Britons Trying Blair; The Legality of the Invasion of Iraq

After years living with the frustration of not knowing why the United States was attacked so successfully on September 11, 2001, not knowing who perpetrated the attack, we at last may have an answer. In the aftermath of his unsuccessful bombing of the Christmas day Delta Flight 253, before being read his Miranda rights, accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab freely admitted his association with al Qaeda, and his al Qaeda connection in the attempt.
Later, in a videotaped message, al Qaeda leader, the Saudi Arabian billionaire Osama bin Laden, entirely corroborated Abdulmutallab's admission. Bin Laden went on to declare that American Blood would be spilled at the level of the September 11 destruction, if the U.S. failed to stop its support of Israel in the Gaza War, in the ongoing disharmony between the people of Israel, the people of Palestine. Perhaps we may surmise that the same intervention in the affairs of that region was all or part of the motivation behind that September 11 devastation. Clearly that intervention is the motivation behind threatened future attacks; one might almost conclude that bin Laden could welcome dialog with the Western World. With the new revelations from al Qaeda one conclusion, then, is that indeed, Iraq, and her leader Saddam Hussein, whom we hanged at tremendous expense of lives and dollars, had nothing whatever to do with the September attacks.
In London, in the United Kingdom, there has of late been considerable investigation as to the legality of the war which the United States and England preemptively waged against the people of Iraq, and the Hussein administration. We recall that at the time of the first strikes against Iraq, the Western World had teams of investigators on the ground in Iraq with full authority and with the permission of the Iraqi government to search anywhere at any time for weapons of mass destruction, or evidence of such weapons. If they chose, they could enter Hussein's palaces or any other location in pursuit of such weapons. None were found.

During December of 2003, Saddam Hussein was brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by George W. Bush and the United States.
On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shiites convicted of planning an assassination attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam was executed on December 30, 2006. Hussein, who was involved in an effort to bring Shiite and Sunni Muslims groups together to end their differences, protected his administration from those moving against it, and was hanged, in effect by the Unites States and Great Britain. He was accused of making war on civilians. Odd that when the United States ended a bloody and costly war with Japan by dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and by radioactivity contributing to painful deaths and birth defects in hundreds of thousands more, the United States went blameless. There were none to criticize these nuclear attacks.

In London, as the commission headed by one Sir John Chilcot investigates the legality of the war with Iraq, and the role played by Prime Minister Tony Blair, a top government lawyer, Elizabeth Wilmshurst has written that the "unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression." At several points in this investigation, Blair has repeated that he "believed what he did was right." Blair "believed" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and he "believed" the intelligence showed Saddam Hussein was a threat.
The British bottom line on this Chilcot investigation holds that there now are 5 million Iraqi orphans, and that the United States, and the United Kingdom are responsible. Unless Blair is able to prevail with his eloquent rhetoric, with polish and persuasion, it will be up to the U.K. to make amends to the victims of the Iraqi invasion, and it will be a mandate that the U.K. government accept responsibility for the damage to Iraq, and to the world.

Our American President Obama has continued the policy of looking forward, not back, with regard to the previous administration. Maybe the British concern will be sufficient to alter that policy.