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Libya,
David Cameron’s “Iraq”? Damning Report
Shreds Another War Monger
By
Felicity Arbuthnot
September 19, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Global
Research"
-
Former
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is
consistent in just one thing – jumping ship
when the going gets tough. He announced his
resignation in the immediate wake of the
23rd July referendum in which
Britain marginally voted to leave the EU, a
referendum which he had fecklessly called to
appease right wing “little Englanders”,
instead of facing them down.
He
lost. The result is looming financial
catastrophe and the prospect of unraveling
forty three years of legislations (Britain
joined the then European Economic Community
on 1st January 1973.) No
structure was put in place for a government
Department to address the legal and
bureaucratic enormities should the leave
vote prevail. There is still none.
Cameron however committed to staying on as
an MP until the 2020 general election,
vowing grandiosely: “I will do everything I
can in future to help this great country
succeed”, he said of the small island off
Europe which he had potentially sunk, now
isolated from and derided by swathes of its
continental neighbours – with the sound of
trading doors metaphorically slamming shut
reverberating across the English Channel.
David Cameron has now jumped again,
resigning unexpectedly and immediately as an
MP on Monday 12th September,
giving the impression that he was not in
agreement with certain policies of his
(unelected) successor, Theresa May. He
stated: “Obviously I have my own views about
certain issues … As a former PM it’s very
difficult to sit as a back-bencher and not
be an enormous diversion and distraction
from what the Government is doing. I don’t
want to be that distraction.” What an ego.
Over the decades of course, the House of
Parliament has been littered with former
Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers
who have remained constituency MPs without
being a “distraction.”
DEVASTATING INDICTMENT
The
following day the real reason for his
decision seemed obvious. Parliament’s
Foreign Affairs Select Committee released
their devastating findings on Cameron’s hand
in actions resulting in Libya’s near
destruction, contributing to the
unprecedented migration of those fleeing UK
enjoined “liberations”, creating more
subsequent attacks in the West – and
swelling ISIS and other terrorist factions.
“Cameron blamed for rise of ISIS”, thundered
The Times headline, adding: “Damning Inquiry
into Libya points finger at former PM.” The
Guardian opined: “MPs condemn Cameron over
Libya debacle” and: “Errors resulted in
country ‘becoming failed state and led to
growth of ISIS.’ ”
The
Independent owned “I”: “Cameron’s toxic
Libya legacy”, with: “Former PM blamed for
collapse in to civil war, rise of ISIS and
mass migration to Europe in Inquiry’s
scathing verdict” and “Cameron ignored
lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan …”
The
Independent chose: “Cameron’s bloody legacy:
Damning Report blames ex-PM for ISIS in
Libya.”
No
wonder he plopped over the side.
The
Report is decimating. The Foreign Affairs
Select Committee concluding: “Through his
decision-making in the National Security
Council, former Prime Minister, David
Cameron was ultimately responsible for the
failure to develop a coherent Libya
strategy.”
The
disasters leading to that final verdict
include the UK’s intervention being based on
“erroneous assumption” an “incomplete
understanding” of the situation on the
ground, with Cameron leaping from limited
intervention to an: “opportunist policy of
(entirely illegal) regime change”, based on
“inadequate intelligence.”
Once Gaddafi had been horrendously
assassinated, resultant from the assault on
his country: “ … failure to develop a
coherent strategy … had led to political and
economic collapse, internecine warfare,
humanitarian crisis and the rise of the
Islamic State (ISIS) in North Africa.”
After his death, Gaddafi’s body, with that
of his son, Mutassim, was laid out on the
floor of a meat warehouse in Misrata. (“I”,
14th September 2016.)
“We
came, we saw, he died”, then Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton told the media, with
a peal of laughter. (1) Just under a year
later US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three US officials were murdered in
Benghazi. Payback time for her words, taken
out on the obvious target?
Muammar Gaddafi, his son Muatassim and his
former Defence Minister were reportedly
buried in unmarked graves in the desert,
secretively, before dawn on 25th October
2011. The shocking series of events speaking
volumes for the “New Libya” and the
Cameron-led, British government’s blood
dripping hands in the all.
The
UK’s meddling hands were involved from the
start. France, Lebanon and the UK, supported
by the US, proposed UN Security Council
Resolution 1973.
Britain was the second country, after
France, to call for a “no fly zone” over
Libya in order to: “to use all necessary
measures” to prevent attacks on civilians.
“It neither explicitly authorised the
deployment of ground forces nor addressed
the question of regime change or of post
conflict reconstruction”, reminds the
Committee.
Moreover: “France led the international
community in advancing the case for military
intervention in Libya … UK policy followed
decisions taken in France.” Former
Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder confirmed to
the Committee: “Cameron and Sarkozy
were the undisputed leaders in terms of
doing something.” (Emphasis added.)
The
US was then “instrumental in extending the
terms of the Resolution” to even a “no drive
zone” and “assumed authority to attack the
entire Libyan government’s command and
communications network.”
INSTITUTIONAL IGNORANCE
On
the 19th March 2011, a nineteen
nation “coalition” turned a “no fly zone”
into a free fire zone and embarked on a
blitzkrieg of a nation of just 6.103 million
(2011 figure.)
All
this in spite of the revelation to the
Committee by former UK Ambassador to Libya
Sir Dominic Asquith, that the intelligence
base at to what was really happening in the
country: “… might well have been less than
ideal.”
Professor George Joffe, renowned expert on
the Middle East and North Africa, noted:
“the relatively limited understanding of
events” and that: “people had not really
bothered to monitor closely what was
happening.”
Analyst Alison Pargeter: ‘expressed her
shock at the lack of awareness in Whitehall
of the “history and regional complexities”
of Libya.’
Incredibly Whitehall appeared to have been
near totally ignorant as to the extent to
which the “rebellion” might have been a
relatively small group of Islamic
extremists.
Former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord
Richards was apparently unaware that
Abdelhakim Belhadj and other Al Qaeda linked
members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
were involved. “It was a grey area”, he
said. However: “a quorum of respectable
Libyans were assuring the Foreign Office”
that militant Islam would not benefit from
the rebellion. “With the benefit of
hindsight, that was wishful thinking at
best”, concluded his Lordship.
“The possibility that
militant extremist groups would attempt
to benefit from the rebellion should not
have been the preserve of hindsight.
Militant connections with transnational
militant extremist groups were know
before 201l, because many Libyans had
participated in the Iraq insurgency and
in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda”,
commented the
Committee. (Emphasis added)
Iraq revisited. Back then it was the
“respectable” Ahmed Chalabi, Iyad Allawi and
their ilk selling a pack of lies to the
seemingly ever gullible, supremely unworldly
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Much was made by William Hague, Foreign
Secretary at the time and by Liam Fox, then
Defence Secretary, of Muammar’s Gaddafi’s
threatening rhetoric. The Committee pointed
out that: ”Despite his rhetoric, the
proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have
ordered the massacre of civilians in
Benghazi was not supported by the available
evidence.”
Further, two days before the 19 nation
onslaught: ‘On 17 March 2011, Muammar
Gaddafi announced to the rebels in Benghazi,
“Throw away your weapons, exactly like your
brothers in Ajdabiya and other places did.
They laid down their arms and they are safe.
We never pursued them at all.”
Subsequent investigation revealed that when
Gaddafi’s forces re-took Ajdabiya in
February 2011, they did not attack
civilians. “Muammar Gaddafi also attempted
to appease protesters in Benghazi with an
offer of development aid before finally
deploying troops.”
Professor Joffe agreed that Gaddafi’s words
were historically at odds with his deeds:
“If you go back to the American bombings in
the 1980s of Benghazi and Tripoli, rather
than trying to remove threats to the regime
in the east, in Cyrenaica, Gaddafi spent six
months trying to pacify the tribes that were
located there. The evidence is that he was
well aware of the insecurity of parts of the
country and of the unlikelihood (that
military assault was the answer.) Therefore,
he would have been very careful in the
actual response…the fear of the massacre of
civilians was vastly overstated.”
In
June 2011 an Amnesty International
investigation failed to find corroborative
evidence of mass human rights violations by
government troops but did find that: “the
rebels in Benghazi made false claims and
manufactured evidence” and that: “much
Western media coverage has from the outset
presented a very one-sided view of the logic
of events …”
CONDEMNATION; AIDING ISIS
The
Committee wrote damningly:
We
have seen no evidence that the UK
Government carried out a proper analysis
of the nature of the rebellion in Libya.
It may be that the UK Government was
unable to analyse the nature of the
rebellion in Libya due to incomplete
intelligence and insufficient
institutional insight and that it was
caught up in events as they developed.
It
could not verify the actual threat to
civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime;
it selectively took elements of Muammar
Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value; and it
failed to identify the militant Islamist
extremist element in the rebellion. UK
strategy was founded on erroneous
assumptions and an incomplete
understanding of the evidence.
Moreover: “The deployment of coalition air
assets shifted the military balance in the
Libyan civil war in favour of the rebels”,
with: “The combat performance of rebel
ground forces enhanced by personnel and
intelligence provided by States such as the
UK, France, Turkey, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates.” Lord Richards informed that
the UK “had a few people embedded” with the
rebel forces.
Arms and tanks were also provided to the
rebels by members of the “coalition” in
contravention of Resolution 1973.
Was
the aim of the assault regime change or
civilian protection? Lord Richard said: “one
thing morphed almost ineluctably in to the
other.”
The
Committee summarized: “The UK’s intervention
in Libya was reactive and did not comprise
action in pursuit of a strategic objective.
This meant that a limited
intervention to protect civilians drifted
into a policy of regime change by military
means.” (Emphasis added.)
The
Cameron-led UK government had “focused
exclusively on military intervention”, under
the National Security Council, a Cabinet
Committee created by David Cameron.
The
Committee’s final observation is:
We
note former Prime Minister David
Cameron’s decisive role when the
National Security Council discussed
intervention in Libya. We also note that
Lord Richards implicitly dissociated
himself from that decision in his oral
evidence to this inquiry. The Government
must commission an independent review of
the operation of the NSC … It should be
informed by the conclusions of the Iraq
Inquiry and examine whether the
weaknesses in governmental
decision-making in relation to the Iraq
intervention in 2003 have been addressed
by the introduction of the NSC.
Cameron who said he wanted to be “heir to
Blair” seems to have ended up as just that,
pivotal cheerleader for the butchery of a
sovereign leader, most of his family,
government and the destruction of a nation.
Muammar Gaddafi inherited one of the
poorest nations in Africa . However, by
the time he was assassinated, Libya was
unquestionably Africa ‘s most prosperous
nation. Libya had the highest GDP per
capita and life expectancy in Africa and
less people lived below the poverty line
than in the Netherlands. Libyans did not
only enjoy free health care and free
education, they also enjoyed free
electricity and interest free loans. The
price of petrol was around $0.14 per
liter and 40 loaves of bread cost just
$0.15. Consequently, the UN designated
Libya the 53rd highest in the world in
human development. (2)
End
note: David Cameron jumped ship yet a third
time – he refused to give evidence to the
Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
The full text of the Committee’s findings:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11905.htm#_idTextAnchor023
Notes
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/
-
http://www.countercurrents.org/chengu120113.htm
Copyright © Felicity Arbuthnot, Global
Research, 2016 |
