UK Vote over Syria is a reflection of the Mistrust over the previous vote for Iraq

There will be all sorts of ramifications that the UK did not vote for military action in Syria. However, I think that the MPs remember what happened over Iraq 10 years ago and why it still has reverberations today. So here is a brief history:

• Tony Blair released a dossier in September 2002, laying out the case for intervention in Iraq. This was written by British Intelligence and made some scary claims that “ that Iraq had a developing nuclear program and had sought "significant quantities of uranium from Africa". More signficantly the dossier said that “WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them”. The dossier was a major factor why the UK voted for war in Iraq.

• As early as May 2003, the BBC reported that the 45 minute warning had embellished ) by the British Government, leading to the Hutton Inquiry. The leak to the BBC came from the weapons expert David Kelly who later “committed suicide” in July 2003. Even Wikipedia, not known as a conspiracy website casts doubt on the official reason for the death, with some coroners questioning how the official suicide could actually kill him

• The Hutton report was published in January 2004 and as a result a number of BBC reporters were sacked (for publishing the report). All 750 pages seem to give the green light for the government, exonerating them from “sexing up” the document and blaming the intelligence services for not specifically saying how good their quality of evidence was. Rumours continued and the newspapers at the time both serious and tabloid – believed this was a whitewash.

The UK Government, through Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell, lost a lot of credibility and I believe that is why when David Cameron today come along and say “We have details from British Intelligence..”, whether true or not they are reeling from what happened 10 years ago.

On a final note, as soon as Tony Blair gave up politics, he became a UN Middle East peace ambassador!

reply to post by templar knight


I think that has something to do with it. The whole Iraq affair was so manipulated and people actually died in the fallout of THAT dossier.

People have been able to reflect in the aftermath of the Iraq campaign and it is very recent in our collective memory in the UK.

Mr Cameron has not won the confidence of fellow politicians and the British people this time. He has failed to persuade us that Syria will not become another Iraq. He has also failed to justify how shooting a few missiles into Syria will somehow magically make everything better, which it will not.

While Mr Kerry and President Obama are saying that Assad carried out the attacks the weapons inspectors have made no such claim. So where are they getting their intelligence from to say that Assad did the dirty deed? Why will they not reveal that?

I think I know why. Dossiers have a habit of becoming a legal ball and chain in the future if they have no solid evidence to back them up as was the case with the very prefabricated Iraq WMD Dossier.

reply to post by Revolution9

once an lyer ....Always an lyer
no way there info can be trusted

reply to post by templar knight


I believe that you may be on to something there. However, I think we, as a nation, SHOULD be very careful in future about what we do, and why we do it. I could be accused of being a bit of a broken record by saying this, but I really cannot stress enough the importance of remembering past errors. Failing to do so dooms us to repeat them, and the evidence for this is strung throughout the entire course of human history.

Our nations leader at the time of the Iraq war, was either hopelessly ignorant of what was happening, making him unfit for his post, or conspired with another nations leader to not only mislead the entire western world, but also to kill untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. The British people have a responsibility to remember that heresy for what it was, and so do the politicians, although thier reason to remember that horrific balls up will be different than the reasons the rest of us carry with us.

You see, the people are the majority, and I honestly do not think that the people will put up with being out right hoodwinked, blindsided, and BS'd quite so blatantly on such an important topic, when we are less than twenty years away from the begining of the War on Terror, and more specifically, from the invasion of Iraq. If an attack on Syria were to happen now, without iron clad proof of who is responsible for the chemical attacks, and a CLEAR plan as well as an absolutely solid exit plan, with an unbreakable promise that all assets placed in Syria, are removed within a a ABSOLUTE and unchangeable timeframe, no matter what the situation at the time.

I honestly do not think that the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain will stand for it, should things be revealed about the situation on the ground now, after we go in, so caution on the part of our representatives in Parliament is, I believe, very wise, and representative of the opinion of thier constituents, which is pretty bloody weird of them to be honest. Normally they just do what they fancy to, and tell the lot of us to get bent. On this however, it appears that they are listening, and are aware of the negative feelings many of us have about the way we ended up in Iraq, and our desire never to see things done that way again.