UK Unions Plot a Winter of Discontent as They Ballot More Than a Million Workers for Biggest General Strike Since 1926 September 14, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Europe, Revolution.Tags: anna edwards, britain, civil disobedience, dave prentis, david cameron, england, general strike, labor, labour, organized labor, roger hollander, uk strike, unions, unison
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Millions of workers including police, firefighters, health workers, teachers and prison officers could strike over bitter pension row Unions describe potential walk-out as ‘unprecedented’ in scale and ‘the biggest fight of our lives’ Unison says they will be ‘vilified’ for striking but urges members to ‘stay strong’
A ‘winter of discontent’ looks imminent as Unison, the country’s biggest public sector workers’ union, gave formal notice today that its 1.1 million members will be balloted for industrial action in the bitter row over pensions.
A crowd of protesters made their feelings clear in London as marches take place across the country, sparked by a proposed increase in the retirement age for public sector workers and paying more into their pensions The Government face the threat of the biggest outbreak of industrial action since the 1926 General Strike after unions served notice of ballots over the row which will see workers pay an extra 3.2 per cent in pension contributions.
Unison’s general secretary, Dave Prentis, said 9,000 separate employer groups would be involved in the action, describing the ballot as ‘unprecedented’ in scale.
He blamed the Government for the ballot decision, which could see workers in school, hospitals, police and voluntary sectors, join the move.
He said: ‘A ballot unprecedented in scale will cover over a million workers in health, local government, schools, further education, police, the voluntary sector and the environment and private sector.
‘It’s a decision we don’t take lightly and the stakes are high, higher than ever before, but now is the time to make our stand.
‘It will be hard, we’ll be vilified, attacked, set against each other, but we must stay strong and united.’
The union was joined by Unite and the Fire Brigades Union, who all gave notice of ballots in the worsening row over pensions and launched angry attacks against the Government.
Mr Prentis announced to the TUC Congress in London that unions were involved in the ‘fight of our lives’ over the Government’s controversial reforms of pensions, which will see workers pay an extra 3.2 per cent in contributions.
He said Unison would work with the GMB and Unite, which could mean the country grinding to a halt if millions of the members decide to strike together.
His announcement was met with a standing ovation as delegates applauded the move, which brings the prospect of a winter of strikes closer.
Mr Prentis accused the Government of an ‘unprecedented’ attack on workers with its ‘audacious and devious’ pension reforms.
Mr Prentis said that exhaustive talks had not worked for the unions: ‘We’ve been patient, we’ve co-operated, but there comes a time when we say enough is enough because, if we don’t, they’ll be back for more.
Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary of Unite, told the conference: ‘When the coalition came to power we knew we faced the fight of our lives, we knew they would seek to weaken and divide us.
‘While we will never walk away from talks, neither can we sit on our hands. We will support days of action and tactical selective action.’
The Fire Brigades Union’s ballot of its 43,000 members raises the threat of a walkout without ‘Green Goddess’ military cover.
Firefighters last took national strike action in 2003, when Green Goddesses were used as emergency cover, but the ageing military vehicles have since been taken out of service.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, which has already announced fresh industrial action in November, said today’s moves showed that opposition was growing to the Government’s ‘raid’ on public sector pensions.
‘Following the hugely successful strike by civil servants, teachers and lecturers in June, there is a clear momentum behind our campaign that ministers cannot ignore, and they must now enter into serious and open negotiations.
‘We will now join our colleagues from across the public sector to discuss the nuts and bolts of this fightback, which we fully expect will mean industrial action on a scale not seen for many years.’
Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, which is not allowed to take industrial action, warned that his members would defy the law if no deal was reached on pensions.
Brian Strutton, national officer of the GMB, announced that his union’s 250,000 public sector members will also be balloted for strikes, warning that industrial action could last for months.
‘We are not talking about a day – we are talking about something that is long and hard and dirty, running through the winter, into next year and following the legislative programme right into the summer.’
The dispute will involve hospital and ambulance workers, meals-on-wheels staff, refuse collectors and cemetery workers, he said.
Mr Strutton said recent talks over pension reform had been held between Government ministers and local authority leaders, with unions ‘not even in the room’.
Public sector unions will meet later today to discuss co-ordinated action ahead of more talks with the Government planned for next week.
Joining them, workers at four British Sugar plants are to be balloted on industrial action in a dispute over pay and the ‘soaring cost of living’.
Unite said 250 members based in the East of England will vote in the coming weeks on whether to launch a campaign of strikes after rejecting a 3.5 per cent pay offer.
The union said it was seeking a pay deal equal to RPI inflation, currently running at 5.2 per cent, plus 0.5 per cent for the year to next April.
Regional officer Mick Doherty said: ‘Our members are being hit very hard by the soaring cost of living.
‘British Sugar is a very profitable company and despite its complaints that the sugar beet crop was hit by last winter’s bad weather, it is well able to afford a decent pay rise.’
The Government hit back at the ‘disappointing’ strikes, saying they had tried to reach a negotiation with unions.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s official spokesman described the calls for strike ballots as ‘disappointing’, and slammed the industrial action would be irresponsible at a time of economic difficulty.
‘Our view is that the best way forward is to continue with talks and we have always been very clear that we should try to have a constructive dialogue with the unions,’ said the spokesman.
‘Clearly, it is disappointing that there have been calls for industrial action, particularly as the talks are still ongoing.
‘On pensions, we have been very clear about the need for reform, but we have also been making the point that even after these reforms come through, public sector pensions will still be amongst the very best available.’
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, answering questions after a speech in London, said: ‘It is very regrettable that they are rushing to announce days of strikes when the discussions are still ongoing.
‘It would lovely to wave a magic wand and say we have discovered pots of gold, and the ageing population is not ageing, and, hallelujah, pension funds are entirely sustainable.
‘We entered into these discussions in good faith and we will continue to do so.”
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, who is leading negotiations for the Government, told BBC News: ‘I think the public will be really fed up if they see industrial action damaging the economy, damaging their ability to get to work and earn their own living when (they) may be paying more towards public sector pensions than they are towards their own.
‘We want this to be a proper settlement so that we know that public sector workers are going to be able to enjoy these good pensions – better pension schemes than are available almost anywhere else – but that’s on a sustainable basis.
‘I don’t want governments to be coming back in five or 10 years’ time and saying ‘We need to have another go at this because it wasn’t sorted out properly in 2011′.
‘I think the unions need to think about the effect on the public and the effect on the economy and on their own members.
‘Their own members want to be going to work, they don’t want to be giving up a day’s pay, or more than that, at a time when we are all of us working under major constraints.’
Increasingly militant transport union leaders joined in with the walkout threats, warning they were planning the ‘biggest campaign’ of civil disobedience in Britain’s history.
They plan to disrupt public services and block motorways as well as declaring they are ready to ‘go to prison’ in protest at proposed changes to pensions.
In a bid to persuade them to stop striking and wrecking the Games, transport bosses have offered hefty bonuses to railway workers amid fears the militant RMT union could wreck the Games with strikes.
Train drivers will pocket up to £1,800 simply for turning up for work during the London Olympics next summer.
Last night, MPs condemned the payments as a ‘bribe’ and accused the unions of holding the public to ransom.
Astonishingly, the Daily Mail understands that the £1,800 bonus deal with Tube drivers does not even include a no-strike clause.
The glaring omission leaves them free to pocket the cash and still cause mass disruption with industrial action.
A senior source connected with the talks said: ‘The drivers could have demanded fur coats for the wives or football season tickets for the men if they wanted.
‘It’s an amazing deal but one which the Tube had to do. There was no alternative.’
Union sources revealed a battle plan has been devised, mapping out ‘blocks’ of strikes running in ‘target areas’ for two to three days at a time.
One union leader said to expect scenes reminiscent of the 1978 ‘winter of discontent’ when rubbish filled the streets.
Another, unnamed, told the BBC: ‘In some areas there will be two or three days. In other areas it will be continuous. In other areas it will be a rolling programme.’
Blair and Murdoch Closer Bedfellows Than We Knew September 5, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Media, War.Tags: abby zimet, Afghanistan War, Iraq war, Media, murdoch investigation, murdoch scandal, news corp, phone hacking, roger hollander, rupert murdoch, Tony Blair, war
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by Abby Zimet, www.truthout.org
It seems the U.K.’s former prime minister Tony Blair is godfather to Rupert Murdoch’s young daughter, a fact not made public until it slipped out in an interview with Murdoch’s wife Wendy, who herself sounds like a piece of work. Could Blair’s close ties to the Murdochs explain his reported moves to stop the investigation of the News Corp. phone hacking scandal? Could the intimacy of comparably sleazy political and corporate powers impede the working of justice? Naaah, couldn’t happen.
The irony of David Cameron’s riot condemnation August 10, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Revolution.Tags: bullingdon, bullingdon club, cavid cameron, england, england riots, natasha lennard, oxford university, roger hollander, uk riots
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The British prime minister was a member of a student club famed for smashing windows — but in the name of elitism
British Prime Minister David Cameron has been unequivocal in his condemnation of the riots that have broken out across the London and other parts of the U.K. in recent days, decrying the scenes of destruction as “sickening.”
As a student at Oxford in the late 1980s, however, Cameron was part of a members’ club (the British equivalent of a fraternity), which ritualistically smashed up local restaurants. Unlike the rioters, however, Cameron’s club, The Bullingdon, was exclusive and notoriously elite.
“This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted and defeated,” Cameron said on Tuesday, having returned from his vacation in Italy three days after the riots first ignited in the British capital. He added: “If you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishment” (referring to the fact tha many of those involved are in their early teens).
The prime minister has never applied such strong words to condemn the actions of his former club. The Bullingdon Club — a members’ only dining society in the university preserved for the most privileged of (male only) students — is known for breaking the plates, glasses and windows of local restaurants and drinking establishments and destroying college property in Oxford. (The U.K. newspaper, The Independent, described it as a club “whose raison d’être has for more than 150 years been to afford tailcoat-clad aristocrats a termly opportunity to behave very badly indeed.”) New recruits are secretly elected and informed of this by having their college bedroom invaded and “trashed”.
The Conservative leader’s affiliation with the Bullingdon and its elite and riotous reputation has at times haunted his political career. In the 2010 election, in which Cameron’s Conservative Party won a majority in Parliament for the first time since 1997, his opponents and the media frequently brought up his Oxford past. A television documentary was devoted to one particular night in 1987 — when both Cameron and the current London mayor, Boris Johnson, were Bullingdon members – during which club members were arrested for causing havoc in Oxford and broke a restaurant window. Cameron claimed he went to bed early on the night in question, but the Financial Times reported in 2010 that he was “most definitely” at the party. An old Bullingdon friend told the paper that Cameron’s determination not be caught was “extraordinary.”
Today’s rioters and the Bullingdon club are diametrically opposed in terms of socio-economic background and racial diversity. Cameron’s college cadre were all upper-class and white; the rioters in London are from many different racial backgrounds and are almost exclusively from council estates, the British equivalent of project housing. Unlike the rioters, the Bullingdon club’s modus operandi involves leaving large sums of cash or checks behind, to cover damages. It is not traditional, however, that they pick up brooms or face serious recriminations.
Flying the Flag; Faking the News September 3, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Iraq and Afghanistan, Media, War.Tags: britain, Edward Bernays, england economy, Iraq, iraq casualties, Iraq war, john pilger, Labour Party, Media, miliband, new labour, propaganda, roger hollander
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Friday 03 September 2010
by: John Pilger, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
(Photo: DVIDSHUB / Flickr)
Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, “Propaganda,” published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country.” Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations.”
The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women’s liberation, he made cigarettes “torches of freedom.” In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company’s monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a “liberation.”
Bernays was no rabid right winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that “engineering public consent” was for the greater good. This was achieved by the creation of “false realities,” which then became “news events.” Here are examples of how it is done these days:
False Reality: The last US combat troops have left Iraq “as promised, on schedule,” according to President Barack Obama. TV screens have filled with cinematic images of the “last US soldiers” silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.
Fact: They are still there. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces’ assassinations. The number of “military contractors” is currently 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.
False Reality: BBC presenters and reporters have described the departing US troops as a “sort of victorious army” that has achieved “a remarkable change in [Iraq's] fortunes.” Their commander, Gen. David Petraeus, is a “celebrity,” “charming,” “savvy” and “remarkable.”
Fact: There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster; and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays’ campaign to “rebrand” the slaughter of the first world war as “necessary” and “noble.” In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, rebranded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a “noble cause,” a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today’s Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.
False Reality: It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are “countless” or maybe “in the tens of thousands.”
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Fact: As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American-led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure from Opinion Research Business is based on peer-reviewed research led by Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as “best practice” and “robust” by the Blair government’s chief scientific adviser, as revealed in a Freedom of Information search. This figure is rarely reported or presented to “charming” and “savvy” American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness and the poisoning of the environment.
False Reality: The British economy has a deficit of billions, which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of “we’re all in this together.”
Fact: We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this public relations triumph is that, only 18 months ago, the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth was unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and city of London financiers’ trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organizations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.
Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted, and state and media propaganda had recovered its equilibrium. Suddenly, the “black hole” was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this “necessity” is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.
False Reality: The former government minister Ed Miliband offers a “genuine alternative” as leader of the British Labour Party.
Fact: Miliband, like his brother David, the former foreign secretary, and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour member of Parliament and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or speak out against Labour’s persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a “profound mistake.” Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice: that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain’s fabulously rich corporate minority be seriously taxed, starting with Rupert Murdoch.
Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media. For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.
John Pilger, Australian-born, London-based journalist, film-maker and author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam and Cambodia to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism. For his documentary films, he won a British Academy Award and an American Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize. His latest film is “The War on Democracy.”
Binyam Mohamed: A Shameful Cover-Up February 10, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: bagram, binyam mohamed, clive stafford smith, Guantanamo, International law, interrogation, miliband, national security, rendition, roger hollander, rule of law, torture, war on terror
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In a scathing judgment running to 84 pages, the court of appeal has slapped the government down in the case of Binyam Mohamed. As many will recall, Mohamed was seized by the Pakistanis in April 2002, turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty, abused for three months, rendered to Morocco, tortured with razor blades to the genitals, rendered on to the “Dark Prison” in Kabul, tortured some more, and then held for five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base and Guantánamo Bay. The verdict of the court – comprised of three of the country’s most senior judges – underlines the shameful way in which, in this case and beyond, our political leaders have placed their own desire to suppress embarrassing revelations above the welfare of citizens.
With Mohamed’s torture now established as a judicial fact, the judges queried what reason there could be to cover up the now-notorious “seven paragraphs”? This summary was removed from the original opinion when the government cried national security. The material is important – it adds direct evidence that the Americans wrote down their torture tactics, and that a British agent knew Mohamed was being abused before he flew to Pakistan to join the interrogation – but represents only a few crumbs of the overall criminal enterprise.
Yet two years into the litigation, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, still argued that a court would be “irresponsible” to reveal the material – strong language when aimed by the diplomatic service at the judicial branch.
“No advantage is achieved by bandying deprecatory epithets,” the judges replied, before passing out a few polite insults themselves. The foreign secretary’s continued intransigence was “irrational” and lacking in “commonsense.” With the original high court judges, that makes five independent members of the judiciary against one US-dependent politician.
So what is truly at stake here? At its most significant level, the decision focused on a legacy of the “war on terror” that is more bitter even than abusing prisoners: the conflation of national security with political embarrassment. The fact of torture is horrific; but the concerted effort of British and American officials to cover up the torturers’ crimes is far more insidious. How can we learn from history, and avoid repeating mistakes, if we do not know what that history is?
This is a high-profile example of a national disease. Because we fear for our safety and cherish our privacy, politicians argue that we will lose both if we do not sacrifice our right to free speech, our “right to know”. We should, in other words, simply trust them.
This is the path that British politicians have been treading all too frequently. Nobody would have known that three Labour MPs committed expense fraud, or that scores of others spent money on the ethical equivalent of a duck pond, if we were only allowed to see the redacted version of the MPs expenses. The claim in that case was “privacy”.
The seven paragraphs should rate little more than a footnote in the full story, yet that is a tale that remains untold. The court tells us that a “vast body” of government reports about Mohamed’s abuse remain secret. I was in Washington last week reviewing a similarly “vast body” of evidence indicating British complicity in the abuse of another Guantánamo prisoner, Shaker Aamer. Not a word of that has been revealed, again on grounds of national security.
Since I am not as temperate as a judge, I would not characterise the arguments made by Miliband as “irrational”: after beginning with the term “foolish,” I fear I would descend to epithets unfit to print in this publication. Suppressing any evidence of government criminality on grounds of national security sets a very dangerous precedent. As the saying goes, those who would sacrifice their freedoms to ensure their safety deserve neither – and can expect to lose both.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Binyam Mohamed: read the secret torture evidence
The government has published the seven paragraphs about the treatment of Binyam Mohamed after a ruling in the court of appeal
Binyam Mohamed in London on 17 August 2009 after his release from Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images
Here are the seven paragraphs that were blanked out in earlier proceedings:
It was reported that a new series of interviews was conducted by the United States authorities prior to 17 May 2002 as part of a new strategy designed by an expert interviewer.
v) It was reported that at some stage during that further interview process by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed.
vi) It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and “disappearing” were played upon.
vii) It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews
viii) It was clear not only from the reports of the content of the interviews but also from the report that he was being kept under self-harm observation, that the interviews were having a marked effect upon him and causing him significant mental stress and suffering.
ix) We regret to have to conclude that the reports provide to the SyS [security services] made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment.
x) The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities.
Clare Short: Tony Blair Lied and Misled Parliament in Build-Up to Iraq War February 2, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: blair, chilcot, clare short, geneva convention, Gordon Brown, Iraq, Iraq invasion, Iraq war, james sturcke, lord goldsmith, roger hollander, wmd, wmds
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Blair ‘lied’ over war preparations • Attorney general ‘misled’ government • Brown ‘marginalised and unhappy’
by James Sturcke
Clare Short, the former international development secretary, today accused Tony Blair of lying to her and misleading parliament in the build-up to the Iraq invasion.
![[Clare Short arriving to give evidence at the Iraq inquiry. (Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Clare-Short-arriving-to-g-002_0.jpg "Clare-Short-arriving-to-g-002.jpg")
Declassified letters between Short and Blair released today show she believed that invading Iraq without a second UN resolution would be illegal and there was a significant risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.
She told the inquiry that she had a conversation with Blair in 2002. He told her that he was not planning for war against Iraq and that the evidence has since revealed that he was not telling the truth at that point, she said.
She also said she was “stunned” when she read the 337-word legal advice written by the then-attorney general Lord Goldsmith during a cabinet meeting on 17 March 2003, three days before the war began. She was forbidden by Blair from discussing it during the meeting.
“I said, ‘That is extraordinary.’ I was jeered at to be quiet. If the prime minister says be quiet there is only so much you can do.
“I think for the attorney general to come and say there’s unequivocal legal authority to go war was misleading.”
Short, who was applauded by some audience members in public seats at the end of her evidence, said the ministerial code was broken as cabinet colleagues were not aware of Goldsmith’s modifications to his legal advice over the previous weeks. The inquiry has already heard how Goldsmith changed his mind over the need for a second resolution after visiting the US the month before the war.
Short said cabinet colleagues were unaware of the legal advice given by the most senior Foreign Office lawyers, Sir Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst, which called for a second UN resolution.
“The ministerial code said legal advice should be circulated and it wasn’t. We only had the answer to the parliamentary question [Goldsmith's short ruling]. There was a lot of misleading of parliament too by the prime minister of the day.
“The ministerial code is unsafe because it is enforced by the prime minister and if he’s in on the tricks then that’s it. When I found out what went into it I think we were misled.”
She added that she had “various cups of coffee” with Gordon Brown, at that time the chancellor, who “was very unhappy and marginalised [in the run up to war]“.
He was disillusioned about a number of issues, not specifically Iraq, and felt Blair was “obsessed with his legacy”.
Later, Short added that after the war, “Gordon was back in with Tony and not having cups of coffee with me any more”.
Asked about the cabinet meetings in the run-up to the war, Short told the inquiry that the cabinet did not operate in the manner it was required to constitutionally.
“It was not a decision-making body. I don’t think there was ever a substantive discussion about anything in cabinet. If you ever raised an issue with Tony Blair he would cut it off. He did that in July 2002 when I said I wanted to talk about Iraq. He said he did not want it leaking into the press.”
Short described cabinet meetings as “little chats” rather than decision-making opportunities.
“There was never a meeting … that said: ‘What is the problem? What are we trying to achieve? What are our options?’”
The declassified documents showed that Short believed the situation in Iraq to be “fragile” before hostilities began.
In one, written on 14 February 2003, she wrote: “Any disruption could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. With some more time, sensible measures can be taken to reduce these risks and improve people’s prospect of stability after the conflict.”
Short told the panel that both the British and US armies failed to honour their Geneva convention responsibilities to keep order, describing the situation in the post-invasion aftermath as “mad”, with food for refugees only being ordered at the last minute.
Short said Blair persuaded her against resigning on the same day as Cook by assuring her that the UN would have the lead role in reconstructing Iraq and that George Bush would support the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Asked why she didn’t resign earlier, she said: “If I knew then what I know now, I would have.” As for the pronouncements that the French would not back a second resolution, it was one of the “big deceits” of the British, Short said.
The French president, Jacques Chirac, could have supported military action but not while UN weapons inspectors wanted more time and it should have been given.
“There was no emergency. No one had attacked anyone. There wasn’t any new WMD. We could have taken the time and got it right. The forces weren’t ready to go in. They have said that themselves.”
Short ended her evidence by calling for a serious debate about the “special relationship” with the US, calling the current one “poodle-like”.
Short stood down from the cabinet on 12 May 2003, nearly eight weeks after the invasion.
© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
The Truth of UK’s Guilt Over Iraq November 28, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: chilcot, christopher meyer, Colin Powell, desert fox, Iraq invasion, Iraq war, roger hollander, saddam, scott ritter, Tony Blair, un inspectors, weapons inspection, wmd, wmds
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Until Chilcot hears UN weapons inspectors’ testimony, the fiction of Britain honestly seeking a WMD smoking gun prevails
by Scott Ritter
Among the more compelling testimonies provided to date has been that of Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the US, who served in that capacity during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Meyer convincingly portrayed an environment where the decision by the US to invade Iraq, backed by Blair, precluded any process (such as viable UN weapons inspections) that sought to compel Iraq to prove it had no WMD. Rather, Great Britain and the US were left “scrambling” to find evidence of a “smoking gun” to prove Iraq indeed possessed the WMD it was accused of having.
In short, Saddam had been found guilty of possessing WMD, and his sentence had been passed down by Washington and London void of any hard evidence that such weapons, or even related programmes, even existed. The sentence meted out – regime termination – mandated such a massive deployment of troops and material that all but the wilfully blind or intentionally ignorant had to know by the early autumn of 2002 that war with Iraq was inevitable. One simply does not initiate the movement of hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of armoured vehicles and aircraft, and dozens of ships on a whim or to reinforce an idle threat.
President George Bush was able to disguise his blatant militarism behind the false sincerity of his ally Blair and his own secretary of state, Colin Powell. The president’s task was made far easier given the role of useful idiot played by much of the mainstream media in the US and Britain, where reporters and editors alike dutifully repeated both the hyped-up charges levied against Iraq and the false pretensions that a diplomatic solution was being sought.
The tragic final act of the farce directed by Bush and Blair was the theatre of war justification known as UN weapons inspections. Having played the WMD card so forcefully in an effort to justify war with Iraq, the US (and by extension, Britain) were compelled once again to revisit the issue of disarmament. But the reality was that disarming Iraq was the furthest thing from the mind of either Bush or Blair. The decision to use military force to overthrow Saddam was made by these two leaders independent of any proof that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Having found Iraq guilty, the last thing those who were positioning themselves for war wanted was to re-engage a process that not only had failed to uncover any evidence Iraq’s retention of WMD in the past, but was actually positioned to produce fact-based evidence that would either contradict or significantly weaken the case for war already endorsed by Bush and Blair.
The US and Britain had both abandoned aggressive UN weapons inspections in the spring of 1998. UN weapons inspectors were able and willing to conduct intrusive no-notice inspections of any site inside Iraq, including those associated with the Iraqi president, if it furthered their mandate of disarmament. But the US viewed such inspections as useful only in so far as they either manufactured a crisis that produced justification for military intervention (as was the case with inspections in March and December 1998), or sustained the notion of continued Iraqi non-compliance so as to justify the continuation of economic sanctions. An inspection process that diluted arguments of Iraq’s continued retention of WMD by failing to uncover any hard evidence that would sustain such allegations, or worse, sustain Iraq’s contention that it had no such weaponry, was not in the interest of US policy objectives that sought regime change, and as such required the continuation of stringent economic sanctions linked to Iraq’s disarmament obligation.
The British were never willing (or able) to confront meaningfully the American policy of abusing the legitimate inspection-based mandate of the UN inspectors. Instead, London sought to manage inspection-based confrontation by insisting that before any intrusive inspection could be carried out, it would have to be backed by high-quality intelligence. But even this position collapsed in the face of an American decision, made in April 1998, to stop supporting aggressive inspections altogether.
In the end, the British were left with the role of fabricating legitimacy for an American policy of terminating weapons inspections in Iraq, supplying dated intelligence of questionable veracity about a secret weapons cache being stored in the basement of a Ba’ath party headquarters in Baghdad, which was used to trigger an inspection the US hoped the Iraqis would balk at. When the Iraqis (as hoped) balked, the US ordered the inspectors out of Iraq, leading to the initiation of Operation Desert Fox, a 72-hour bombing campaign designed to ensure that Iraq would not allow the return of UN inspectors, effectively keeping UN sanctions “frozen” in place.
As of December 1998, both the US and Britain knew there was no “smoking gun” in Iraq that could prove that Saddam’s government was retaining or reconstituting a WMD capability. Nothing transpired between that time and when the decision was made in 2002 to invade Iraq that fundamentally altered that basic picture.
But having decided on war using WMD as the justification, both the US and Great Britain began the process of fabricating a case after the fact. Lacking new intelligence data on Iraqi WMD, both nations resorted to either recycling old charges that had been disproved by UN inspectors in the past, or fabricating new charges that would not withstand even the most cursory of investigations.
The reintroduction of UN weapons inspectors into Iraq in November 2002 was counterproductive for those who were using WMD as an excuse for war. This was aptly demonstrated when, in the first weeks following their return to Iraq, the inspectors discredited almost all of the intelligence-based charges both the US and Britain had levelled against Iraq, while failing to uncover any evidence of the massive stockpile of WMD that Iraq had been accused of retaining.
The decision for war had been made independently of any viable intelligence information on Iraqi WMD. As such, the work of the UN weapons inspectors inside Iraq following their return in November 2002 was not a factor in influencing the lead-up to the actual invasion of Iraq. Having decided that Saddam was guilty of possessing WMD, the failure of the UN weapons inspectors to uncover evidence of such retention made their efforts not only irrelevant, but undesirable. The inconvenience of the UN weapons inspectors when it comes to the truth about the lead-up to the war with Iraq continues to this day.
The parade of British diplomats and officials appearing before the Chilcot hearings rightly point out the absolute lack of any “smoking gun” concerning Iraq and WMD. But until Chilcot receives testimony from those best positioned to speak about Iraq’s WMD programmes, namely the UN weapons inspectors themselves, all the hearings will succeed in doing is sustain the false appearance of well-meaning British officials, stampeded into a war with Iraq by an overbearing American ally, looking in vain for a “smoking gun” that would justify their decision to invade. The evidence needed to undermine any WMD-based case for war, derived from the work of the UN weapons inspectors, was always available to those officials in a position to weigh in on this matter, but either never consulted or deliberately ignored.
There is a big difference between searching for a “smoking gun” and searching for the truth. By ignoring and/or undermining the work of the UN weapons inspectors in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, British officials demonstrated that they were not interested in the truth about Iraqi WMD, a fact that testimony provided by the likes of Sir Christopher Meyer alludes to, but falls short of actually stating.
The search for truth can be an inconvenient process, especially when it threatens to expose potentially illegal activities in the prosecution of an unpopular war. Until he calls upon UN weapons inspectors themselves to deliver testimony before his inquiry, Sir John Chilcot perpetuates the perception that Britain simply can’t handle the truth when it comes to uncovering the level of official British culpability in the deliberate fabrication of a case for war against Iraq that everyone knew, or should have known, was false.
Ministers Must Explain Destruction of ‘Torture Flight’ Papers, Says Panel of MPs August 9, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Criminal Justice.Tags: Amnesty International, binyam mohamed, britain, britain torture, british intelligence, cia, cia torture flights, David Miliband, detainees, diego garcia, extraordinary rendition, human rights, indian ocean island, m15, mark townsend, rendition, rendition circuit, roger hollander, torture, torture flights, uk torture
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Foreign affairs select committee calls for disclosure on why Diego Garcia documents have vanished
by Mark Townsend
Ministers must explain why crucial documents relating to CIA “torture flights” that stopped on sovereign British territory were destroyed, a panel of MPs has said.
![[Britain's Foreign Minister David Miliband looks on ahead of an European Union Foreign Ministers meeting on Iran in Corfu June 28, 2009. (REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis/Files)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/miliband_rendition.jpg "miliband_rendition.jpg")
Britain’s Foreign Minister David Miliband looks on ahead of an European Union Foreign Ministers meeting on Iran in Corfu June 28, 2009. (REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis/Files)A damning appraisal by the influential foreign affairs select committee on Britain’s role in the rendition of terror suspects and alleged complicity of torture condemns the government’s lack of transparency on vital areas of concern.In particular, the MPs, in a report released today, call for an explanation for the missing papers, which might explain the role of Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory, in the US’s “extraordinary rendition” programme. The report says: “We recommend that the government discloses how, why and by whom the records relating to flights through Diego Garcia since the start of 2002 were destroyed.”
Foreign secretary David Miliband admitted 18 months ago that two US planes refuelled on the Indian Ocean island. The committee now wants a detailed account of the record-keeping and disposal policy regarding flights through the territory and “elsewhere through UK airspace”.
It also criticises the government’s inability to offer assurances that ships anchored outside Diego Garcia’s waters were not involved in the rendition programme. “The government must address the use of UK airspace for empty flights that may be part of a rendition circuit,” says the report.
Amnesty International said the MPs’ verdict underlined the need for a full, independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in “war on terror” and human rights abuses.
The committee also voiced disquiet over claims that British intelligence officers were complicit in the torture of detainees held overseas. According to documents revealed by the high court last month, an MI5 officer visited Morocco three times during the time British resident Binyam Mohamed claims he was secretly interrogated and tortured there.
Of concern to the foreign affairs committee were claims relating to the involvement of the British security services and the practices of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence officers, who are known to routinely condone torture.
Details of the investigations the government has carried out into any of the claims should be made public, according to MPs. Mike Gapes, chairman of the committee, said it was time ministers also disclosed the guidance given at the time to intelligence officers interviewing suspects.
He said details of people captured by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and placed in US custody should be divulged as part of a drive to improve transparency. The committee report notes: “We conclude that the potential treatment of detainees transferred by UK forces to the Afghan authorities gives cause for concern, given that there is credible evidence that torture and other abuses occur within the Afghani criminal justice system.”
Britain responds to the “rule of law” nuisance March 27, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, Torture.Tags: aclu, anne applebaum, antonio taguba, binyam mohamed, british government, bush administration, david cameron, david hicks, geneva conventions, glenn greenwald, Gordon Brown, great britain, Guantanamo, jacqui smith, nick clegg, obama administration, roger hollander, rule of law, secret rendition, thomas pickering, torture, War Crimes, willima sessions
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Glenn Greenwald
(updated below - Update II)
One of the problems for the U.S. Government in releasing Guantanamo detainees has been that, upon release, they are free to talk to the world about the treatment to which they were subjected. When the Bush administration agreed to release Australian David Hicks after almost 6 years in captivity, they did so only on the condition that he first sign a documenting stating that he was not abused and that he also agree — as The Australian put it — to an “extraordinary 12-month gag order that prevent[ed] Hicks from speaking publicly about the actions to which he has pleaded guilty or the circumstances surrounding his capture, interrogation and detention,” a gag order which “also silence[d] family members and any third party.”
Last month, in response to increasing pressure in Britain over reports of British resident Binyam Mohamed’s deterioration in Guantanamo, the Obama administration released him back to Britain. Ever since, he has been detailing the often brutal torture to which he was subjected over several years, torture in which British intelligence officials appear to have been, at the very least, complicit. As a result, despite the efforts of both the British Government and the Obama administration to keep concealed what was done to Mohamed, the facts about his treatment have emerged and a major political controversy has been ignited.
That’s because torture is illegal in Britain, as it is in the United States. But unlike the United States: Britain hasn’t completely abandoned the idea that even political officials must be accountable when they commit crimes; their political discourse isn’t dominated and infected by the subservient government-defending likes of David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus, David Broder and Stuart Taylor demanding that government officials be free to commit even serious war crimes with total impunity; and they don’t have “opposition leaders” who are so afraid of their own shadows and/or so supportive of torture that they remain mute in the face of such allegations. To the contrary, demands for criminal investigations into these episodes of torture (including demands for war crimes investigations from conservatives) span the political spectrum in Britain:
The Conservative leader, David Cameron, called for a “targeted and clear review . . . to get to the bottom of whether Britain was knowingly or unknowingly complicit in torture”.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said: “It is not enough for Gordon Brown to say the government does not endorse torture. There remain serious questions concerning how far senior political figures were implicated in these alleged practices.”
Because of those facts, the British Government has now been forced to commence a criminal investigation into whether British government agents colluded in Mohamed’s torture:
The attorney general, Lady Scotland, announced the unprecedented move in light of damning evidence that Britain’s security and intelligence agencies colluded with the CIA in Mohamed’s inhuman treatment and secret rendition.
She said the police inquiry would look into “possible criminal wrongdoing” in what the high court described as Mohamed’s unlawful questioning.
As The Guardian reported, the British Government was, in essence, forced into the criminal investigation once government lawyers “referred evidence of possible criminal conduct by MI5 officers to home secretary Jacqui Smith, and she passed it on to the attorney general.” In a country that lives under what is called the “rule of law,” credible evidence of serious criminality makes such an investigation, as The Guardian put it, “inevitable.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has clearly tried desperately to avoid any such investigation, yet as The Washington Post reported this morning, even he was forced to say in response: ”I have always made clear that when serious allegations are made they have got to be investigated.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if our government leaders could make a similar, extremely uncontroversial statement — credible allegations of lawbreaking by our highest political leaders must be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted? In a country with a minimally healthy political culture, that ought to be about as uncontroversial as it gets. Instead, what we have are political leaders and media stars virtually across the board spouting lawless Orwellian phrases about being “more interested in looking forward than in looking backwards” and not wanting to “criminalize public service.” These apologist manuevers continue despite the fact that, as even conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum recently acknowledged in light of newly disclosed detailed ICRC Reports, “that crimes were committed is no longer in doubt.”
Even in the U.S., each new disclosure of just how pervasive and brutal was our Government’s criminality prompts new calls for investigations from previously government-defending precincts, and — thanks largely to the ACLU and other groups — some of the most potent new disclosures are imminent. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for David Ignatius and friends to dismiss advocates of investigations as ”liberal score-settlers” when people like Bush 41 U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Reagan FBI Director William Sessions, Gen. Antonio Taguba, and Anne Applebaum are now demanding investigations into these crimes of torture.
As more detainees are released and are thus able to speak publicly about what was done to them, and as more documents are leaked and are formally disclosed, the extent of our Government’s depraved criminality will be increasingly difficult to ignore, no matter how eager our current Government might be to do so. Indeed, even investigations in places like Britian — which centrally involve receipt of CIA telegrams detailing Mohamed’s torture — are highly likely to lead to the disclosure of even more graphic and incriminating evidence proving that American leaders committed war crimes. The profoundly incriminating evidence is piling up, and will continue to, on its own.
Still, just look at what is happening in Britain to see how far off course we are from even a pretense to living under the rule of law. The British have hardly been paragons of human rights and transparency. They’ve worked as closely with the Bush administration in most of these abuses as any other country in the world (with the possible exceptions of Egypt and Morocco). And their government has been almost as desperate as ours to keep secret what was done.
Nonetheless, despite allegations of criminality far less extensive than those that have been made against the U.S., their political system is compelling serious investigations into these crimes. That’s because for countries that aren’t completely corrupted to their core, political leaders aren’t free to commit serious crimes and then simply be shielded from investigation and accountability. Credible allegations of high-level criminality — and only the hardest-core Bush followers deny that we have that — compel criminal investigations. As the British controversy demonstrates, that isn’t remotely a controversial proposition for anyone who believes in the most basic precepts of the rule of law.
* * * * *
Just as a reminder of two upcoming events:
(1) On the evening of March 31, I’ll be at Ithaca College to receive the first annual Izzy Award for independent journalism — named after the great I.F. Stone — along with my co-recipient Amy Goodman. Both Amy and I will be speaking at the event on independent media and related issues, and more than 1,000 people are expected. The event is free and open to the public and event details are here.
(2) On April 3, beginning at noon, I’ll be at the Cato Institute in Washington to present my drug policy report, entitled Drug Decrimialization in Portugal, which details that country’s successes with its 2001 decision to decriminalize all drug possession and usage. Event details and RSVP are on Cato’s site (here), where it can also be watched live. I wrote about the background of the report here.
UPDATE: Just to underscore one point: Britain also has a financial crisis to deal with. They also have a “future,” not just a past, to address. They also have faced, and still face, terrorist threats. Criminal investigations and prosecution would also be controversial for them and create partisan divisions.
But they’re still proceeding to investigate credible allegations of serious crimes on the part of their government officials. That’s what the “rule of law” means.
UPDATE II: Knowing that exposure of its actions would prove its severe criminality, it was just recently revealed the Bush administration also tried to induce Mohamed to accept a gag order similar to the one Hicks accepted, whereby Mohamed would have been freed from Guantanamo last year if he agreed (a) not to talk publicly about the treatment he received and (b) cease all efforts to prove in court that he was tortured and/or to obtain documents proving that he was mistreated (h/t Jim White). He refused.
So: we put people into cages for years with no charges and tortured them, and then told them that we would release them only if they agreed to keep silent about what we did to them and renounce all claims for judicial accountability and disclosure. If they refused the vow of silence — as Mohamed did — they would stay in their cage.
Companies Ejected From London Arms Fair for ‘Promoting Cluster Bombs’ September 17, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Britain, War.Tags: arms fair, arms merchants, cluster bombs, military exports, nick hopkins, oslo accord, roger hollander, war, war profiteers, weapons
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Violation of Oslo accord discovered by MP who calls for action to investigate ‘what other breaches are occurring’ at the fair
The world’s largest arms fair has thrown out two exhibitors after they were found to be promoting cluster munitions that have been banned by the UK and condemned by more than 100 other countries.
Protesters against the Defence and Security Equipment International fair. Photograph: Pete Riches / Demotix/ Pete Riches / Demotix/Demotix/Corbis The organisers of the London exhibition said they had been unaware that the material was available and an investigation had been launched. But campaigners rounded on the Defense and Security Equipment International fair, saying it was “unbelievable” that more thorough checks had not been undertaken.
The action was taken after Caroline Lucas, the Green party leader, discovered that Pakistani arms manufacturers were actively promoting “banned cluster bombs” at their pavilions. Details of the munitions were in brochures readily available to potential customers.
A statement from DSEI confirmed that the two stands had been closed on Thursday evening. “(We) can confirm that the Pakistan Ordnance Factory stand and Pakistan’s Defense Export Promotion Organization pavilion have both been permanently shut down after promotional material was found … containing references to equipment, which after close examination, was found to breach UK government export controls and our own contractual requirements. [The] government fully supports the decision by DSEI to close the stand and the pavilion. We are currently investigating how this breach of our compliance system occurred.”
Three years ago, the UK joined other signatories to the Oslo accord, which specifically prohibits “all use, stockpiling, production and transfer” of cluster weapons; they are considered particularly lethal because they are designed to release dozens, sometimes hundreds of “bomblets” on their targets.
They have been widely condemned because they have killed and injured hundreds of civilians long after conflicts have ended. One third of all such casualties are thought to have been children.
The episode is an embarrassment to the fair, which has had 1,300 firms from more than 40 countries seeking orders for weapons. Earlier this week, the defense secretary Liam Fox gave a speech there, saying that “defense and security exports play a key role in promoting our foreign policy objectives”.
Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, has now written to Vince Cable, the business secretary, saying she remains “deeply concerned” at the level of scrutiny given to the companies who exhibit at DSEI, which has been running all week at the Excel center in London’s Docklands.
“I was able to find illegal advertising materials on the basis of one short visit to the exhibition with few resources at my disposal,” she said. “There’s no telling what other breaches are occurring and might be uncovered with further research.” It should not be left to MPs and campaigners to police illegal promotion of banned arms on British soil.
Lucas said there is an “inherent conflict between the government’s promotion of military exports and its stated desire to help protect human rights overseas.”
Oliver Sprague, of Amnesty International, said: “It is almost unbelievable. It’s not just cluster bombs, either. Earlier this week we found brochures (on different stands) which appear to show illegal torture equipment being advertised. It is quite amazing that it has taken a Green MP and Amnesty international to find things that are clearly illegal.”
Kaye Stearman of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, condemned the “laxness” that had allowed the companies to promote illegal equipment. “They should never have been allowed in,” she added.
A spokesman for DSEI said it had no further comment. The Pakistan Ordnance Factory could not be reached for comment.
Earlier this week the Guardian reported that Pakistan was also advertising an “arms for peace” exhibition in Karachi next year as well as “gold-plated” submachine guns, “for collectors”.