blair, but I regard him as a moral giant compared to clowns at the BBC.
The BBC has a case to answer for being a hard left news organisation and being up the arse of Nu Liebour.
camp Marr?
Is that an affectation or a compound?
Hippiepooter,
The Kay Report pretty much backs you up.
That David Kay report has loads of stuff that has NEVER been reflected in BBC reporting.
I wonder why ?
David Kay is a bit of a confusing guy. His 3 interim findings towards the end of his report you link to dont say they’ve found anything but that the capacity was there to resume programmes once the world lost interest. However, when he resigned, the whole tone of his public statements gave the impression he had renounced even these interim findings, but when you look at what he actually said (and I’ve just read a crowing Guardian report of the time marring the truth – pun intended – see below) did vindicate his findings. Namely that scientists would invent bogus wmd programmes just to get money out of Saddam. I really dont know in the light of this why he adopted the tone he did.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/03/usa.iraq
One of Kay’s points was to show that Sadaam was basically waiting for the UN inspectors to give up and give him a clean bill of health. He and his minions were well-prepared to start the weapons program back up. As we all know, this was about to happen, which is why Bush and Blair got fed up with the UN boondoggle and went ahead without the window dressing of yet another resolution.
The later revelations of Pakistan and North Korea helping others with nuclear capabilities seem to indicate that once Blix and his UN monkeys went home, Sadaam could easily have gotten whatever he wanted. And Kay’s report provides conclusive evidence that he was waiting to do just that. Kay also shows that Sadaam was constantly in violation of every resolution and law regarding missiles and all that, which means that the invasion wasn’t an “illegal war” as the BBC would have you believe, but merely a continuation of the original Gulf War and quite legal enforcement of the agreement already in place. Sadaam had essentially defeated the UN inspection process, and was waiting for the chance to get back to business.
Yeah, can you provide any explanation for why Kay adopted the tone he did when he made his ‘final report’? It at least backed up all he’d said in the interim. I’m wondering if he was making a compromise at having been ‘got at’ somehow. Scott Ritter certainly seems to have been, but he went the whole hog.
I always figured that Kay was worried about gilding the lilly.
Scott Ritter was ‘got at’ because he has a certain skeleton in his closet, for which he was arrested yet again last month. We stopped hearing from him long ago because he went overboard, and the folks at CNN knew for a long time that he was tainted goods.
Sure, going online to lure underage girls for sex acts doesn’t have anything to do with his knowledge about Iraq per se, but he kept doing it after being arrested for it. His mental faculties are in doubt.
Listening to him (Scott Ritter) I was certain he was being blackmailed by Saddam to say the things he was saying. It was such a 180º volte face. After his penchant for under-age girls was revealed I think I heard him interviewed once more, but then apparantly decided he had no further motive to sing from Saddam’s hymn sheet.
One more thing: Andrew Marr spouted the most extreme, anti-this war crowd exaggeration about Iraqi deaths. He gave a number which has no basis in fact, and isn’t even anywhere near the most respectable figures.
Daniel Korski in the Spectator gives a succint explanation.
Also, it’s nonsensical to include all the deaths not related to military activity in the body count, as the place was going to be a shambles anyway once Sadaam died and his lunatic sons took over. Anyone claiming that there wouldn’t be at least as much internal violence in Iraq under Uday and Qusay is either a liar or a fool. Hello, Andrew Marr.
Sorry, the link to Korski’s post is here.
I wouldn’t stand in the same room as Blair. He was and is the most anti-democratic demigod this country has ever had the misfortune to “ruled” by.
Whatever untruths Blair told, as far as I’m concerned he made the right decision to intervene in Iraq. If he had not, then Saddam would still be in power, and he would most certainly have started the WMD programme.
We must recall that this was all after 9/11. If America had not intervenedc in Iraq, then what? That would mean that the greatest attack on an the USA after Pearl Harbour, would have gone unanswered. It would most certainly have encouraged Islamic Jihadis that the West was a spent force ripe for the taking.
In any case, Pres Bush could not just sit idly and let a 2nd Pearl Harbour go unanswered. That is politically untenable for any leader, particularly of a super-power. Once the America was going to war, there was no choice but for Britain to go with its most important ally. If PM Blair had decided to not to go with America, it would have inserted a wedge between the two most solid of allies, and would have given even greater jubilation to the enemy. 9/11 would not have just hurt the USA and the West, tamed the US, but also split the closest of allies. bin Laden would have been astonished at his success.
Realistically, PM Blair had no choice. We are again confronted by a similar choice – what to do about Iran.
Hi, a flaw in what you write is that 9/11 was answered in Afghanistan, but of course, if it was just left there that ‘answer’ would have been insufficient. As it is, I think the biggest strategic error over Iraq is that we were far too nice. Our first and foremost reason for going in was to protect our security. That is not well served by relinquishing occupation. By all means it was a great thing to establish democracy in Iraq, as Bush said, the best means of defeating terrorism, but retaining a military presence in the country to project military force (ie, against Iran) should have been with or without the consent of the Iraqis. Would be great to do this the ‘nice’ way, but we should have been willing to do it the ‘nasty’ way as well. Would have raised a hullabaloo at home of course. But that’s where the Treason law would have needed to come in force.
As it is, our ability to act against Iran in the region is hugely undermined by how nice we’ve been.
No doubt some de facto Saddam ally will cry ‘Nice!? 100,000 (well, like Marr, they’ll actually lie and say 600,000) dead!’, but of course, there’s never a break down on who caused the deaths. Overwhelmingly Iraqis were the victims of Islamic and Saddamite sectarian terrorism.
hippiepooter is right. Invading Iraq had nothing to do with the specific attacks of 9/11. Invading Afghanistan was and is the answer to that. Removing Sadaam from power was part of a de facto ongoing war between the UN coalition from Operation Desert Storm and its aftermath. Iraq and US/UN coaltion forces had confrontations and occasionally exchanged fire for years before 2003.
While playing games with Blix and his inspector monkeys, Sadaam was handing out cash to various terrorist types and doing all kinds of things to destabilize the region, as well as giving $25,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Come to think of it, no wonder the BBC wanted him kept in power.