Blair knew Iraq bombing was illegal but ordered it anyway – media
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 13, 2010 © AP / Matt Rourke
RT | April 17, 2023
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered the 1998 bombing of Iraq despite repeated warnings that such a move was unlawful, according to documents published by Declassified UK on Monday. Blair would follow the same template – insisting that illegal military action was legal – when the UK invaded Iraq in 2003.
The US and UK launched a four-day bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998, after then-US President Bill Clinton accused Saddam Hussein of breaching commitments to the UN and developing weapons of mass destruction. As many as 1,400 Iraqi soldiers were killed in strikes on around 100 military facilities.
In the runup to the bombings, Blair was repeatedly told by his advisers that using force against Iraq would be illegal without a resolution from the UN Security Council, according to documents from the National Archives cited by Declassified UK, an investigative outlet that focuses on Britain’s military and intelligence agencies.
Attorney General John Morris reportedly told Blair in November 1997 that obtaining a statement from the Security Council would be “an essential precondition” to military action, while Blair’s private secretary, John Holmes, told the prime minister that British law officers and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had a “serious problem about using force unless the Security Council declares that Iraq is in ‘material breach’ of previous resolutions.”
When the law officers refused to authorize the military to draw up targeting plans, Blair reportedly wrote to Holmes, stating that he found their argument “unconvincing.”
Blair continuously received warnings throughout 1998, the report alleged, with Cook’s private secretary writing to Holmes that February to warn that “the negative implications for international support if we resort to military action without a new resolution would be serious.”
When Blair announced military action to Parliament in November, he declared: “I have no doubt that we have the proper legal authority, as it is contained in successive Security Council resolution documents.” British officials claimed that a 1990 resolution authorizing UN members to force Hussein’s army out of Kuwait gave them permission to intervene again in Iraq, an argument that only the US, Japan, and Portugal supported.
According to the documents, Blair saw bombing Iraq as essential to maintaining his close relationship with Clinton. In a meeting with advisers in November, he supposedly said that failing to intervene would cause “extreme damage” to US-UK relations. That same day, even as his own aides maintained that intervention was illegal, Blair told Clinton that the US “could count on our support.”
Five years later, Blair would find himself in the same situation, when he falsely claimed that Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction and invoked earlier Security Council resolutions to justify invading Iraq. Again, Blair was warned by his attorney general that military action would defy international law, and again he pressed ahead regardless.
More than a decade later, a public inquiry found that the legal case for the invasion was “far from satisfactory,” while then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan maintained from the outset that the war was “illegal.”
1 Comment »
Leave a Reply
Featured Video
AUTISM IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF THE TRANS MOVEMENT
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The Curious Case of the Missing Professor Mifsud
By Johanna Ross | August 13, 2019
In The Times newspaper on July 30th, appeared a short and succinct article, easily missed were it not for its intriguing headline: ‘Missing academic Joseph Mifsud at heart of Mueller investigation’. The academic in question, one may or may not have heard of, depending on the extent to which one is reliant on mainstream media for keeping abreast of the news. But anyone attempting to keep up with the complex and murky world of the Mueller investigation, may be familiar with the name of this mysterious and elusive figure.
For it is none other than Professor Mifsud, affiliated with both the Universities of Stirling and East Anglia in the UK, that was identified by the FBI as being the source of the information that Russia had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. And intriguingly, the same Professor Mifsud who disappeared in October 2017 and has been missing ever since.
It was in April 2016 that Mifsud, who was qualified in education but somehow managed to find his way into the world of international diplomacy (becoming director of the London Academy of Diplomacy in 2012), reportedly met George Papadopoulos, foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, where he is said to have told him that the Russian government had ‘dirt on Hillary Clinton’. This information was then allegedly passed by Papadopoulos to the Australian High Commissioner in London, before being repeated to US authorities; that effectively Papdopoulos had known about the DNC hack prior to it being carried out. In short, Mifsud was the key to the whole ‘Russiagate’ scandal. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
papasha408 on Zelensky will not attend the N… michael on Zelensky will not attend the N… tonyopmoc on “Cool the Mark Out”: How the m… Bill Francis on The not-so-heroic lockdown… Best Johnd on The Media Lied Repeatedly Abou… Balthasar Gerards on “Cool the Mark Out”: How the m… charles allan on Turn Off, Don’t Automate, the… roberthstiver on The Union State Expects That T… papasha408 on Insisting on “demilitarized zo… Vlad the Skewerer on Weapon US gave Ukraine spotted… aletho on As Europe founders, is common… charles allan on CEO Of Top Carbon Credit Certi…
Aletho News- WHO Initiative Would ‘Promote Desired Behaviors’ by Surveilling Social Media
- The Ursula von der Leyen Affair
- CIA Vets: FBI Withholds Damning Evidence on Bidens Prior to Presidential Election, Again
- CIA hacked iPhones of diplomats in Russia – FSB
- US Advocacy Group Releases Emails Challenging Biden’s Statements on Son’s Connections
- State Department Defends “Disinformation” Grant That Funded Online Blacklists
- BBC Verify?
- Zelensky will not attend the NATO summit unless his ultimatum is met – FT
- FBI Refuses To Hand Over Communications About Twitter-Related Censorship
- The not-so-heroic lockdown critic
- If Americans Knew
- New 3rd political party “No Labels” seeks middle ground – except on Israel
- Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
- NYT downplays Palestinian civilian deaths, political motivation for Gaza attack
- What is behind the latest Israel-Gaza violence?
- What’s standing in the way of an Israel-Gaza ceasefire? Israel wants to keep breaking int’l law
- Israeli Missiles Kill Eight Palestinians, Including A Child, In Gaza
- Israel closes Gaza crossings; possible serious deterioration of humanitarian conditions
- Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
- Israel attacks Gaza, killing 15 Palestinians, including women and children
- Khader Adnan’s death & Israel’s decades of despotic military orders
- Brownstone Institute
- New CDC Director Is Another Lockdowner
- An Ideology and Agenda of Estrangement
- The Fraying of the Liberal International Order
- A Myth-Making Toolkit from the Volcano’s Shadow
- The Deplatforming of the “Disinformation Dozen”: More Coverage From Tracy Beanz
- Complying, Not Defying: Twitter and the EU Censorship Code
- Ireland’s Assault on Free Speech
- The Economics of Lockdown Panics
- Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up
- My Official Apology to the New York Post
- Richie Allen
- UK Health Security Agency Launches High Temperature Alert System
- Free Speech Champion Vows To Defend All Views
- Pesticide Firms Hid Brain Toxicity Studies From EU Regulators
- Schoolgirl With Terminal Cancer Was Told It Might Be Stress
- Amazon to Pay $25 Million Over Alexa Privacy Violations
- Labour Would Force Landowners To Sell Below Market Value To Boost Housebuilding
- Couple Fear Wedding Cancellation If Hotel Is Used To House 300 Asylum Seekers
- Scores Of Primary Schools At Risk Of Closure Due To Birth Rate Decline
- Sunak Backs Feminist In Oxford Free Speech Row
- Top Chinese Scientist Won’t Rule Out Covid Lab Leak
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Met Office Announce Water Scarcity Alert After Wet Spring!
- Ireland’s mooted cow massacre is a warning to net zero Britain
- Dominic Lawson: Lower tax revenue and higher CO2 emissions: What Starmer’s financially illiterate plan to stop North Sea drilling would really mean for Britain
- What the media won’t tell you about . . . hurricanes–Roger Pielke Jr
- Labour plans to block new North Sea oil fields could cost Scotland £6bn
- Telegraph’s EV Fan Gets A Shock!
- Bournemouth’s Spate Of “Deliberate” Heath Fires
- Yet Another Coffee Scare
- Labour Will Block New North Sea Oil & Gas
- Britain’s Weather A Hundred Years Ago
- No Tricks Zone
- Thwaites ‘Doomsday’ Glacier Narrative Collapses…Total Melt Raises Sea Levels 1-2 mm, Not 3048 mm
- Expert Prof. Gerd Ganteför Calls For More Studies On The Regional Climate Impact By Wind Turbines
- New Study Destroys ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Narrative…Today’s Ice 8 Times 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑟 Than Last 8000 Years
- Cold Grips Globally: Alaska’s 4th Cold Winter… Record Cold Down Under…UK’s Delayed Spring…
- Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free In Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- German Green Parliamentarian Shocks The Nation…Couldn’t Even Name First German Empire Chancellor!
- Another New Study Shows The Siberian Arctic Is Warmer When CO2 Is Low And Colder As CO2 Rises
- German Greens In Crisis, Plummet 40% In Opinion Polls As Anger Mounts Over Bans, Scandals
- Germany’s Growing List Of Bans: Next Up: Wood Stoves And Heating With Wood!
Aletho News 
Kofi Anon knew the Iraqi invasion was illegal but said or did little to stop it. Bush and Cheney knew WMD did not exist in Iraq. Bush and Cheney also knew Iraq had nothing to do with ISIS and the Jihad movement to create a Caliphate. Which by the way was sponsored by British and US intelligence agencies. Who can forget the photo of Zbigniew Brzenski standing on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan holding a rifle, showing off his support of his Arc of Crisis agenda? The Mujahadeen that drove Russia out of Afghanistan became the Frankenstein monster al Qaeda that morphed into ISIS, whose fighters were recruited in London Mosque, and armed with weapons furnished by British BAE and CIA.
We’ve watched over the past three decades or more as one perpetual war after another was started by the US/UK axis of war. What good has come from those wars? Libya is a broken state of tribal warfare. Syria is still occupied by US forces after more than 10 years of fighting ISIS and CIA-sponsored Jihadis. It is reported that 90% of Syrians are living below the poverty line while the country is being choked to death by sanctions and US occupation of Syria’s oil and food-producing regions. Afghanistan was invaded three times since 1920. First by the British, then the Russians, and then NATO. Iraq is still occupied in some areas by ISIS and PKK fighters.
The people of Iraq are still without the level of infrastructure necessary to recover, which was destroyed during the US “shock and awe” invasion.
As for the UN, it operates today as a rubber stamp of the US. British mouthpiece Tony Blair deserves to be imprisoned in an adjoining cell next to the Clintons. Geopolitical operatives Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Susan Rice, Richard Perle, and John Brennen all belong behind bars for the murderous campaigns they sponsored. And what about the current crop of hegemon seekers in the Biden administration? All of them should be locked up in a padded room before they get us all killed in thermonuclear WW3!
LikeLiked by 1 person