lied to Parliament

Troops Home from Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran: Saturday March 18th 2006 I went to the large protest on the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, photographing as the march gathered in Parliament Square and then as the march went along Victoria Street on its rather indirect route to a rally in Trafalgar Square. As often with large marches, by the time the end of the march had passed me I was too late for it to be worth going on to the rally.

Troops Home from Iraq; Don't Invade Iran - 2005 — *Marchers in Guantanamo fatigues and chains leaving Parliament Square, March 18, 2006*

Here – with the usual tidying of capitalisation and a few minor clarifications is the post I made on My London Diary at the time. Of course things have become much worse in various ways but particularly so far as civil liberties in the UK are concerned, the situation in Iraq has been dire and there remains a real threat of military action against Iran, an odious regime but whose people would still suffer greatly from any any invasion.

As always there are many more pictures on My London Diary.

Troops Home from Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran

The Troops Home From Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran march on the 18th was another large event organised by Stop The War, part of an international protest in cities around Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Asia and Africa – a total of around a couple of hundred places. In London there were roughly 20,000 who walked out of Parliament Square past where I was taking pictures, although many like me will not have made it to Trafalgar Square, and others will have joined in later on the route.

The event marked three years since the invasion of Iraq on 20 march 2003. At the front of the march were Theatre Of War representing both Tony Blair and George Bush along with two police and two judges holding placards declaring the two leaders guilty.

*Put your head in a sack, Guantanamo style…*

Behind them were the march leaders, including representatives of families of soldiers killed in Iraq. They had a long, long yellow ribbon with the names – no ranks – of soldiers who have died so far in this illegal war and occupation. Of course many more Iraqis killed – more than 100,000 have died so far.

The invasion, doubtful on legal grounds, was justified on the basis of false information, including information that was known to be incorrect when it was presented to parliament and the people.

Already it has led to deaths in Britain; only a small handful of people (that’s Tony Blair and some of his cabinet) doubt that the London bombings would not have happened if Britain had not joined in the invasion plans. Actually it is hard to believe even they doubt it, but rather they just can’t bring themselves to admit it.

*A protester from Glasgow is warned for using a megaphone in Parliament Square*

We’ve also seen the passage of draconian measures that attack civil liberties in this country (and attempts still being made to get more.) Muslims in particular have been targeted, with a rise in Islamophobia.

*At last the march moved off, with stewards pushing photographers away from the front*

The expenditure in Iraq has been vast. If you want to know why there isn’t the money to raise pensions (and a week of pension protests was ending today with a conference in London) there is a simple 4 letter answer. IRAQ.

Another four letter country, Iran, is currently under threat. Perhaps most chilling are the denials from Blair and Straw, who state that invasion is not on the table. For too many of us that just seems to make it more likely.

Many more pictures on My London Diary

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Blair Lied, Millions Died – Chilcot: I’m certainly not a supporter of Trump and was shocked by the news of the US Supreme Court vote that granted presidents of the US immunity from prosecution for actions taken in their presidential role. But the publication of the Chilcot report on Wednesday 6th July 2016 was a reminder that in this country the same applies although our processes are more convoluted, lengthy and opaque.

In short, our establishment protects its own. And as Corbyn found out, demonises and discredits any who threaten it, even at times as in the case of weapons expert David Kelly most probably “eliminating” them.

Parts of the report were read out at the protest. It confirmed that the decision to go to war had been taken many months in advance between Bush and Blair, and revealed some new areas along with those already known where Blair had deliberately misled both Parliament and public.

Part of this was of course the ‘dodgy dossier’ or rather dossiers, the first issued in September 2002 as a deliberate attempt to mislead the public, to which Blair added the sensational (and nonsensical) claim that led the Sun to headline “Brits 45mins from doom” to unverified (and later found untrue) claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and nuclear weapons programme.

The second ‘dodgy dosser’, issued in February 2003, which repeated the claims about WMDs was found to “been plagiarised from various unattributed sources including a thesis produced by a student at California State University.” It included some of the typographical errors from these, but some phrases had been altered “to strengthen the tone of the alleged findings“, later referred to as “sexing up” the report. A House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry found that the report had not been checked by ministers and “had only been reviewed by a group of civil servants operating under Alastair Campbell.”

BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan revealed that his “report which claimed that the September Dossier had been deliberately exaggerated” was based on an interview with David Kelly, although Kelly himself, as the 2011 BBC report Dr David Kelly: Controversial death examined states “gave evidence to MPs’ committees in which he said he did not believe he was the main source of the story”. Two days later he was dead.

The protest on 6th July 2016 took place in the street by the side of the QEII Centre on the morning the Chilcot report was being published there. It began with a naming of a few of the dead, with people coming up to read 5 names of UK forces and 5 of Iraqi civilians who died because of the war. It was only a token gesture, as over a million Iraqis are generally acknowledged to have lost their lives. This was followed by a number of speeches – there are pictures of the speakers on My London Diary.

Police were unusually uncooperative with the protest, insisting on keeping the minor road by the side of the QE2 where the protest was being held open to traffic in both directions, although there was very little actual traffic and it would have caused hardly any disruption to close it. It was hard not to assume they had come under political pressure to harass the event.

The protesters demanded that Blair be brought to trial as a war criminal. Of course Blair has been tried for nothing. Despite having been found to have lied to Parliament he is still treated by the media as a respected politician. Lying to Parliament is surprisingly not a criminal offence – and in response to a 2021 petition with over 100,000 signatures the government said it had no plans to make it one. Almost certainly because too many politicians would be found guilty.

More about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary: Blair lied, Millions Died – Chilcot.

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Tag: lied to Parliament

Troops Home from Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran – 2005

Troops Home from Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran

Blair Lied, Millions Died – Chilcot 2016