Thursday, March 24, 2005
LIght at the End of the Tunnel?
It appears that the incredibly shrinking coalition of the bribed is having real effects on the ability of the U.S. Army to field a fighting force. Reuters.com reports that "The U.S. Army is ordering more people to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan involuntarily from a seldom-used personnel pool as part of a mobilization that began last summer." Of course, this "seldom-used personnel pool" has been used with regularity for about a year now as the U.S. armed forces struggle with Georgie's ill-advised war. Things could get worse if the British decide to pull out, which might be likely given the fact that there is firestorm of protest over revelations that the British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith first thought the war against Iraq was illegal without a second UN resolution and then magically changed his mind on the eve of the war. The flip-flop on Goldsmith's part is revealed in the Wilmshurst letter. Wilmhurst was deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office before resigning over the decison to go to war. In her letter, she notes that:
It appears that the incredibly shrinking coalition of the bribed is having real effects on the ability of the U.S. Army to field a fighting force. Reuters.com reports that "The U.S. Army is ordering more people to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan involuntarily from a seldom-used personnel pool as part of a mobilization that began last summer." Of course, this "seldom-used personnel pool" has been used with regularity for about a year now as the U.S. armed forces struggle with Georgie's ill-advised war. Things could get worse if the British decide to pull out, which might be likely given the fact that there is firestorm of protest over revelations that the British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith first thought the war against Iraq was illegal without a second UN resolution and then magically changed his mind on the eve of the war. The flip-flop on Goldsmith's part is revealed in the Wilmshurst letter. Wilmhurst was deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office before resigning over the decison to go to war. In her letter, she notes that:
I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the authorisation given in SCR 678. I do not need to set out my reasoning; you are aware of it.It seems that Tony Blair's government has been caught red-handed in an attempt to cover-up its role in rushing to war against Iraq. Add to this a new report out of the House of Commons that
[The following italicised section was removed by the Foreign Office but later obtained by Channel 4 News]
My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this office before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the attorney general gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March. (The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line.)
Coalition forces failed to plan properly for Iraq's insurgency after the ousting of Saddam Hussein, a committee of MPs says in a report.and one has to wonder how many more weeks will pass before Blair caves and decides to bring British troops home in an attempt to stave off election night defeat this summer. I think Tony Blair will come to rue the day he ever met Cowboy George and his gang.
Planning for the post-conflict phase in Iraq was "marred by a series of mistakes and misjudgements", the Commons Defence Committee said.
[. . .]
the committee said the coalition should have foreseen the insurgency that followed the defeat of Saddam's regime.
It also failed to foresee the influx of foreign fighters and should have realised that their presence would be resented as "cultural and economic" imperialism, the MPs added.