Iraq

Wednesday

The Spectator

Sir John Chilcot’s full statement introducing the Iraq War inquiry report

We were appointed to consider the UK’s policy on Iraq from 2001 to 2009, and to identify lessons for the future. Our Report will be published on the Inquiry’s website after I finish speaking. In 2003, for the first time since the Second World War, the United Kingdom took part in an invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign State. That was a decision of the utmost gravity. Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator who had attacked Iraq’s neighbours, repressed and killed many of his own people, and was in violation of obligations imposed by the UN Security Council. But the questions for the Inquiry were: whether it was

Steerpike Steerpike

Was ‘the deadly Mail’ right after all on Iraq, Michael Gove?

Last week the Daily Mail endorsed Theresa May as the next Tory leader. The declaration took many by surprise as not only was it very early in the campaign to come out for a candidate, it had been thought that the paper might opt for Michael Gove — after his wife Sarah Vine suggested Paul Dacre favoured him in a leaked email. So, why did Dacre snub Gove just a day after he announced his leadership ambitions? While some have taken it to be a sign that the Daily Mail editor was unimpressed by the manner in which the Justice Secretary had turned on Boris Johnson, could any ill-feeling run deeper than that? In

The Spectator

The Chilcot report has exposed Blair’s real crime: failure to prepare

‘If it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region’ Note from Tony Blair to George W Bush, 2 June 2003. The extraordinary length of time that we have had to wait for Sir John Chilcot’s report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has not made the end result any more satisfying. For some, nothing less than the indictment of Tony Blair on charges of war crimes would have sufficed. As for Blair himself, and many of those who surrounded him when the decision was made to remove Saddam from power, they will go on believing until their dying day that not only was the war just, but there was

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘I will be with you, whatever’: What Chilcot tells us about Tony Blair

The Iraq Inquiry report is utterly scathing about Tony Blair. It paints a critical picture of his sofa government, in particular the way in which that government approached planning and preparation for Iraq without Saddam Hussein, and his ‘certainty that was not justified’ in presenting the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to Parliament. The Prime Minister also appeared more concerned about the politics of the military action than its detail, and failed repeatedly to ensure that the relevant ministerial oversight and Whitehall resources were directed to the conflict. And he seemed unable to challenge or disagree with the US when necessary. It includes a series of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Iraq Inquiry: Key points from Sir John Chilcot’s statement

Should the UK have gone to war in Iraq? Did it have the necessary legal basis and intelligence to do so? And did it mess up once involved militarily in the country? Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry finally published its report this morning, and these are the key conclusions that he reached in his statement: While military action against Saddam Hussein ‘might have been necessary at some point’, in March 2003, he posed no imminent threat, the strategy of containment could have been continued for ‘some time’, and the majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring’. ‘Military action at that time was not a last resort,’

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How the UK messed up Iraq: what the Chilcot Inquiry says about post-conflict planning

The Iraq Inquiry dismisses claims that the aftermath of the invasion could not have been foreseen. It describes the planning and preparations for the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein were ‘wholly inadequate’. In his statement, Sir John said that ‘despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated’. The report details both an awareness of the inadequacy of plans and a marked lack of effort from Whitehall. It says: ‘The scale of the UK effort in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge. Whitehall departments an their ministers failed to put collective weight behind the task.’ The government ‘failed to take account of the magnitude

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

As Basra slid towards hell, Blair looked the other way

There has always been a faction of the Labour party that wanted Tony Blair in the dock for the Iraq war — no matter how pointless it would be. This was the sole purpose of the Chilcot inquiry. Gordon Brown agreed to it simply to assuage his backbenchers, and the whole exercise was intended to be more a mischievous distraction than an inquisition. But almost by accident, the inquiry has exposed the real scandal of Iraq: the appalling mismanagement of the war and the defeat of the British army, which left the people of Basra to the death squads. The WMD have become weapons of mass distraction. Mr Blair spent

Monday

Tom Goodenough

At last! The Chilcot Report into the Iraq war will be published

At last. We now know that the long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry report into the Iraq war will be published on July 6th. Writing to the Prime Minister, Sir John Chilcot said today: ‘National security checking of the Inquiry’s report has now been completed, without the need for any redactions to appear in the text. I am grateful for the speed with which it was accomplished.’ Given how long the report has taken, it’s probably the first time we’ve heard the word ‘speed’ associated with the Chilcot Inquiry. The wait for its findings has been tremendous: more than seven years or some 2,579 days since Gordon Brown set it up in June

Wednesday

Luke de Pulford

A genocide is underway in Iraq and Syria. Why won’t the government recognise this?

Later today the House of Commons will vote upon a motion expressing belief that a genocide is underway against Christians, Yazidis and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. The motion, proposed by Fiona Bruce MP, is supported by a large number of MPs from all parties. The Government is expected to oppose, as they did when a similar measure was debated in the Lords. At the time of writing, party enforcers are rumoured to be whipping MPs on the payroll to abstain from the vote. This is an old parliamentary tactic intended to undermine the legitimacy and clout of the measure under consideration by reducing the number of

Friday

Charles Moore

The EU has become a victim of Obama’s Middle East policy

A Middle Eastern friend put to me the other day a point so big that I felt silly for not having thought of it. Why are so many people fleeing from Syria and Iraq, and other parts of the region, beyond the huge, obvious reason that they fear for their lives? Because they believe that the Shias have gained the whip hand over the Sunnis. George Bush’s mishandling of Iraq after he conquered it opened the way for Iranian power. Barack Obama’s abandonment of Saudi Arabia, his refusal to restore order in Syria and his nuclear deal with Iran have erected this mistake into a policy. So one of this

Friday

Steerpike

Alastair Campbell is confronted by his namesake: ‘have you got any idea what my life has been like?’

Although Alastair Campbell no longer works in politics, he remains a divisive figure in Westminster thanks to the reputation he earned as Tony Blair’s spin doctor. During this time, Campbell is said to have been instrumental in using spin to win parliamentary approval for Blair’s call to invade Iraq. Still, Campbell appears to think that it’s about time people got over any ill-feelings towards him as a result of this. Speaking at Portland’s Rising Stars party, Campbell gave a speech to the spin doctors of tomorrow. In this, he complained that even though he left Downing Street 12 years ago, he still gets ‘load of sh-t’: ‘I always feel when I’m in

Thursday

Paul Wood

The trouble with the Kurds

On Nawroz, the Persian New Year, last March, Isis sent a holiday greeting to the Kurds. They published several videos of Peshmerga fighters, now prisoners, kneeling, handcuffed and wearing the usual orange jumpsuits. In one video, a prisoner is shot in the back of the head; the rest have their heads sawn off with a knife. In a deliberate twist, no doubt relished by the leadership of the so-called Islamic State, the killers were themselves Kurds. ‘You all know the punishment for anyone who fights the Islamic State,’ says one. ‘It is death.’ The executioners did not wear masks and were quickly identified by Kurdish intelligence. Retribution followed. In an

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

Anyone who joins Isis should be tried for treason

Fifteen months ago Philip Hammond talked about treason. In an exchange with Conservative backbencher Philip Hollobone in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary declared: ‘We have seen people declaring that they have sworn personal allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. That does raise questions about their loyalty and allegiance to this country and about whether, as my honourable friend rightly says, the offence of treason could have been committed.’ Mr Hammond promised to refer the matter to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, but the silence since has been deafening. Meanwhile the number of Britons travelling to Syria to join Isis continues to rise. 800 at the last count, according to a statement

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 21 January 2016

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that Muslim women must learn English, and that those who had entered on spousal visas would be told halfway through their five-year spousal settlement: ‘You can’t guarantee you can stay if you are not improving your language.’ He said that learning English had ‘a connection with combating extremism’. A heterosexual couple went to the High Court to claim the right to enter into a civil partnership. MI5, the security service, was rated as Britain’s most gay-friendly employer, following a survey by the organisation Stonewall. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said: ‘Now is not the time to raise interest rates.’

Thursday

Matthew Parris

Our leaders’ suicidal urge to sex it up

It has been over a month since Parliament voted to bomb Isis in Syria, yet in that time there have been fewer raids than there are Lib Dem MPs. A flurry of three attacks took place immediately following the vote on 1 December, but since then there has been only one — by an unmanned Reaper drone on Christmas Day. And even that only ‘probably’ killed some Isis guards at a checkpoint. The three earlier manned missions had focused on an oil field that a US military spokesman later described as having previously suffered ‘long-term incapacitation’ at the hands of the US air force. Presumably the facility had already been blasted

Paul Wood

Desperate state

The latest video from Isis introduces a new British executioner, a successor to ‘Jihadi John’, and it is a classic of the genre: bombastic, pompous, ridiculous yet terrifying. ‘O slave of the White House, O mule of the Jews,’ says a man in a ski mask, addressing David Cameron, ‘how strange it is that the leader of a small island threatens us with a handful of planes. Only an imbecile would dare to wage war against a land where the law of Allah reigns supreme.’ He has a cold, arrogant look in his eyes and brandishes a pistol held sideways, aping American ‘gangsta style’. Kneeling before him are five men

Monday

Joseph Power

I used to mock non-interventionists like Corbyn, but events have proved them right

I hate to say it, but Jeremy Corbyn is right where I have been wrong. Corbyn’s protest that the Syrian intervention displays a ‘lack of a strategy worth the name, the absence of credible ground troops, the missing diplomatic plan for a Syrian settlement…’ was spot on. I am embarrassed to say that last year, I penned a rather conceited piece – for Spectator Australia, no less – in which I mocked proponents of non-intervention against the millennial, genocidal fascists of Isis. Having watched events since publication, I feel little but embarrassment. True, it makes little sense to restrict our campaign to Iraq: as James Forsyth rightly noted, Isis don’t

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 3 December 2015

Bombers without borders Sir: To define this week’s debate as being about ‘bombing Syria’ (‘The great fake war’, 28 November) is ludicrous. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about fighting Isis. Whatever you call them, and wherever they are. The current deal, under which we bomb Isis in Iraq but not in Syria, is as if we are content to fight them in Yorkshire but not in Lancashire. If people do not think we should be engaging Isis at all, that’s a different argument. But I would ask, ‘Where do they need to get to before you would engage them?’ Two years ago, we had a similar situation to today. The

The Spectator

It is time to join the fight against IS in Syria

The Islamic State is as monstrous an enemy as we have seen in recent history. It crucifies and decapitates its victims, holds teenage girls in slavery and burns captives alive. It is wrong to call it a medieval force, because such institutionalised barbarity was seldom seen in medieval times. As far as five centuries of records from the Ottoman Empire can establish, stoning was authorised only once. Isis now regularly stones suspected adulterers to death. It is not seeking inspiration from the Middle Ages. We are witnessing a modern form of evil — and it is spreading fast. Labour MPs, now accustomed to receiving threats from hard-left activists, were told

James Forsyth James Forsyth

After Labour’s Syria shambles, step forward Major Dan

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thegreendelusion/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss Labour’s civil war over Syria airstrikes” startat=700] Listen [/audioplayer]It makes no sense for Britain to bomb Islamic State in Iraq but not Syria. Attacking a group that does not respect international borders on only one side of a border makes no strategic or military sense. From the Prime Minister down, government ministers are acutely aware of this absurdity. That is why they have been so keen to gain the Commons’ permission to extend the strikes to Syria. Yet this week Westminster has been gripped, not by the strategic case for taking the fight to Islamic State in Syria, but by the effect