History Forum / General / British History / December 2007

Utter Nonsense...

If all the Labour MP's had voted no confidence in Blair he would have been
History...

But 2/3's of them stuck with him -- to their credit -- and were joined by
the even more creditable Conservatives.

British Labour -- doing some Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

<snip>

Yeah, Robin Cook. He resigned from his post as Leader of the House
of Commons and Lord President of the Council on 17 March 2003 in
protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

17th March 2003 9.44 pm :
Personal Statement by Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston):

This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House
from the Back Benches. I must confess that I had forgotten how much
better the view is from here. None of those 20 years were more
enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the
immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which
were made all the more enjoyable, Mr. Speaker, by the opportunity of
working closely with you.

It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk
my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a
press interview. On this occasion I can say with complete confidence
that no press interview has been given before this statement. I have
chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war
without international agreement or domestic support.

The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour
party in my lifetime. I hope that he will continue to be the leader of
our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have
no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use
this crisis to displace him.

I applaud the heroic efforts that the Prime Minister has made in
trying to secure a second resolution. I do not think that anybody
could have done better than the Foreign Secretary in working to get
support for a second resolution within the Security Council. But the
very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to
succeed. Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that
getting a second resolution was of no importance.

France has been at the receiving end of bucketloads of commentary in
recent days. It is not France alone that wants more time for
inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants
more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even
the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution. We delude
ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is
all the result of President Chirac. The reality is that Britain is
being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the
international bodies of which we are a leading partner-not NATO, not
the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.

To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse. Only a
year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against
terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have
imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic
miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that
powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is
not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral
action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by
rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us
are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is
in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has
yet to be fired.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these
circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There
was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action
that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by NATO; it was supported by
the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven
neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.
It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that
it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council
as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement.

The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to respond to an
urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis. Our difficulty in getting
support this time is that neither the international community nor the
British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling
reason for this military action in Iraq.

The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict
the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq,
but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe"
makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the
thousands. I am confident that British servicemen and women will
acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope that
they all come back. I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad
and avert war, but it is false to argue that only those who support
war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our
troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put
those troops at risk.

Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections
of not having an alternative strategy. For four years as Foreign
Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of
containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons
than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and
halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq's
military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of
the last Gulf war.

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that
we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim
that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped
that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military
strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time
justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly
understood sense of the term-namely a credible device capable of being
delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has
biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had
them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and
the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.
Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm
a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we
helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week,
while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked
by the presence of UN inspectors?

Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that
the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months.
I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in
which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted. Yet
it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to
withdraw from the occupied territories. We do not express the same
impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. I welcome
the strong personal commitment that the Prime Minister has given to
middle east peace, but Britain's positive role in the middle east does
not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world
at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule
for the rest.

Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our partners in
Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime
change in Iraq. That explains why any evidence that inspections may be
showing progress is greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but
with consternation: it reduces the case for war.

What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that
if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had
been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.

The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I
have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people.
On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is
sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they
are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain.
They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they
are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with
an agenda of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out
on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international
coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies.

From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of
the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain
should go to war. It has been a favourite theme of commentators that
this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.
Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this
House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither
international agreement nor domestic support. I intend to join those
tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for
that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I
resign from the Government.

We noticed.

The recent incursion into Indian territory by China didn't make the news
there,  but strange accusations about the religion of a politician were on
the front page for a couple of days.

Your country has a very odd idea of what constitutes a major news story...

Not short.

Selective...

Yes...

Gans is correct here.

DSH

Gawd, you're as bad as the US B&W political rubbish.

Surreyman

You are prejudiced in a very ugly way.

You are silly.

They were told the same lies we were.

And you think the Labour Party honourable?

1/ The Arabs haven't yet attacked us.

2/ And the Brit troops soon won't be.

Surreyman