Blair's official spokesman come out with a classic piece of historical (or is that hysterical?) revisionism. "Iraq was under the thumb of Saddam Hussein who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Afghanistan was under the thumb of the Taleban," he argued. "Is the report saying it was a mistake to allow Afghanistan and Iraq to exercise their democratic rights? These are the hard questions the report does not address."
Except, as Blair stressed at the time, we did not invade Iraq or Afghanistan to give their people's "democratic rights." The ostensible reason why Britain helped invaded the former was Saddam's (non-existent) Weapons of Mass Destruction. Regime change was explicitly eschewed by Blair as the reason (as he knew it was illegal). Both Saddam and the Taleban, Blair argued, could stay in power if they had done what the US-UK had demanded. And, in the process, Blair's war has killed over one hundred thousand Iraqis. So much for that rebuttal.
John Reid, the defence secretary, added to the stupidity flowing from the government by arguing that "when this report says that we have made ourselves more of a target because of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and our efforts to tackle al Qaeda, what alternative is it proposing? That we should stand back while others take on the terrorists?" So there is no connection between Iraq and terrorism unless you wish to use terrorism to justify invading and occupying Iraq. Reid continued by stating that "I do not think this is what the British public would want." And so the millions who protested against the war and who regularly expressed opposition to it are not part of the "British public"? But, of course, Britain no more invaded Iraq because of terrorism than we did to give democratic rights to the Iraqis.
So the government wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, the invasion of Iraq has had no influence on terrorism. On the other, the invasion of Iraq is part of the fight against terrorism.
According to a poll in The Guardian (19th July 2005), the government is loosing its propaganda war against the British people. Two-thirds of us believe there is a link between Blair's decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings. Moreover, one in three thinks that the PM Article continues bears "a lot" of responsibility for the London bombings and a further 31% "a little". Amazingly, 28% agreed with the government that Iraq and the London bombings are not connected.
Yet we did not need the Chatham House Report to tell us this. Blair's own intelligence chiefs said exactly the same thing before the Iraq invasion, warning Blair that the threat to the UK would increase if he invaded Iraq. This message was repeated mid-June this year, when a report by the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre -- which includes officials from MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the police -- explicitly linked the US-led invasion of Iraq with terrorist activity in the UK."Events in Iraq," the leaked report noted, "are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK."
How long will New Labour insist in ignoring the obvious and spinning nonsense? And how long will people put up with this gang of Muppets?