Butler, Richard: Iraq 2003: the fabricated war of choice

Richard Butler

Iraq 2003: the fabricated war of choice‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 November 2017

Former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has revealed a report showing that US intelligence agencies knew Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and they told the George W Bush administration so. So, the invasion of Iraq of 2003 was a war of choice, preferred by Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair, which Australia’s John Howard joined with alacrity.

Prime Minister Howard was … an early and enthusiastic participant in the anglospheric hubris that was then in full flight. He was apparently not really interested in verifiable facts, just in being on board and, signaled to Bush, reportedly without any methodical discussion within the Australian Cabinet, that Australia should be counted in …

The war of choice rested on lies and the document now cited by Brown is further proof of this.

It’s bleedingly obvious to point out that the answer to the question – why didn’t the invading forces find any WMD, is –  because there were none. The UN had destroyed them.

More important than looking back at what happened in 2003 is what happens in the future,

how much longer we will tolerate a situation in which the power to declare war is accepted as being within the gift of the Prime Minister alone [rather than one which involves the Parliament].

And, there is the constant background cacophony of our politicians proclaiming that we are bound by the US Alliance to follow the US in whatever war it chooses to wage. The obligations of the ANZUS Treaty are continually misrepresented for this purpose.

For more on these issues on the Honest History site, use our Search engine with terms like ‘Chilcot’ and ‘Iraq’. Search there also for articles by Richard Butler.

Richard Butler and John Menadue, who manages the Pearls and Irritations blog, are both among Honest History’s distinguished supporters. Richard Butler was head of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq in the late 1990s.

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