[Atlantis]

Most people at the time doubted that the US information was conclusive and numerous governments including the German and French didn't think there were grounds for war. UK governments aren't known for their naivety. How is it that they, of all people, had insufficient information?

The Americans lying to invent a reason for war that is still destabilizing a whole region and threatening Europe with waves of refugees and terrorism will discredit everything US politicians say for a long time to come.

The US defence department knew that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction but kept Britain in the dark, according to an explosive new claim from Gordon Brown.

In an extraordinary allegation, the former prime minister states that a secret US intelligence report into Iraq’s military capabilities was never passed to Britain and could have changed the course of events. The revelation leads Brown to conclude that the “war could not be justified as a last resort and invasion cannot now be seen as a proportionate response”.

He adds that the evidence in question was never examined by the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, which concluded that Britain chose to join the invasion before “peaceful options for disarmament” had been exhausted. Brown’s intervention will reopen the debate about Britain’s decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair used the assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to argue that Britain needed to join the military action.

Brown makes the claim in his new book, My Life, Our Times, published this week. He writes that there was a “rush to war” in March 2003, adding that he asks himself “over and over whether I could have made more of a difference before that fateful decision was taken”.

He said that as chancellor he had little more access to intelligence than other cabinet ministers, but was reassured by MI6 that evidence about WMDs was well-founded. However, having reviewed the evidence since leaving office, he writes that he now believes “we were all misled on the existence of WMDs”.

Brown points to a crucial set of papers from September 2002, commissioned by the then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and held by the US defence department, which was leaked last year. According to Brown, it made clear that evidence of “the existence of WMDs was weak, even negligible and in key areas nonexistent”.

“It is astonishing that none of us in the British government ever saw this American report,” Brown writes. “It is now clear how forcibly this report challenged the official view: ‘We’ve struggled to estimate the unknown … We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their [Iraq’s WMD] program’,” the report stated.

“It conceded that US knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme was based largely – perhaps 90% of it – on analysis of imprecise intelligence. These assessments, the report said, relied ‘heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs.’

“The Iraqis, it was reported, ‘lack the precursors for sustained nerve-agent production’, confirming that US intelligence could not identify any Iraqi sites producing the final chemical agent. And as for missiles and the Iraqis’ ability to target countries such as the UK with them, which was to be the subject of dramatic claims only a few weeks later, Rumsfeld was informed: ‘We doubt all processes are in place to produce longer-range missiles’.

“This highly confidential US evidence was a refutation not only of the claim that Iraq was producing WMDs but also of their current capability to do so.”

Brown states that had the evidence been shared, history could have been different. “I am convinced that if resolutions of the United Nations are approved unanimously and repeatedly they have to be upheld if we are to have a safe and stable world order,” he writes. “On this basis, Saddam Hussein’s continuing failure to comply with them justified international action against him.

“The question is whether it required war in March 2003. If I am right that somewhere within the American system the truth about Iraq’s lack of weapons was known, then we were not just misinformed but misled on the critical issue of WMDs.

“Given that Iraq had no usable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that it could deploy and was not about to attack the coalition, then two tests of a just war were not met: war could not be justified as a last resort and invasion cannot now be seen as a proportionate response.”

The former prime minister also reveals that the moment he took office in 2007, he planned to pull British troops out of Iraq well before the Americans. He eventually withdrew troops in April 2009, while the US stayed until December 2011. “At this time I made another decision: not to use our future departure from Iraq as an occasion to draw a contrast with Tony or score points against him either,” he writes.

[skinster]

GORDON BROWN SAYS PENTAGON MISLED UK OVER CASE FOR IRAQ INVASION

His work-mate Tony Blair agreed to the war on Iraq a year before tho.

[Decky]

It's amazing that Brown is still trying to distance himself from the Blair era morally and politically. It's absolutely pathetic. He was his fucking Chancellor for the whole time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_c ... onsibility

Cabinet collective responsibility, also known as collective ministerial responsibility,[1] is a constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System, that members of the cabinet must publicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if they do not privately agree with them. This support includes voting for the government in the legislature. Some Communist political parties apply a similar convention of democratic centralism to their central committee. If a member of the cabinet does wish to openly object to a cabinet decision then they are obliged to resign from their position in the cabinet.

Cabinet collective responsibility is related to the fact that, if a vote of no confidence is passed in parliament, the government is responsible collectively, and thus the entire government resigns. The consequence will be that a new government will be formed, or parliament will dissolve and a general election will be called. Cabinet collective responsibility is not the same as individual ministerial responsibility, which states that ministers are responsible for the running of their departments, and therefore culpable for the departments' mistakes.

[Potemkin]

It's amazing that Brown is still trying to distance himself from the Blair era morally and politically. It's absolutely pathetic. He was his fucking Chancellor for the whole time.

It must be a terrible, terrible thing to come to the realisation that one's entire political career has been nothing but a misconceived mistake from the beginning. Brown is basically trying to distance himself from his entire life.

[Decky]

I imagine that is why he does so much charity stuff, he must be labouring under a huge amount of guilt. However that all begs the question, why would anyone with morals serve under B'liar in the first place? Most of them were transparent careerists who would do anything for a ministerial car (Straw) or simpletons hoodwinked by Mandleson's magical reptile power (Prescott) but Brown's motivations are a total mystery to me.

[Potemkin]

Brown's motivations are a total mystery to me.

Actually, his motives are transparently obvious. He has always believed himself to be someone special, from a very early age, who was 'destined' to become Prime Minister. Unlike sensible people, who usually dismiss such idle daydreams as soon as their voice breaks and they start shaving, Brown spent his entire life relentlessly trying to make his narcissistic fantasy come true. He compromised every principle he held dear, he sold the working class down the river, he colluded in the mass slaughter of the Iraq War, all to become Prime Minister. Of course, once he achieved his goal, he realised that it was actually a crock of shit and wasn't what he wanted after all. Witnessing his personal meltdown as the terrible realisation that he had wasted his whole life sank in was both appalling and hugely entertaining at the same time.

[Decky]

Maybe it's a Scottish thing then? I can't understand him at all. It isn't at all as obvious as you claim. He is an enigma.

[Potemkin]

Maybe it's a Scottish thing then? I can't understand him at all. It isn't at all as obvious as you claim. He is an enigma.

It's a Scottish thing, Decky. Four centuries of Calvinism have had a certain... effect on the national psyche. Basically, Brown convinced himself at an early age that he was one of the 'Elect', but then realised, too late, that he wasn't. To me, his personality is an open book. His motivations were and are transparent.

[B0ycey]

Another thing Brown clearly neglects to say was the Iraq war was not sanctioned by the U.N. for lack of evidence. So if the UK government (Brown) openly admit they just took 'the word' of American intelligence (or even worse had doubts), then that are also admitting to war crimes and should be taken to the Hague.

We all know what really happened anyway. The Americans offered riches beyond the Wests wildest dreams - with 9/11 as justification to attack, and the West lapped it all up without thinking of the consequences (which we still live with today). The only regret from Brown is he can see it was now a massive mistake - unlike the Americans who still are willing to attack the world.

[Potemkin]

The only regret from Brown is he can see it was now a massive mistake - unlike the Americans who still are willing to attack the world.

Actually, I think Brown feels genuinely guilty and remorseful. You have to remember that Gordon Brown is 'a son of the manse' - his father was a Presbyterian minister, I believe. Calvinism is in his bloodstream, in his DNA. This is why he formed the delusion that he was one of The Elect of God, one of the small minority of humanity who have been saved by their faith and are righteous in the eyes of the Lord. It is this sense of predestined greatness which drove him to try to become Prime Minister with such fanatical monomania, and why he would respond with such snarling fury to anyone or anything which stood in his way. Did they not realise that God had destined him to be Prime Minister? How dare they challenge the will of God?! Of course, once he actually achieved his 'destiny' of becoming Prime Minister, he quickly realised that he wasn't right for the job - his abrasive personality, his intellectual arrogance, his willingness to compromise his political principles for a shot at power, all of these factors came together in a perfect storm of public hostility and derision. He came to the terrible realisation that, in fact, God had not purposed him to be Prime Minister after all, and that he had based his whole life on a narcissistic delusion. He was not one of the few, righteous Elect; he was one of the damned masses, writhing in Hell. Worse than that - his arrogant pride had led him to commit sin after sin in the eyes of God. The invasion of Iraq wasn't just a mistake, it was a sin. Can you imagine the sense of guilt he must now feel...?

[Rich]

I'm enraged by the liars over Iraq. The people who said that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq because it didn't possess WMD, but now say we shouldn't invade North Korea because it does.

I say to anyone whose upset because Iraq didn't have WMD lets invade North Korea, because in North Korea the leadership say they have. For all those who said we should have believed Saddam when he said he didn't possess WMD and not invade, then lets learn by that so called mistake and believe Kim Jong-un when he says he does possess WMD and invade.

[layman]

Brown is a decent human being and by politicians standards a saint.

He is still trying to justify it all to himself though but that just makes him all the more human.

Everyone knew at the time knew it was evidence to justify a decision. Not the other way around.

[Rich]

You have to remember that Gordon Brown is 'a son of the manse' - his father was a Presbyterian minister, I believe. Calvinism is in his bloodstream, in his DNA. This is why he formed the delusion that he was one of The Elect of God, one of the small minority of humanity who have been saved by their faith and are righteous in the eyes of the Lord. It is this sense of predestined greatness which drove him to try to become Prime Minister with such fanatical monomania, and why he would respond with such snarling fury to anyone or anything which stood in his way. Did they not realise that God had destined him to be Prime Minister? How dare they challenge the will of God?!

And exactly how is this different from Bolshevism, from Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin? Just replace God with the historical process. This elect, this distinctly un-proletarian Vanguard of the Proletariat took it upon itself to close down the provisional committee of the Duma, attack the independent unions, squash the factory committees, allow the constituent Assembly to be dispersed, gerry-mander the rural representation in the supreme Soviet, impose the Brest Litosk treaty on the Russian peoples, then bit by bit, over throw the results of the local regional and national Soviet elections, ban every other political party and close down all free expression..

[Potemkin]

And exactly how is this different from Bolshevism, from Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin. Just replace God with the historical process. This elect, this distinctly un-proletarian Vanguard of the Proletariat took it upon itself to close down the provisional committee of the Duma, attack the independent unions, squash the factory committees, allow the constituent Assembly to be dispersed, gerry-mander the rural representation in the supreme Soviet, impose the Brest Litosk treaty on the Russian peoples, then bit by bit, over throw the results of the local regional and national Soviet elections, ban every other political party and close down all free expression..

It isn't fundamentally different at all, Rich. I have repeatedly said before that I regard Marxism as the secular equivalent of Calvinism. This is probably why, when I first read Marx, it struck me as a revelation of truth. I had already been culturally pre-adapted to become a Marxist by my Scottish background. I am justified and saved by the purity of my faith.

[B0ycey]

What is your overall opinion on the Russian Revolution @Potemkin? Do you think Marx would have approved?

[Potemkin]

What is your overall opinion on the Russian Revolution @Potemkin? Do you think Marx would have approved?

Would one of the founders of Communism have approved of a successful Communist revolution? That's a tough one, B0ycey. Hmm... let me get back to you on that one....

Lol. He would probably have been surprised that it occurred in Russia, of all places, but I think he would have strongly approved of it at the time. He probably wouldn't have been totally happy about the way it developed, but that course of development was almost inevitable, given the material and social conditions presented to the Bolsheviks in 1917. Even Lenin regarded Russia as a hopeless case - his motive in seizing power in October 1917 was not to make Russia into a Communist society (he repeated asserted that such a thing was not possible), but to trigger a Communist revolution in Germany, which would then come to the rescue of the beleaguered Communists in Russia. By 1921, of course, it was obvious that that strategy had failed. This presented a problem to the Bolsheviks: they were stuck with Russia alone, and had to somehow make a go of it using the utterly unpromising material of Russian society. The result was... sub-optimal, from a Marxist viewpoint, but the fact that the Soviet Union survived even as long as it did is a tribute to the competence of the Bolsheviks at statecraft. Marx might not have approved of the way the Soviet Union turned out, but he would almost certainly have regarded its collapse as a setback for the working class around the world. Which it proved to be.

[Beren]

The invasion of Iraq wasn't just a mistake, it was a sin. Can you imagine the sense of guilt he must now feel...?

What did he expect when he teamed up with a Catholic son of a bitch like Blair who just has to confess his sins to get them forgiven? Brown made a pact with Satan, which he regrets later as usual.

[B0ycey]

Would one of the founders of Communism have approved of a successful Communist revolution? That's a tough one, B0ycey. Hmm... let me get back to you on that one....

I wasn't asking about a Communist revolution, I was asking about a bloody Socialist one...

[Beren]

I wasn't asking about a Communist revolution, I was asking about a bloody Socialist one...

A Bolshevik one, actually. Marx would have approved it as a progressive thing, but he wouldn't have agreed on the weakest link idea with Lenin. And he would've been right, of course.

[Rich]

There is a widespread view now that the 2003 invasion was a mistake. The popularity of this view does not make it any less pathetic and contemptible. This view rests on the pathetic fantasy that if only Saddam had been allowed to remain in power the Middle East and the Muslim world would have had peace and stability, there would have been no mass migration and the EU would have cruised blissfully and sedately on to ever closer integration.

Nothing, I repeat nothing changed in May 2003 in terms of the stability of the Middle East. The fundamental instability, brutality, repression and intermittent civil and interstate wars has not changed since the end of WWII. In fact its been there since the dissolution of the Ottoman empire and can even be seen prior to the first world war.

We hear the endless whinings about the state of Syria. What an earth have we White people done to cause this tragedy amongst peace loving Muslims? Syria looks no different to me in 2017 than it did in 1982. The only difference then when Bashar's Dad was exterminating the Sunni Muslim brotherhood and the civilian populations that sheltered / produced them is that there were no camera phones, no facebook, no twitter, no bloggers and no 24 hour news media.