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It's time for another holiday. This one's to eat cheese and surrender with our monkey friends, and is going to be quite long. Unless there are important world events that I feel can't be resolved without my intervention, I doubt I'll be posting until July 27th.
In the meantime the links to your right will keep up the fight. On the whole.
Contrary to my pessimistic expectations Lord Butler’s report was not a Brian Hutton ‘see no evil’ where it came to the government’s conduct.
Hampered though he was by his remit Butler has proved – insofar as a report can ever prove anything – that the government’s September dossier, whilst not the ‘complete horlicks’ that their February dossier was to be, was essentially ‘sexed up’. Furthermore when the PM said that the intelligence contained in it had established ‘beyond doubt’ the existence of Saddam’s weapons etc etc he was not telling the truth.
There’s an amusing pretence now on the part of those who support the war and support Blair (WarBlairer's? or Starters?) to suggest that the September dossier was irrelevant to the case for war, only made a stir for a few days and then was forgotten. This is similar to the attempt they made over the dreadful February dossier (if you have forgotten basically the Foreign Secretary, Alistair Campbell and unknown others cut and pasted (with a few embellishments, naturally) a decade old doctorial thesis), where they pretended it had only gone to a few journalists hence didn’t matter.
As an argument it doesn’t wash. These are some of the newspaper headlines the day after the publication of the September dossier.
Dossier reveals Iraq can attack in 45 minutes - The Daily Telegraph
Missiles fire in 45 minutes - The Times
Brits 45 mins from doom - Sun
Mad Saddam set to attack; 45 minutes from a chemical attack - Daily Star
If you believe those had no effect on public opinion then ok, but let’s not hear anything about the power of the press in other fields.
Thus we know now that this dossier was stripped of all the caveats and warnings that were originally associated with the intelligence. We don’t know – as it wasn’t part of Butler’s remit – why or how or who. Nevertheless a revealing insight comes from the comment from Jonathan Powell, a week prior to release, who said, “Alastair, what will be the headline in the Standard on the day of publication?",
It’s hard not to agree with Kenneth Clark, who said, “Can you think of any explanation for the removal of all the caveats and doubts … other than that John Scarlett had been persuaded by your press secretary and others to remove all the cautionary words and stiffen up the case”.
Nevertheless it’s probably time to move on. The PM is clearly damaged goods and as Michael Howard said yesterday the country is not likely to trust him on any foreign wars in the country. But that hardly seems like a bad thing. Furthermore there is a real danger that this government could lose the next election and despite many of the Tories attractive policies – higher spending on pensions, education and health and lower spending on defence and law & order – they don’t present a credible or attractive opposition.
Similarly here's how the Tories intend to cut the police and law and order budget in order to fund tax cuts. This time around the shortfall is going to be only about £2bn, but slightly larger in percentage terms.
Fiscaly Labour Tories Tory 'cuts'
2004-5 19,144 19,144 ------
2005-6 20,647 20,647 ------
2006-7 21,668 20,647 -1,021
2007-8 22,690 20,647 -2,043
Now we have the spending review confirmed we can see what will happen if there is an election next year and the Tories take over in terms of defence spending. If you recall Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor, and Michael Howard, who you all know, have decided in order to fund education and NHS expansion they will freeze all other discretionary spending.
Making some quick calculations this is my forecast 'cut' in the Tories plans over Labour. It's larger than it was because of the real-terms increases announced by Gordon Brown yesterday. It almost certainly slightly overestimates the cut because I have not allowed for non-discretionary defence spending, of which there must be some. Netherless we are talking around £2.5bn by 2007-8.
Fiscaly Labour Tories Tory 'cut'
2004-5 29,710 29,710 ------
2005-6 30,888 30,888 ------
2006-7 32,067 30,888 -1,179
2007-8 33,447 30,888 -2,559
So if we had had accurate intelligence, the war would not have taken place. I reiterate: I'm still glad we fought it. But this remains one of the biggest government screw-ups in recent history. It has made future pre-emption based on intelligence close to impossible. And President Bush is ultimately responsible for this. Tenet has taken the fall, but it will take years and years before the U.S. regains the reputation for credibility that this president has destroyed. Even if you believe that Bush is still the best man to fight this war, you also have to concede that his record includes at least one massive error, and one that will cripple our ability to fight the war in the future.
“I’m in a pickle, and I don’t mind telling you that”, I said, pacing up and down the corridors of the old flat. Such a pickle that I was up and about early in morning, a time I would normally have been in bed with my e's and b. But this was no time for e’s and b.
“Sir?”
“Those weapons of mass destruction thingymajigs that I lectured the chaps at the Drones about all last year failed to show up. Dashed unfortunate but they just weren’t there when I needed them”.
“That is unfortunate, Sir”.
“Dashed unfortunate I think you mean. And now they want me to have one of those…inquisitions…no er what do you call them?”
“Inquiries, sir?”
“Yes, inquiry jobbies. Old Holly in Washington has already had one, and most unpleasant it was by all accounts. Still doesn’t seem to have recovered. Now it’s my turn, and let me tell you, I’m profoundly dubious I’ll survive this scrape.”
“I heard about Mr Bush's problems, Sir. This is most disturbing”
Disturbing? Disturbing! I know all my friends to a man, and my two Aunts, particularly Aunt Agatha, love to pretend that I couldn’t get anywhere without my Butler’s help. But sometimes his phlegmatic – if phlegmatic is the word I want -- approach to things is the exact opposite of what is needed. What was needed, was solutions. That’s what was needed. Which I let him know he had to provide, and quickly.
“There is one way Sir in which I think I can extricate you from this none too happy situation”
“Well out with it!”
“If you let me conduct the investigation into the missing weapons of mass destruction I think I can apportion the blame on persons unrelated to you…”
“What ho! Like jolly old Hutters?”
“Exactly, if by Hutters you mean Lord Hutton, Sir”
I mused it over. “The Butler’s Report”. Or perhaps just “The Butler Report”. As I’m sure you agree it had a nice ring to it. He’d done it again! New life seemed to burgeon within me, and I felt my appetite returning.
“Good work. Let's be quick about it!”
“Very well, Sir. Anything else, Sir?”
“A plate of e’s and b would go down a treat?”
“Very good, Sir”.
Interesting BBC survey which suggests employers discriminate against equally-qualified candidates with names that suggest they are Muslims or black.
Untruths varnished
