Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Friday, 23 March 2018

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://www.cecaust.com.au

The war crime of the 21st century

The liars who orchestrated the illegal invasion of Iraq 15 years ago are today fabricating similar lies to whip up hostilities against Russia and China.

This week is the 15th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the Coalition of the Willing—the USA, UK, and Australia et al. It should be a day of national shame for our country, and our allies. Not only was it based on a lie—weapons of mass destruction—it resulted in the deaths of an estimated one million Iraqis, and turned the Middle East into a hellscape of terrorism and war.

We must never forget how it came about. The US and UK intelligence agencies twisted and outright fabricated intelligence to claim that, following the 9/11 terrorist attack, Saddam Hussein was a clear threat due to his possession of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence agencies produced their lies under the direction of the Bush-Cheney administration and the Tony Blair government.

The key lies came from the British. MI6 claimed that Saddam had obtained yellowcake uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, which Bush repeated in his 2003 State of the Union address. This claim raised the spectre of the worst possible attack, with a nuclear weapon, and was intended to enhance the urgency of the threat and override the objections of opponents of the war. Tony Blair increased the urgency even further by revealing intelligence that Saddam was able to launch an attack on the UK within 45 minutes. Because these were British claims, they carried extra credibility in the USA, among an American population whipped up into an “us or them” mindset.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was tasked with summarising this intelligence, which he may have doubted, but didn’t know was fabricated, to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003. Powell has since described his speech as a “lasting blot” on his record; his chief of staff, Colonel Laurence Wilkerson, who sat behind Powell as he misled the world, called it the “lowest point in my life”—Wilkerson has since become a powerful opponent of regime-change wars.

The UK’s 2016 Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war revealed that Tony Blair had personally ordered the UK’s intelligence agencies to produce intelligence to justify his pre-existing agenda for war. The result became known as the dodgy dossier. British weapons inspector Dr David Kelly later blew the whistle that the intelligence had been “sexed up”, and a few days ended up dead in a field, supposedly from suicide.

It is worth noting that the Secretary to the Hutton inquiry which ruled Kelly’s death a suicide, Lee Hughes CBE, was also secretary to the Owen inquiry into the death of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, which ruled his death had “probably” been ordered by Vladimir Putin—if an opponent of the Russia state dies mysteriously it is obviously a murder, but if an opponent of the British state dies mysteriously it must be suicide. This is very relevant to the current British attacks on Russia over the alleged nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

The obvious lesson to draw from the Iraq disaster for today is: don’t trust British intelligence, or their connections in the CIA, ASIO etc. One of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected is that he was the first serious contender to the US presidency to declare that Iraq wasn’t the fault of “mistaken” intelligence, but outright lies. During the North Carolina Republican primary campaign, Trump declared: “You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction; there were none. And they knew there were none. … We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilised the Middle East.”

It must also be acknowledged that the two countries held up as the adversarial threats to the world today, Russia and China, did not support the Iraq war. Nor did they support the equally disastrous regime-change intervention in Libya in 2011, and the proxy regime-change attack on Syria using al-Qaeda and ISIS jihadists. In the 21st century, Russia and China have a more credible track record on geopolitical issues than that of the USA, UK and Australia. Their opposition to these wars has been a force for peace in the world, while our “side” is responsible for unleashing hell on earth, while demonising Russia and China as the threats. It is little wonder that the British Establishment and its intelligence apparatus, in league with the neoconservative-aligned intelligence structures in the USA, have been so desperate to block Trump from being able to follow through on his stated desire to normalise diplomatic relations with Russia—their ability to orchestrate the wars that justify their existence would be severely curtailed.

Click here for a free copy of the latest issue of the CEC’s Australian Alert Service magazine, which includes the articles “Desperation drives British escalation against Russia”, and “Zero evidence for May’s ‘Novichok’ accusation”.

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