Weapons of Mass Distraction (revisited)
Blair made a quick visit to the troops he sent to kill or be killed in Iraq. While there he made an attempt (yet again!) to justify the invasion. Unfortunately, he made a (Freudian?) slip by referring to weapons of "mass distraction". Opps. He must wish that the whole issue went away. Fortunately, it will not.

Anarchists argue that power corrupts. Some people argue we exaggerate this effect. Blair seems intent on proving us right. No matter what, Blair simply refuses to admit he was wrong. No matter the evidence (or lack of it, in the case of WMD), he asserts that he was right. The psychosis is clear.

Ignoring the slight problem that no WMD have been found, Blair argued that war was necessary because without it "we [sic!] would never have been able to confront this threat in the other countries where it exists." Thus the invasion was justified by the weapons that do not exist in Iraq but do exist in (say) Libya.

Asked by reporters if he still believed WMD would be found in Iraq, Mr Blair said: "The first thing is to wait for the Iraq Survey Group report." Yet it has proved an initial report and that contained nothing. Yet Blair repeats the mantra "I don't believe that the intelligence we got was wrong."

A recap of that intelligence is in order. The September dossier, said Blair "concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons which could be activated in 45 minutes." So where are they?

Perhaps this explains the post-war shift in rhetoric? In July Blair said that he had "absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes." Yet to the troops in Basra he went back to the threat posed by Iraq's weapons. To this he added the usual hypocrisy on Saddam's human rights record as (retroactively) justifying the invasion.

He even had the cheek to say that no democratic regime would spend billions of pounds on chemical and biological weapons when its own people were suffering. Obviously he forgot about the UK and US, both of whom have spent billions on WMD over the years while a sizeable percentage of their populations live in poverty. But, then again, the poor have never counted and neither regime is that democratic.

However, we should not think that the UK support for the US invasion was due to Blair's mental problems. It is highly unlikely that the UK state would support an invasion simply because the nominal head of government gets a quasi-religious saviour complex. No more than the US invasion can be put down to the lust of profits and power by the deranged neo-cons, Bush Junta and their backers. While the state and ruling class was split over the invasion, the fact is the majority of vested interests clearly considered the gains to outweigh the costs. It is doubtful whether Gore would have been that different --assuming that the Supreme Court had not selected Bush to be "president" -- the billionaires who backed him were obviously not that influential in the run up to war.

The aim of the Iraq debacle is simply to give a message to the world on the realities of US imperial power (a "test case," to use Blair's expression). If a regime plays ball then they are no concern and can do what they like to their subject people. If they don't, then they are the next Hitler. Such "integrity" (to use one of Blair's favourite words) is truly awesome.

This can be seen from such countries as Libya, Syria and North Korea. Blair wants us to believe that the decision by Libya to dismantle its WMD showed the fruits of "discussion and engagement". Yet the invasion of Iraq had no effect on Libya's decision. That was the product of years of negotiation finally coming to fruit. And, disgustingly, the tyrant of Libya and his regime are now applauded by the west.

So, clearly, "human rights" are relative and not that important. Nor are WMD, for that matter. Libya and North Korea has them, but no invasion. The ruler of Syria said recently that he would renounce his WMD programme if Israel, which has a sizeable nuclear arsenal, does the same. All three regimes are tyrannies with terrible human rights record (and in the case of Libya, a history of supporting acts of terrorism against the west). Yet Blair is not rushing to "liberate" them. Indeed, his praise of Libya's dictator will ensure they will be left to his tender mercies for some time to come. Just as he (and Bush) had promised the monster Saddam if the latter had fully meet their demands (with the "Saddam was a monster" argument becoming the dominant excuse for war, these statements are now in the memory hole along with the long list of weapons Bush and Blair said Saddam had). So much for "liberating" the oppressed.

For Blair, the necessity of war was like faith. A matter of personal belief for which mere facts and evidence were of no concern. But, then, facts have always been an uneasy concept for him. This can be seen from the Hutton Enquiry.

The Hutton Enquiry shows the class nature of our society. When working class Brits and Iraqis are killed by an invasion justified by the most blatant lying and distortion, this is not considered worthy of an enquiry. Yet when a middle-class scientist commits suicide then this is considered worthy of an enquiry.

However, the enquiry has proved useful. Because of it, we discovered from the head of the joint intelligence committee and the head of MI6 that the 45-minutes claim related all along only to battlefield weapons, not to long-range weapons as Blair's dossier clearly implied. No WMD of any sort have been found. We also discovered the difference between an Iraq dossier that had been "sexed up" (Gilligan) and one that has been "over-egged" (a senior defence intelligence official to Hutton), i.e. nothing of any substance. The same official said there was no solid evidence of continued Iraqi production of chemical weapons after 1998. Tony Blair's foreword to the dossier claimed that such production had been "established beyond doubt". Then there was Blair's own chief of staff acknowledging that the document that became the infamous dossier "does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam" and stated that the final draft would need to make this clear. Blair did the opposite, stating in his foreword that the threat was "serious and current".

We also learned Blair's shameful role in naming Kelly. The MoD's top civil servant placed Blair at the centre of the strategy which led to his unmasking. The decision that the MoD should issue a press statement, the move which led to Kelly being publicly named, was taken at Downing Street. "The change in stance... was a decision of a meeting taken by the prime minister," the bureaucrat told the inquiry. The July 8 2003 meeting was "decisive", he insisted.

Kelly committed suicide nine days later. A few days after that, Blair was preparing to land in Hong Kong. "Why did you authorise the naming of David Kelly?" he was asked by journalists. "That is completely untrue," replied Blair. "Did you authorise anyone in Downing Street or in the MoD to release Kelly's name?" he was asked. "Emphatically not," responded Blair. "I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly." He added: "Nobody was authorised to name David Kelly. I believe we have acted properly throughout."

Blair has said that he will resign if Hutton concludes that Blair lied. Yet Blair has lied and lied again, with no qualms about staying in office. He obviously lied in the run-up to war and he obviously lied to journalists (and so the world's public) about his role in outing Kelly. Little wonder Blair wants us to "move on"!

Perhaps Hutton will ignore these claims and whitewash the PM. Who knows? One thing is sure, the workings of the state have been exposed to its subjects. Who, now, can claim that the state is a neutral machine, serving the public?

The irony of all this should not be lost. Blair lied to and ignored the public in his rush to war. So it is a good job that he says he wants democracy for Iraq, as he does not care much for democracy in Britain.