Attempts by Blair and Hague to wash hands of bloody Iraq legacy must be challenged

http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2014/jun/16/iraq-tony-blair-islamists

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A month before they agreed to join the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003, Tony Blair and his ministers were privately warned by their most senior intelligence advisers that terrorism, not Saddam Hussein's Iraq, was the real threat to western interests.

"Al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest threat to western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq", warned Whitehall's Joint Intelligence Committee.

Blair had privately discussed that risk with the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, the ISC. He agreed there was "obviously a danger that in attacking Iraq you ended up provoking the very thing you were trying to avoid".

Blair added: "This is where you've just got to make your judgment about this. But this is my judgment and it remains my judgment and I suppose time will tell whether it's true or it's not true."

In comments described as "unhinged" by Boris Johnson, London's mayor, Blair suggested that nothing had happened in the Middle East since that made him change his mind about the invasion eleven years ago.

Even if Saddam had continued in power, the Arab Spring in 2011 would have led to a serious problem in Iraq, suggested Blair . "Indeed, you can see what happens when you leave the dictator in place, as has happened with [the Syrian president] Assad now. The problems don't go away," Blair told the BBC.

This is a very strange narrative.

Blair says the problem was not the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but the failure to prepare for the consequences.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, argued in similar fashion in an interview with the BBC on Monday morning. It was not the invasion of Iraq itself that was a mistake, it was the aftermath.

Wait for Chilcot, Hague suggested, referring to the long-delayed inquiry into the invasion of Iraq. But we don't need to wait for Chilcot. His inquiry has been delayed by the government's (and Blair's) refusal to disclose what the labour prime minister promised the US president before the invasion of Iraq, not by argument over the aftermath.

The abject failure to prepare for what would happen after the bombing of Iraq, and dismantling the country's entire administrative and military infrastructure (and protect the Sunni minority population) was as much a crime as launching pre-emptive strikes as prelude to regime change was illegal.

Chilcot should not have much difficulty in deciding that.

The then British government, as invader and occupier, can no more its wash his hands of the failure to plan for the aftermath than the Bush administration can.

The invasion of Iraq was a crucial factor behind the decision by the British parliament last year to vote against military action against in Syria, a decision that allowed all sides in the civil war, including the Islamic insurgent group, ISIS, the initially Iraq- based al-Qaeda affiliate, to flourish in Syria.

It is ISIS, (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) which has launched the bloody insurgency in Iraq.

"You can see what happens when you leave the dictator in place, as has happened with Assad now. The problems don't go away," Blair said referring to Syria's president.

Yet it was barely a month ago that Blair suggested that the enemy was extreme Islamism, not secular dictators. Indeed, he has made no bones in the past about cooperating with dictators, whether Syria's Assad or Egypt's Mubarak.

Successive British governments have turned a blind eye to authoritarian regimes including Saudi Arabia (and Saddam's Iraq before Blair was persuaded by the US to invade it) that have been serial abusers of the most basic human rights.

They may be enemies of democracy, but they have been regarded as bulwarks of stability - as well as lucrative markets for British arms.