Thursday, June 18, 2009
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Do they know what is coming?
Out in the big bad world, a million miles from the venal world of MPs' expenses, The Independent is getting terribly excited over the prospect of Gordon Brown "doing a startling U-turn over the official inquiry into the Iraq war", leading to an expectation that evidence could be given in public.
This follows the announcement that there will be a Commons debate on the issue next Wednesday and a vote that could see a rebellion by Labour MPs. The prospect of a humiliating defeat is, apparently, concentrating minds.
Other public figures are also weighing into the debate, including two peers who chaired previous inquiries into aspects of the Iraq conflict, Lord Hutton and Lord Butler of Brockwell. They both support the bulk of the evidence to be heard in public.
Dannatt has also broken cover, declaring that the government had not consulted him, offering the view that holding some hearings is public "...is an option that has got a lot of merit to it."
Added to that is Ed Ball who is hinting that he wants at least part of the proceedings to be held in public, as well as Maj-Gen Tim Cross. He was intimately involved in the planning and military operation, and appointed deputy to the US General Jay Garner to head the authority running Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Cross maintains that the inquiry should be in public as much as possible, and then, if necessary, go into private sessions to hear sensitive intelligence-related testimonies. He sees no reason at all why he cannot give evidence in public.
At least this man seems to be focusing on the essentials, stating that an inquiry "... would be of enormous benefit not only to the military, but other government departments as well... [and] in planning current and future operations in Afghanistan and military missions in which we may become involved."
Strong support for public hearings then comes from the Commons Public Administration Select Committee, with chairman Tony Wright calling for a public inquiry. He accepts there are parts that need to be taken in secret, but argues for a presumption that much of it should be in public.
One would like to think that this great interest in public hearings was motivated by yearning to learn the truth about the war and the subsequent occupation. But, given the enthusiasm of the military for public disclosure, it would appear that this is neither wanted nor expected.
In the final analysis, neither the politicians nor the military come well out of the adventure and, while Blair and his cronies are definitely in the frame, the military performance left a great deal to be desired.
Forensic examination of that aspect of the occupation could be a painful experience for those in command, which suggests that those advocating more openness could get more than they bargained for. This applies to Dannatt in particular, whose obsession with "future wars" and his reluctance to address the needs of the Army during the occupation phase had a very significant effect on the overall failure of the operation.
We have remarked before how the Army appears to be in denial over its performance and it could well be that the high command is making the tactical mistake of believing its own propaganda. If that is the case, and this inquiry is in any way searching, the military bods could very well end up regretting their current statements. They should be careful what they wish for.
COMMENT THREADEconomic illiteracy
Ed Miliband, the boy wonder of the climate change industry, laughably named the "energy secretary", is pursuing his madcap scheme for carbon capture and storage, announcing yesterday that the trials of the system would eventually add 2 percent to bills through a levy on electricity suppliers.
In keeping with the fatuous, ill-conceived nature of this scheme, he tells us it is "too early to estimate the total cost of the project" but adds that the government hopes it could create 60,000 jobs and boost the economy by £4bn.
This is a scheme which will add anything up to 40 percent to our energy consumption for the plants so fitted which, when added to the huge capital investment required, addsto our costs of living and to the expenses carried by the economy. Far from being a boost, it is a massive additional drag, not least in funding the 60,000 additional useless mouths which Miliband believes could be employed.
If ever there was a scheme that should be killed at birth, this is it, yet not only are we to be faced with this massive unnecessary bill, we have the ultimate insult to our intelligence with Miliband calling it a boost to our economy.
Needless to say, if we had any intelligent MPs, they would have shot this scheme down in flames but, as we recorded earlier, all we get is bleats of approval from the opposition. That, as Booker pointed out, is the ultimate evidence of a decaying political system.
When our own MPs, far from interceding to save us from this madness, embrace it wholeheartedly, we know that the body that is supposed to represent us is past its sell-by date. On the other hand, why do we allow this stupidity, North junior asks. "Britain is a sick society and its institutions are rotten to the core," he observed. Are our MPs the cause, or the symptom?
COMMENT THREADHow can we help
Yesterday evening Dr Anthony Coughlan a long-term campaigner in Ireland, the man who is responsible for the fact that referendums are called in that country before treaties are ratified and also for the fact that two of them, Nice and Lisbon, were given a NO before the Irish were forced to vote again, gave a talk to the Bruges Group about theConstitutional Lisbon Treaty and the situation in Ireland.
Afterwards I managed to sit down and have a long chat on what we can do to help on this side of the Irish Sea. It is very limited because there is legislation about funding from abroad during electoral and referendum campaigns. Naturally, this does not apply to the EU or the Commission as they do not campaign, merely produce information (mostly descriptions of feats of flying by the Porcine Air Force).
Nor would it be a good idea to have speakers from Britain, which rather upset me as I was looking forward to a possible visit to Dublin, a city I love dearly. The Irish government, astonishingly enough, plays the nationalist card while campaigning for the final destruction of the Irish Free State.
However, if the NO campaign provides information that is rather a different affair. Their aim is to publish a newsprint version of the annotated Consolidated Treaties, showing how the Lisbon Treaty changes the existing situation. It is complete with a detailed glossary and index and would be an excellent weapon in the fight if it went out to every household with a neutral letter that called attention to the need to understand what people are voting about.
The other issue is President Klaus's pen, which is, at present in the air as he stubbornly refuses to sign the treaty's ratification in the Czech Republic. He can, in fact, keep that pen in the air indefinitely but if the Irish vote YES in October the pressure on him to sign will be huge.
His office has been hinting heavily that it would be easier for him to resist that pressure if he could say that he had had numerous letters and requests from Britain, particularly from the British Conservatives, asking him to hold back the signature until the General Election after which the latter are likely to form the new government with the intention of giving the British people the referendum that they had been denied previously.
To be fair to President Klaus, he sounds rather doubtful about the Conservatives and their intentions in connection with the ConstitutionalLisbon Treaty. But it is possible that he could use letters from British MEPs, MPs and peers as well as various organizations to bolster his own argument for not signing. A letter from the Shadow Foreign Secretary, of course, would be ideal. But that would presuppose that the Shadow Foreign Secretary actually cared one way or another about the subject.
COMMENT THREADThe last vestiges of power
A cruel farce is about to play out today and tomorrow as Gordon Brown goes through the motions at the European Council of trying to rescue the City of London from destructive EU financial regulations … and fails.
Nevertheless, The Guardian is keeping up the pretence that our prime minister still has any power, telling us that he is "to resist European attempts to exert greater controls over the City of London."
However, even this europhile newspaper acknowledges the scale of the forces up against him, noting that the other big European states – namely France – are backing the EU moves. Particularly damaging is the plan to establishing a new system of pan-European regulators and supervisors, with last-resort authority to dictate bank bailout orders to national governments.
Already though, as we reported recently the writing was on the wall and now Ambrose Evans-Pritchard cuts through the cant and tells it as it is.
The UK is "powerless" to stop EU regulation, his piece is headed, revealing that a "senior French official" has confirmed Gordon Brown is "almost powerless" to stop the creation of EU financial regulatory machinery – a move that will open the way for a transfer of control over the City from London to Brussels.
The senior French official turns out to be a key aide to president Sarkozy who is predicting that: "There will be a pincer movement on Britain." To aid them in their endeavours, the "colleagues" are citing Obama's recent "financial reforms", which bear an uncanny resemblance to the EU moves.
The French in particular believes that Obama has undermined British resistance and will argue that the EU must come into line with the Americans, otherwise – in the terms of the favourite mantra Britain will be "isolated within Europe".
All this of course is largely for show. Britain cannot veto the proposals because EU they are framed under single market provisions which only need QMV to get through. It is reckoned that the UK will struggle to put together a blocking minority.
Thus, Britain will cave in – not that it has any option – leaving only a face-saving formula to be paraded by the likes of The Guardian as the last vestiges of power dribble away.
COMMENT THREADWednesday, June 17, 2009
Burning issues
If General Sir Mike Jackson is really serious about having "no problem at all" in giving evidence in public to the Iraq inquiry then he must have something in common with the archetypal boy who stood upon the burning deck. He like the boy, in the ironic version of the tale, simply did not know what was going on.
More likely, in common with many commentators, Jackson is focusing on the lead-up to the war rather than the period afterwards, thus glossing over his own important role in the failure of the occupation. It was, after all, Jackson who was obsessed with FRES and the restructuring of the Army to fit with its role in the European Rapid Reaction Force, thereby ensuring that it was ill-equipped and structured to fight a counter-insurgency.
This we rehearsed in a piece written in December 2006 and more fully inMinistry of Defeat, where we record that it was on Jackson's watch that Snatch Land Rovers were deployed to Iraq when more robust equipment was needed.
Unsurprisingly though, Jackson is joined by General Lord Guthrie, Chief of the Defence Staff between 1997 and 2001. He dismisses the inquiry on Iraq war claiming that fewer British soldiers would have been killed in Iraq if Gordon Brown had paid for proper equipment when he had been Chancellor.
Guthrie is casting doubt on the credibility of the Iraq war inquiry because it is, he suggests, unlikely to examine Mr Brown’s role in the failure to supply the Armed Forces properly, claiming that the former Chancellor had been "unsympathetic" to appeals for more money for the troops when the campaign had begun in 2003.
To the extent to which this was or might have been the case is certainly something which should be explored in great depth by the inquiry. But Guthrie is not confident that such issues will be raised in the absence of a military representative on the inquiry committee.
According to The Times report, Tony Blair, when Prime Minister, said that the troops would have whatever they wanted. This was the famous occasion on 6 October 2006 when Blair stated: "If the Commanders on the ground want more equipment, armoured vehicles for example, more helicopters, that will be provided. Whatever package they want, we will do." However, Guthrie's memory seems to be somewhat faulty - Blair's comments at the time referred only to Afghanistan.
Guthrie, by then, was no longer in any official position but he asserts that the equipment was not supplied because of the approach by Brown. But, he maintains, the government started to spend freely on equipment, using Treasury reserve funds, when soldiers began dying, normally when travelling in lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers, sent from Northern Ireland for patrolling.
Huge, heavily armoured Mastiffs were bought and sent to Basra. "But it was all too late," Guthrie states. He adds, "Although the equipment is excellent now, initially and subsequently in Iraq, it was very poor, and if Gordon Brown as Chancellor had been more sympathetic, it would have kept people alive."
Guthrie has been ploughing this furrow for some time, but this is the man who also now has defence contract interests. He has also been strong supporter of European defence integration and the expeditionary warfare concept, the combination of which, to say the very least, muddied the waters on Iraq.
Those waters become even muddier from the report in The Independentwhich seems to conflate the pre-war procurement delays with the equipment problems later in the occupation.
Whether a military representative on the inquiry would help sort this out is moot - one rather feels that the collective might seek to confuse issues even further. But this does make clarity in the terms of reference for the inquiry – which we have yet to see – crucially important. Further, we need a proper structure which separates the two very distinct issues of the war and the occupation. Moreover, it makes it important that, even if the inquiry is held in private, we must be given a very clear idea of what it intends to consider. There are burning issues here, which cannot be ignored.
COMMENT THREAD
Thursday, 18 June 2009
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