Tuesday, December 19, 2006

UK Diplomat Lays Bare Lies Behind Iraq War

via The Independent:

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony [to the Butler inquiry] revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."


,

Monday, December 18, 2006

Unfinished Business

via NYT:


Some recent images from George W. Bush’s war on terror:

¶Jose Padilla, the supposed dirty bomber, submitting while guards blindfolded him and covered his ears for a walk from his cell to a dentist’s chair.

¶Government lawyers arguing that a prisoner could not testify that he was tortured by American agents, because their brutality was a secret.

¶A judge dismissing another prisoner’s challenge to his detention, after a new law stripped basic rights from those Mr. Bush has designated “illegal enemy combatants.”

¶The White House scorning lawmakers’ attempts to rein in Mr. Bush’s illegal domestic spying.

This is the legacy of a Republican Congress that enabled the president’s imperial visions of his authority.


, , ,

Mediocre on Mission Rock

Mission Bland

Another bland oversized complex in Mission Bay. What fun. At least it's just rentals. Why would anyone BUY something in Mission Bay when the apartment buildings look the same as the condo buildings, and are on the same block? I don't get it. This should have been rethought a bit to insist that some smaller projects were put into the mix.

,