The Counter-deception Blog
Examples of deceptions and descriptions of techniques to detect them. This Blog encourages the awareness of deception in daily life and discussion of practical means to spot probable deceptions. Send your examples of deception and counter-deception to colonel_stech@yahoo.com.Thursday, April 28, 2005
Regime change? What regime change would that be?
April 28, 2005 NYTimes.com
Blair, in Reversal, Releases Iraq Paper in Bid to Defuse Election IssueBy ALAN COWELL
LONDON, April 28 - Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a remarkable reversal today, published the full text of the confidential advice he received on the legality of the Iraq war, in an effort to defuse the sustained pressure that has overwhelmed his re-election campaign a week before election day.
Parts of the 13-page document, written by the attorney general, Lord Peter Goldsmith, on March 7, 2003, were leaked to the press on Wednesday, prompting a renewed furor about whether Mr. Blair misled the nation by depicting the war as unequivocally legal.
The document showed that while Lord Goldsmith said in public on March 17, 2003, that the war was lawful, the private advice he gave to Mr. Blair 10 days earlier showed far greater concerns about the legal consequences of going to war.
"There are a number of ways," the document said, "in which the opponents of military action might seek to bring a legal case, internationally or domestically, against the United Kingdom, members of the government or U.K. military personnel."
Lord Goldsmith went on to a discussion of the level of force permitted by United Nations resolutions dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier.
"But regime change cannot be the objective of military action," his document concluded. "This should be borne in mind in considering the list of military targets and making public statements about any campaign."
...
The leader of the opposition Conservatives, Michael Howard, said: "If you can't trust Mr. Blair on the decision to take the country to war - the most important decision a prime minister can take - how can you trust Mr. Blair on anything else ever again?"
And Charles Kennedy, the head of the smaller Liberal Democrats, the only mainstream party to oppose the invasion, took issue with the prime minister's attempt to minimize the impact of the document.
"This is not a damp squib for those who have lost loved ones in the service of the British armed forces, or for the families of thousands of Iraqi innocents who have been killed," Mr. Kennedy said.
...
The document nonetheless raises tantalizing questions about a period in March, 2003, when Mr. Blair was under strong pressure from President Bush to join the invasion, whether or not the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution specifically authorizing the war.
...
Lord Goldsmith's advice makes clear how much pressure Britain was under from the United States to overcome its own reservations about the need for a further United Nations resolution with a specific ultimatum threatening force.
Britain, Lord Goldsmith wrote, believed that, since the cease-fire terms ending the earlier Iraq war in 1991 had been set by the Security Council, "it is for the Council to assess whether any such breach of those obligations has occurred."
"The U.S. have a rather different view: they maintain that the fact of whether Iraq is in breach is a matter of objective fact which may therefore be assessed by individual member states," the document says. "I am not aware of any other state which supports this view."
Blair, in Reversal, Releases Iraq Paper in Bid to Defuse Election IssueBy ALAN COWELL
LONDON, April 28 - Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a remarkable reversal today, published the full text of the confidential advice he received on the legality of the Iraq war, in an effort to defuse the sustained pressure that has overwhelmed his re-election campaign a week before election day.
Parts of the 13-page document, written by the attorney general, Lord Peter Goldsmith, on March 7, 2003, were leaked to the press on Wednesday, prompting a renewed furor about whether Mr. Blair misled the nation by depicting the war as unequivocally legal.
The document showed that while Lord Goldsmith said in public on March 17, 2003, that the war was lawful, the private advice he gave to Mr. Blair 10 days earlier showed far greater concerns about the legal consequences of going to war.
"There are a number of ways," the document said, "in which the opponents of military action might seek to bring a legal case, internationally or domestically, against the United Kingdom, members of the government or U.K. military personnel."
Lord Goldsmith went on to a discussion of the level of force permitted by United Nations resolutions dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier.
"But regime change cannot be the objective of military action," his document concluded. "This should be borne in mind in considering the list of military targets and making public statements about any campaign."
...
The leader of the opposition Conservatives, Michael Howard, said: "If you can't trust Mr. Blair on the decision to take the country to war - the most important decision a prime minister can take - how can you trust Mr. Blair on anything else ever again?"
And Charles Kennedy, the head of the smaller Liberal Democrats, the only mainstream party to oppose the invasion, took issue with the prime minister's attempt to minimize the impact of the document.
"This is not a damp squib for those who have lost loved ones in the service of the British armed forces, or for the families of thousands of Iraqi innocents who have been killed," Mr. Kennedy said.
...
The document nonetheless raises tantalizing questions about a period in March, 2003, when Mr. Blair was under strong pressure from President Bush to join the invasion, whether or not the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution specifically authorizing the war.
...
Lord Goldsmith's advice makes clear how much pressure Britain was under from the United States to overcome its own reservations about the need for a further United Nations resolution with a specific ultimatum threatening force.
Britain, Lord Goldsmith wrote, believed that, since the cease-fire terms ending the earlier Iraq war in 1991 had been set by the Security Council, "it is for the Council to assess whether any such breach of those obligations has occurred."
"The U.S. have a rather different view: they maintain that the fact of whether Iraq is in breach is a matter of objective fact which may therefore be assessed by individual member states," the document says. "I am not aware of any other state which supports this view."
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