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Posted: 19-04-2011 12:37 Post subject:

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
By Paul Bignell
Tuesday, 19 April 2011

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.
Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."
The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html

Posted: 19-04-2011 13:25 Post subject:

I'm no cheerleader for the Iraq War, but the Independent is trying to make more of a story out of this than exists, at least judging by the actual text of the article.

There is no suggestion from this story that the UK went to war in order to secure oil supplies for BP and the rest. What does seem to have happened is that, once preparations for war were well advanced, the UK oil industry contacted the government with concerns that the Americans were shutting them out of post-conflict deals. It's not unusual for UK governments to lobby on behalf of British business. I'm also pretty sure this story has been reported before.

Posted: 19-04-2011 13:36 Post subject:

Posted: 19-04-2011 13:41 Post subject:

But I'm not sure that it's that big a story in any case. I'm not surprised that British oil companies wanted access to the Iraqi oil fields post-conflict and I'm not surprised they lobbied the UK government about it if the Americans were shutting them out. It doesn't amount to a "we want to war for oil" smoking gun. The decision to go to war had already been made.

It reminds me of the Wikileaks saga... people reading conspiracies into what appears to be the usual business of government and diplomats.

Posted: 19-04-2011 14:06 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2011 08:31 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2011 08:44 Post subject:

One of my favourite bloggers had a bash at this story; I found myself in general agreement with his thoughts.

Posted: 14-05-2011 09:23 Post subject:

Something many of us were sure of at the time:

Iraq evidence 'vindicates BBC's dossier claims'
By Ian Burrell, Media Editor
Saturday, 14 May 2011

The editor of the BBC's Today programme at the time of its controversial 2003 report which claimed the Government had "sexed up" an Iraqi weapons dossier said last night that evidence provided to the Iraq Inquiry by the former intelligence official Michael Laurie proved that his team had been right all along.

Kevin Marsh described Maj-Gen Laurie's evidence as "devastating for [Alastair] Campbell", the former Downing Street communications chief, whose furious response to the Today report led to the Hutton Inquiry and ultimately to the resignations of the BBC's director general and chairman. "The thing that rankles with me a little bit is that I thought at the time when [the Today reporter] Andrew Gilligan came with the story was that it wasn't just broadly correct, it was 100 per cent correct," Mr Marsh said.

"Here's the guy at the very top of the [Defence Intelligence Staff] saying, 'we knew we were being pushed to find a certain bit of evidence and it was being presented in a certain way' and that's exactly what Andrew said in his story."

In written evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Maj-Gen Laurie rejected Mr Campbell's claim that the dossier was not intended to make the case for war: "This was exactly its purpose and these very words were used."

Among former and current members of the BBC news department, the comments were received yesterday with mixed feelings that combined a sense of vindication with anger at the way the organisation's journalism has been treated. Mr Marsh said he was unhappy with the implications by Lord Hutton in his 2004 report that the staff on Today had shown a lack of professionalism. "This vindicates our position and shows Hutton was wrong in criticising Andrew, criticising me and criticising the Today team," he said. "Just flat wrong." Rod Liddle, a former Today editor who hired Mr Gilligan, said: "These comments tell us what we knew already – that the BBC told the truth, Gilligan told the truth and Alastair Campbell's outrage was confected and it was a lie."

Mr Marsh is writing a book on the affair, called Stumbling Upon Truth, which is to be published on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the dossier in September next year. The context for the book, he said, was "that a great clash between New Labour and the BBC was inevitable from the day that Campbell was recruited".

Mr Gilligan was blamed by some for the death of his source, Dr David Kelly, a weapons inspector who committed suicide in 2003.

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/iraq-evidence-vindicates-bbcs-dossier-claims-2283878.html

Posted: 22-10-2011 09:32 Post subject:

When the war started, some people thought it would be over by Christmas...

Barack Obama brings Iraq war to a close
President Barack Obama has announced that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, bringing a formal close to a long and bloody war that divided the country.
By Alex Spillius, Washington
8:06PM BST 21 Oct 2011

In a brief appearance at the White House, Mr Obama said: "Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over."
The remaining 40,000 US troops in Iraq, would, he said, "definitely be home for the holidays".

He conspicuously declined to repeat the mistake of his predecessor George W Bush, who started the war in March 2003 and displayed a "Mission Accomplished" banner six weeks later, only for Iraq to descend into years of insurgency and sectarian violence that has claimed at least 100,000 civilian lives.

Mr Obama however asserted that the "United States is moving forward from a position of strength".
"The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their head held high, proud of their service," he said.

The president stressed that he was meeting a withdrawal deadline reached earlier with the Iraqis, as well as keeping a pledge made as a candidate in 2008 to wind down the controversial war as fast as possible.

But his statement masked the fact that his administration had wanted to keep a residual force of 4-5,000 beyond the end of the year in a training capacity that would also have acted as a prohibitive presence to neighbouring Iran.

Despite months of discussions however, it failed to win a continued guarantee of immunity for US troops from prosecution from the Iraqi government.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8842262/Barack-Obama-brings-Iraq-war-to-a-close.html

Posted: 01-01-2012 21:30 Post subject:

Barack Obama brings Iraq war to a close

I honestly cannot remember the USA or UK declaring war on Iraq.

Apparantly someone declared a war on terror, and I find myself terrified at the thought of that.

Posted: 24-01-2012 15:39 Post subject:

Posted: 11-03-2012 20:45 Post subject:

What a wonderful democracy the invasion created. Almost as good as Afghanistan.

Posted: 11-03-2012 20:54 Post subject:

Reminds me of that excellent documentary Heavy Metal in Bagdad where the titular rock group had to leave their homeland forever due in part to their taste in music.

Posted: 26-03-2012 18:55 Post subject:

A story that seems to have been overlooked in the West, but that has huge potential implications (notably when we think of what is happening in Lybia and Syriaand of the involvment of prince Bandar Bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador in the USA and personal friend of the Bush family).

http://intelnews.org/2010/05/24/02-323/

Posted: 02-09-2012 07:31 Post subject:

Desmond Tutu calls for Blair and Bush to be tried over Iraq

Tony Blair and George W Bush should be taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague over the Iraq war, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said.
Writing in the UK's Observer newspaper, he accused the former leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraq military campaign had made the world more unstable "than any other conflict in history", he said.

Mr Blair responded by saying "this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say".

The former Archbishop of Cape Town said the US- and UK-led action launched against Saddam's regime in 2003 had brought about conditions for the civil war in Syria and a possible Middle East conflict involving Iran.
"The then leaders of the United States [Mr Bush] and Great Britain [Mr Blair] fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand - with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us," he said.

He added: "The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level."

Archbishop Tutu said the death toll as a result of military action in Iraq since 2003 was grounds for Mr Blair and Mr Bush to be tried in The Hague.
But he said different standards appeared to be applied to Western leaders.
He said: "On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague."

Earlier this week, Archbishop Tutu pulled out of a leadership summit in Johannesburg because he refused to share a platform with Mr Blair.

In response to Sunday's article, Mr Blair issued a strongly worded defence of his decisions.
He said: "To repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence [on weapons of mass destruction] is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.
"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre.
"We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million, including many killed by chemical weapons.

"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time."

He added: "In short this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.
"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19454562