On 30th November last year,
Michael Gove, currently UK
Environment Minister, pretty well
unloved by swathes of the population
whatever Ministry he heads,
declared, at the post Chilcot
Inquiry debate in Parliament
regarding Tony Blair’s
role in dragging the UK in to a
monumental tragedy for which history
will not forgive:
“History, I think will judge him
less harshly than some in this
House do.”
Deciding whether or not to illegally
invade Iraq was a “finely balanced
act”, fantasized Gove.
It was not. It was a
pack of lies, many of which came
from the Blair regime, as confirmed
by Colin Powell’s
delusionary address to the UN on 5th February
2003, in subsequently unearthed
correspondence and of course, the
Chilcot Inquiry.
On 15th September 2004,
the then UN Secretary General,
Kofi Annan, in an interview
with the BBC World Service, asked if
the invasion was illegal, stated:
“Yes, if you wish.” He continued
without caveat: “I have
indicated it was not in
conformity with the UN Charter.
From our point of view and from
the Charter point of view it was
illegal.”
Blair, his Foreign Secretary,
Jack Straw and his
Attorney General Lord
Goldsmith did not face a
Nuremberg type trial – and
surreally, Blair, after his 2007
resignation was appointed Middle
East Peace Envoy. Straw and
Goldsmith went back to business as
usual.
However, after fourteen years, maybe
two million deaths, the decimation
by ISIS, the US, and the UK of
Iraq’s (Mesopotamia’s) history,
culture stewardship and witness,
over millennia, to one of the
world’s great, ancient
civilizations, there is a chance
that Antony Charles Lynton
Blair, Jack Straw and Lord
Goldsmith may yet face a Court of
Law.
In April this year the UK Attorney
General, Jeremy Wright,
intervened in an attempt to halt a
private prosecution of the three
brought by General
Abdul-Wahid al-Ribat,
former Chief of Staff of the Iraqi
Army under Saddam Hussein’s
government.
The Attorney General argued that the
basis of the case, the crime of
aggression “the supreme
international crime” as enshrined in
the Nuremberg Tribunals, did not
apply in British law and that the
former Prime Minister, Blair and his
Ministers had:
“implied immunity as former Head
of State and government
Ministers, therefore offence not
made out … Allegations involve
potential details being
disclosed under the Official
Secrets Act for which Attorney
General and Director of Public
Prosecutions consent are
required.” (1)
The implication seemingly being that
those consents would not be
forthcoming.
However, in direct contradiction,
relating to the argument regarding
the crime of aggression:
“In his 2003 memo on the
legality of the Iraq war (Lord)
Goldsmith, then Attorney
General, appeared to concede the
key point of those now seeking
his prosecution. ‘Aggression is
a crime under customary
international law which
automatically forms part of
domestic law’ “, he wrote in an
advice to then Prime Minister
Blair prior to the invasion.
(2)
Nevertheless the case was dismissed
by the Judge at Westminster
Magistrates Court. The legal team
for General al-Ribat, led by
Michael Mansfield QC and
lawyer Imran Khan
are not easily deterred.
Mansfield has been described thus:
“The radical lawyer has become
an icon in a disenchanted age …
(Mansfield’s) high profile
victories take on a hallowed
significance: the good guys
against the rotten state … with
a flourish of his insolence and
a refusal to shut up they flock
to him … and he looks after them
all. The Establishment loathes
him.” (Guardian, 25th October
1997.) Imran Khan: “is one of
the most highly regarded human
rights layers in the country”
and “a rebel with many causes.”
(The Lawyer, 17th June
2015.) “My objective is to make
sure the State is held
accountable”, he is quoted as
saying.
This week, on Wednesday, 5th July,
General al-Ribat’s case returned to
the High Court in an appeal which is
being heard by the Lord Chief
Justice, Lord Thomas
of Cwmgiedd, and Mr. Justice
Ouseley.
The General had been motivated,
Mansfield told the Court, by the
findings of the Chilcot Inquiry that
the Iraq invasion was unnecessary
and undermined the United Nations.
‘Mansfield summarised the report’s
findings as:
“Saddam Hussein
did not pose an urgent threat to
the UK, intelligence reporting
about [Iraqi] weapons of mass
destruction was presented with
unwarranted certainty, that the
war was unnecessary and that the
UK undermined the authority of
the UN Security Council.”
“Nothing could be more emphatic
than these findings,” he said.
“It was an unlawful war.”
He further argued that in 1945:
“… when the British prosecutor,
Sir Hartley Shawcross,
opened the cases against Nazi
leaders at the Nuremburg war
crimes trials at the end of the
second world war, he acted as
though the crime of aggression
had already been assimilated
into English law.” (3)
James Eadie,
QC. representing the Attorney
General, Jeremy Wright stated that:
“The crime of aggression is not
know to English law” and does
not exist in the statute book.
Sabah al-Mukhtar,
of the Arab Lawyers Network,
commented of the case:
“This is just looking at whether
the first Court was right in
refusing to entertain the case.
“The Magistrates Court dismissed
it on the grounds that Tony
Blair had immunity and that the
crime of aggression was not part
of English law. Many think they
were not correct on that.”
The case can be brought in Britain
since the British were part of the
occupying forces in Iraq, thus
General al-Ribat, now living in
exile is: “under the European
Convention on Human Rights, deemed
to have been within the jurisdiction
at a relevant time.”
The High Court’s decision has been
reserved to allow a further week for
the General’s legal team to make
“additional specified submissions.”
If the Appeal is not dismissed: “the
issue of whether the crime of
aggression exists in English law
will be sent up to the Supreme Court
to decide.”
It has not been Blair’s
week. In the light of
the Court hearing,
Sir John Chilcot
– who headed the seven
year Inquiry in to the
decimating attack on
Iraq and found that the
Blair Cabinet’s
decisions on the matter
had been “far from
satisfactory” – broke a
year long silence in an
interview with the BBC.
Asked if the former
Prime Minister had been
as truthful with him and
the public as he should
have been, Sir John
replied:
“Can I slightly
reword that to say I
think any Prime
Minister taking a
country into war has
got to be straight
with the nation and
carry it, so far as
possible, with him
or her. I don’t
believe that was the
case in the Iraq
instance.”
Millions would surely
agree, including a
swathe of the media, as
encapsulated by media
correspondent Roy
Greenslade (4) exactly a
year ago, on the
publication of the
Chilcot Inquiry. The
sub-heading was:
“Without exception,
the ‘feral beasts’
of the press tear
the former Prime
Minister apart over
the Iraq invasion,
leaving his
reputation in
tatters.”
A few front page
examples were: “Chilcot
Report into Iraq war
delivers harsh verdict
on Blair” (Financial
Times); “A monster of
delusion” (Daily Mail);
“Weapon of mass
deception” (Sun);
“Blair’s private war”
(Times); “Blair is
world’s worst terrorist”
(Daily Star) and
“Spinning on their
graves” (Independent).
The Mail cited: “the
duplicitous, dishonest,
secretive, shallow and
incompetent conduct of
Tony Blair…”
In November 2011:
“In Kuala Lumpur,
after two years of
investigation by the
Kuala Lumpur War
Crimes Commission
(KLWCC), a Tribunal
(the Kuala Lumpur
War Crimes Tribunal,
or KLWCT) consisting
of five Judges with
judicial and
academic backgrounds
reached a unanimous
verdict that found
George W Bush and
Tony Blair guilty of
crimes against
peace, crimes
against humanity,
and genocide as a
result of their
roles in the Iraq
War.” (5)
Of relevance to this
week’s case may be that:
The Tribunal also added
several recommendations
to its verdict:
1) Report findings in
accord with Part VI
(calling for future
accountability) of the
Nuremberg Judgment of
1945 addressing crimes
of surviving political
and military leaders of
Nazi Germany;
2) File reports of
genocide and crimes
against humanity at the
International Criminal
Court in The Hague;
3) Approach the UN
General Assembly to pass
a resolution demanding
that the United States
end its occupation of
Iraq;
4) Communicate the
findings of the tribunal
to all members of the
Rome Statute (which
governs the
International Criminal
Court) and to all states
asserting Universal
Jurisdiction that allows
for the prosecution of
international crimes in
national courts; and
5) Urge
the UN Security Council
to take responsibility
to ensure that full
sovereign rights are
vested in the people of
Iraq and that the
independence of its
government be protected
by a UN Peacekeeping
Force.
It is ten years nearly
to the day (27th June
2007) since Blair left
Downing Street, left
Iraq bathed in blood and
tears and walked off to
make £millions and a
joke of all peace stands
for, as a “Peace Envoy.”
Perhaps, at last,
justice may have a
chance, one which might
set a precedent and also
deter any politician or
leader from embarking on
the “supreme
international crime”,
ever again. Here’s
fervently hoping.
Notes
1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/16/tony-blair-iraq-war-prosecution-attempt-goes-back-to-court
2. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/16/uk-attorney-general-in-bid-to-block-case-against-tony-blair-over-iraq-war
3. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/05/tony-blair-should-be-prosecuted-over-iraq-war-high-court-hears
4. https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jul/07/national-newspapers-savage-tony-blair-over-the-chilcot-report
5. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html
