Australian Wheat Traders Told Of Iraq Invasion 13 months Beforehand
Blair never just lies, he lies about his lies.
Remember this?
AS a civil service briefing paper specifically prepared for the July meeting reveals, Blair had made his fundamental decision on Saddam when he met President George W Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002.
Well, this next rather undermines Blair’s claims that no decision had been made to go to war until that April meeting :
World News: Iraq invasion plans tipped a year ahead
Friday November 24, 2006
CANBERRA – A senior diplomat tipped off the Australian Wheat Board a year before the Iraq war that Australia would join the United States-led invasion, new documents show. The evidence appears to contradict the Howard Government’s statements that it did not decide to join the war before the invasion was debated in the United Nations in late 2002 and early 2003.
The revelation prompted the Opposition to call for the Cole inquiry into the AWB’s Iraq kickbacks to be reopened and its terms of reference expanded – just 24 hours before the final report is handed to the Government. The documents, released by the Cole inquiry, show Australia’s then United Nations Ambassador John Dauth revealed the Howard Government’s position to former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge. Dauth briefed Flugge in New York in February 2002 – 13 months before the invasion – and the details appear in minutes of AWB’s February 27 board meeting of that year, tendered to the inquiry. “The Ambassador stated that he believed that US military action to depose Saddam Hussein was inevitable and that at this time the Australian Government would support and participate in such action,” the minutes say. [My emphasis]
[…]
Opposition leader Kim Beazley said the documents showed the Howard Government was prepared to take AWB into its confidence a year before going to war – but not the Australian people. The Cole inquiry, which is likely to recommend criminal charges against current and former AWB executives over the A$290 million ($339 million) in illicit payments the company made to Iraq, should be allowed to continue with expanded terms of reference, Beazley said.
[…].
So the wheat traders on the other side of the world knew in February ’02 that the US would invade, but Tony Blair didn’t? Oh, give me a break. If it was common knowledge even among the Australian diplomats, do we really thinkBlair didn’t know until that meeting at the Crawford ranch in April?
What perplexes me most about Blair’s deceit before the war and his continuing Iraq lies is his blatancy and seeming assurance that no-one will ever hold him to account. Many of his untruths have been indeed been speedily and relatively easily uncovered but Blair as yet hasn’t had to face the music, unless you call the Butler report an accounring and I certainly don’t.
Like the now desperately recanting US neocons Blair seems not to have thought beyond the actual point of the invasion to what might happen to either postwar Iraq or their own governments. They assumed it’d all be hunkydory both at home and abroad. But why? Had they had assurances that they needn’t worry about any consequences, and if so, who from?
There’s a lot more collateral info to come from the Cole enquiry – though it’s otsensibly about kickbacks to .au wheat producers and the UN Oil for Food Scandal, it bears paying some attention to on both sides of the Atlantic for the backdoor insights it gives into the machinations leading up to the invasion.
Read more: Iraq, Invasion, Butler report, Blair war lies, Australia, Cole Enquiry
