UK diplomat: U.S. was 'hell bent' on Iraq invasion

UK diplomat: U.S. was 'hell bent' on Iraq invasion

news.yahoo.com

LONDON – The United States was "hell bent" on a 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war, a former British diplomat told an inquiry Friday.

Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, said that President George W. Bush had no real interest in attempts to agree on a U.N. resolution to provide explicit backing for the conflict.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.iraqinquiry.org.uk
www.iraqinquiry.org.uk

I have been as willing as anybody to give the government the benefit of the doubt regarding the Iraq War, but this, in my opinion, is too much. It most certainly validates what a lot of people have been saying for nearly six years about how we got into the mess we are in today.

There article provides little to no insight as to why they chose to approach the war the way they did. But it certainly proves, in my own mind at least, that the war was justified only in the minds of those who lied to themselves about its validity. It is rather frightening to see our own government described in the way that they are. They seem almost like devils.

Before I sign off, let me applaud the U.K. government for having the guts to brutally and honestly explore a war that has cost so much. I challenge our own supposedly superior "American democracy" to step up and face their actions.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by sweatmonicaIdo


It is called revising history. If the Iraq war would have went all peachy this same diplomat would be taking credit for pushing Bush forward toward this war.

reply to post by HotSauce


No, they wouldn't.

There wouldn't have been an enquiry in the first place for starters, if it had been all "peachy".

Never the less, these diplomats and Civil servants always keep meticulous notes about who said what, to whom and when.

What is coming to light is not these guys pointing fingers, but that these guys were not listened to by Blair and Bush who had decided unilaterally to pursue a War without merit.

It confirms what many of us knew at the time and proves that this War wasn't about "preventing terrorism" on Britains streets, but about kow-towing to the Americans in a vain and misguided attempt to maintain the "Special Relationship".The same "special relationship" that exists between a master and a slave, that is, not equal partners or allies.

It’s pretty shocking what the Iraqi people have had to suffer and endure since 1980. It wasn’t as if they weren’t already cursed with one of the most brutal dictators known to the history of the Middle East but on top of enduring the leadership of an authoritarian tyrant endured a long bloody trench style war of attrition with Iran pretty much instigated by the United States and it’s bungling of the Shah’s rule and the Islamic State that sprung up in Iran as a direct result and aftermath of the Shah’s own reign of tyranny supported by the United States. Then just when they were beginning to get back to life as normal under a despot they were tricked yet again into War with Kuwait primarily over its diagonal drilling into Southern Iraq’s rich oil fields. Tricked again by the United States whose Secretary of State Madelyn Albright pretty much gave everything but written assurances that the United States wouldn’t take exception to Iraq going to war with Kuwait which was once a part of Iraq before the British redrew the maps of the region when they finally gave up colonial rule of the area. Most of Iraq’s infrastructure was bombed into a parking lot by the 1st Gulf War where much to the chagrin of many Iraqis we didn’t even bother to remove Saddam from power but instead proceeded for the next decade to force them to endure withering sanctions that the United Nations Secretary General’s family and the Hussein family profited nicely off of but led to massive hardships and premature death for well hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Then Bush Jr., primarily in revenge for Saddam’s own attempt to assassinate Bush, Jr. and a million dollar a day no bid contract to Vice President Cheney’s good friends at Halliburton invades Iraq yet again leaving a trail of corpses of innocent Iraqi men, women and children and an instability from one end of the country to the next in large part fueled by our own funding and antagonizing of disparate political, religious and ethnic factions for the purpose of getting them to constantly war amongst themselves.

I love America having been born and raised here but I have to admit the title The Great Satan is kind of an understatement, the neo-Conservative/Zionist and Council For Foreign Relations Cabal that formulates and runs our foreign policy sure would give old Lucifer a run for his money!

I feel sorry for the Iraqis and Afghanis too. I feel sorry for us with 11 trillion dollars of debt being piled on us by the Military Industrial Complex who along with the Israelis are the big winners in the War on Terror while we are turned into economic slaves here in America that will soon be paying 1 trillion dollars a year or roughly 1/10th of our entire gross national product on interest alone to the Bankers who as always win big too when diplomacy conveniently fails and guns start firing.

It sure is a fine mess we are in and so far the new Administration’s strategy seems to be when there is no easy way out just go further in instead.

I am not sure who is screwed worse at this point Afghanis, Iraqis or Americans.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Tricked again by the United States whose Secretary of State Madelyn Albright pretty much gave everything but written assurances that the United States wouldn’t take exception to Iraq going to war with Kuwait which was once a part of Iraq before the British redrew the maps of the region when they finally gave up colonial rule of the area.

Ok, firstly, paragraphs and puntuation make reading alot easier..

I also wish to correct your above statement. Britain never had "colonial rule" over the region. We were granted control over the region after WW1 by the League of Nations under a mandate, we never colonised the Middle East.

[edit on 27/11/09 by stumason]

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Tricked again by the United States whose Secretary of State Madelyn Albright pretty much gave everything but written assurances that the United States wouldn’t take exception to Iraq going to war with Kuwait which was once a part of Iraq before the British redrew the maps of the region when they finally gave up colonial rule of the area.

Ok, firstly, paragraphs and puntuation make reading alot easier..

I also wish to correct your above statement. Britain never had "colonial rule" over the region. We were granted control over the region after WW1 by the League of Nations under a mandate, we never colonised the Middle East.

[edit on 27/11/09 by stumason]

I would expect an Englishman to surmount the challenges of my run on sentences and by George you have! Good show!

We here in American never ratified the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently never recognized the League of Nations which was very much about British Colonialism.

A rose is a rose by any other name!

Having said that the fact remains the same the Western involvement has turned the Middle East into a vast see of hostility that serves none of humanity well except for the Military Industrial Complex, the Oil Companies and the Banks.

Many of those Arms manufacturers, Oil Companies and Banks just happen to be English and European and while America certainly provides a good portion to the problem the English and the Europeans play their part too as well.

Sadly the U.K. primarily because it's Armaments, Oil Companies and Banks didn't want to miss out on the potential spoils involved in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the propaganda war being waged against Iran.

It is what it is and sadly no brevity, paragraph structure or punctuation will likely have any effect on that.

Thanks.

Edit to add: I was the one who starred your first post to the thread, colonialism still being considered!






[edit on 27/11/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I completely agree with everything you said, I just want to clarify that we didn't colonise the Middle East, we just inherited it off the Ottoman Empire.

Operation Ajax kicked off the mess that we now see in Iran, leading to Iraq etc. The creation of Israel after WW2 has done the rest of the damage in the region.

EDIT: It is worth mentioning that the former territories of the Ottoman Empire that France and the UK inherited were fully intended to be liberated once they had the necessary infrastructure and organisation in place to allow it. Iraq was granted independance in the 30's, even though it was effectively still a "puppet, mind you.

[edit on 27/11/09 by stumason]

Don't get me wrong, I am glad Saddam Huseein is out of power and that Iraq is not a threat to the region. But it came at such a high cost it may end up being a pyrric victory.

The route we took to get to war is also not something that makes me stand up and cheer wholeheartedly for our accomplishments. Its like having blood money.

reply to post by sweatmonicaIdo


Saddam was no more a threat to the region that Japan is. He was contained and neutered. The British were quite happy to leave him caged up and it would only have been a matter of time until his death or eventual overthrow.

Had the US/UK pumped only a fraction of the funds spent on war into black ops in Iraq and supporting rebellious elements, the country could have got rid of Saddam with minimal bloodshed and an air of legitimacy.

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

I completely agree with everything you said, I just want to clarify that we didn't colonise the Middle East, we just inherited it off the Ottoman Empire.

Operation Ajax kicked off the mess that we now see in Iran, leading to Iraq etc. The creation of Israel after WW2 has done the rest of the damage in the region.

EDIT: It is worth mentioning that the former territories of the Ottoman Empire that France and the UK inherited were fully intended to be liberated once they had the necessary infrastructure and organisation in place to allow it. Iraq was granted independance in the 30's, even though it was effectively still a "puppet, mind you.

[edit on 27/11/09 by stumason]

I can star the sentiments behind that post as well friend. It is true that England and France inherited the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire but I truly feel that was a byproduct thrust upon primarily the British as a result of the Balfour Declaration and Zionist politics. It was primarily due to such machinations, backroom and side deals omitted or downplayed in the manipulation of events that ultimately drew America into the First World War in the eleventh hour that once revealed at Versailles led to the U.S. Congress rejecting the Treaty and the League of Nations attached to it.


Likewise I feel comfortable in saying that Britannia’s hasty withdrawal from the Middle East in mass had to do also with Zionist politics and Terrorism in the aftermath of the Second World War and the pressures that can always be applied by the Banking interests whose role as creditors to war indebted nations often impinges on a nation’s sovereignty in similar ways that compelled the English Parliament to issue the Balfour Declaration promising a homeland to Zionists and Jews in Palestine that was then under the longtime control of the Ottoman Empire.

A seemingly hollow declaration considering the British Government’s battlefields and financial position in the closing days of 1916 until of course financial manipulations applied through the international banking cartels were conducted behind the scenes to draw America into the war, revitalize the finances of England and France and cut of Germany’s and the Turk’s.

War in fact is a pretty sordid yet profitable racket for the perennial winners, those being the armaments manufacturers, bankers and energy companies.

Brittan’s hasty and untimely retreat from the Middle East created a hodgepodge of uncomfortable boundaries for the indigenous populations of the region while creating a vacuum for the ascension of Zionist politics and agendas to eventually turn oil from a cheap plentiful commodity into an ever increasingly expensive one that the dependence upon continues to provide the pretext for a host of manipulations detrimental to the masses and obscenely profitable for the Military Industrial Complex, Energy Companies and the Banks who many of the major principals of by odd chance just happen to dabble in all three businesses.

It’s true it’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket but it is rather unique how those three entities so compliment and enrich one another.

One thing never changes in that the people who pay for these wars, and fight and die for them rarely if ever have the benefit of knowing precisely why it is they are making those sacrifices and the article that the original post is based upon very much illustrates that lesson that the masses are so slow and seemingly so reluctant to learn as their leaders and governments lie to them and manipulate them emotionally to make sacrifices that only a very small chosen minority truly profit off of and win from.



[edit on 27/11/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

What was truly telling to me about Bush and that war was that so many if not the majority of Middle East specialists in the miliatry and CIA were sacked or sidelined at that time - at the same time career CIA who knew the history and situation so well were very much bumped out of power and negated with the newly established NSA, Bush cronies that go way, way back.

It wasn't just the gays that were sacked. It was anyone who disagreed with Bush.

30yrs from now
I wonder how history books will portray the iraqi war to students in school

they history is always written by the winners