Tuesday 26 January 2010

Bring Jack Straw Back

An update: they are indeed bringing him back, as said on the Itchy, Scratchy and Brillo Pad Show earlier.

Of course I take advantage of watching the ongoing Iraq Inquiry. I am ambiguous whether they are asking sufficient punchy questions - like they didn't ask Jack Straw last week why he didn't resign as Foreign Secretary when he was so against the invasion. If he had resigned it would have stopped the war (surely a good outcome for his opinion) but would have led the government to fall (so the continuation of the government was more important than death and destruction in Iraq). But it now seems that Jack Straw told a fabrication of the whole evidence in his huffing and puffing through the inquiry and trying to make his own case. He never said what we learnt today: that both main legal officers said the invasion was illegal: one of whom, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, retired (or would have resigned), and the other who didn't, the senior law officer in the Foreign Office Sir Michael Wood. So the politician rejected the united legal advice of the department; furthermore the Attorney General, the government senior law officer, was against the war until giving his advice at the last minute while the troops were gathering. We need to learn if he was leaned upon.



These drawings were done looking at the BBC News Channel on television and going at speed, having to wait while the camera returned to questioners.

2 comments:

June Butler said...

I'd like to ask Colin Powell why he didn't refuse to spew lies and deceptions in his speech at the UN and resign if his boss insisted. And he knew the information was crap. I've heard that he stayed on in the Bush administration in hopes that his would be a tempering influence. Seems his hope didn't bear fruit.

I suppose that Bush would have gone to war without the cooperation of Blair and Co., but the whole cockamamie idea would have been a harder sell to the US Congress and people.

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

The thought passed my mind that as many in the British government identified with Colin Powell that he ought to come and give evidence: however, the inquiry focuses on the workings of the British government. Friday should be interesting when the star turn appears - I didn't realise that the BBC News website maintains a continuous live feed.