Chilcot Report And The Iraq War

tony-balir-chilcot-report

Inspired by the Hollywood thriller movie plot ‘The Rock’ the intelligence agencies of the United States and the United Kingdom fabricated evidence leading to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 which resulted in the sufferings of millions of people in the Middle East and deaths of many hundred soldiers of the United States, the United kingdom and of several other countries that formed the coalition against Iraq. The revelations made by the Chilcot Report on 6 July 2016, a British Public Inquiry on UK’s role in the Iraq War 2003 are shocking and disturbing. It provoked the mother of a British soldier killed in the war to declare the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair the “world’s worst terrorist”. After the report was made public, Tony Blair’s Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott stated that the Iraq War was illegal and he quoted the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who is reported to have said in 2004 that as regime change was the prime aim of the Iraq War, it was illegal.

The Report is also a damning verdict against the Republican President George W. Bush as it found that President George W Bush and his aides exaggerated intelligence to make a case for invading Iraq, and that planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam were “wholly inadequate”.

If one is not conscious of the fact that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind, it would have been the reaction to the Chilcot report: President George (Hitler) Bush should be tried by the World Court or by the US judiciary for lying to world and waging a war on deliberately fabricated reports against a nation which was the most progressive state of the Middle East. He should be sent to Abu Ghraib prison to go through the similar kind of horror and torture that the innocent Iraqi citizens faced at the hands of American authorities, imprisoned for few months in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp to understand the plight of those who were kept over there without any fair trial, and then should be hanged on the day of Christmas in a televised execution as was Saddam Hussein hanged on the day of Eid al Azha. He should face this punishment for his crime against humanity, his shameless lies to his own people that resulted in the deaths of many hundred US soldiers in an unwarranted war, for killing more than two million Iraqis, for destabilizing West Asia, for making woman widows, children orphans, mothers and fathers crying for their sons and daughters killed in the massive bombings and counter invasion fight. Then Tony Blair and all other coalition leaders who formed the axis of evil during the attack on Iraq should also be tried for submitting to a psychopath leader who unfortunately led the mightiest power on earth at that time. These leaders, officers, administrators should also be punished for creating a fertile breeding ground for terrorism in the Middle East which ultimately led to the formation of the  most dreaded terrorist conglomeration of our time i.e. , ISIS.

Paul Bremer who led the occupational authority of Iraq after the invasion 2003 should be tried for imposing neoliberal agenda of the foreign policy of the United States and scripting the plight of Iraqis and other several million people in the Middle East. This is evident from what is revealed from the contracts/orders signed in Baghdad in 2003 by him. Adam Hanieh goes for an insightful analysis of these little noticed military orders: Order no.39, signed on 19 September 2003 allowed for the privatization of around 200 state-owned enterprises with leases given for at least forty years.“ Overnight it became illegal to restrict foreign ownership in any part of the Iraqi economy except resource extraction. Order no. 37 set the tax rate for multinational companies at a flat 15 per cent, with no distinction between corporation and individuals.” The effect of this Order is that “a poor Iraqi farmer would pay the same tax as the U.S. multinational Bechtel, the company contracted to run Iraq’s privatized water system.” This is nothing but the example of victor’s justice imposed upon the defeated people. We should keep in mind that similar kind of acts and imposition of unjust treaties had plunged the mankind into the horrors of the Second World War. The analysis of these Orders further reveals that the war on Iraq was imposed not for any other reason but for pursuing an imperialist agenda aggressively promoted by the neoliberal capitalists of the United States. It is evident from the fact that in 2003, after the occupation of Baghdad, Bremer had signed “a trade liberalization law that abolished all tariffs, custom duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods.” Moreover, to provide a license to exploit a defeated country and its people freely, Order no.17 was signed under which foreign companies were given immunity from Iraqi law in regards to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract.

And then, the US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump who seems to have similar gene like the Bush and who has openly expressed his horrible intentions, should be told that what the US inherits today — the culture of terrorism and violence is basically the legacy of his Republican predecessor.

In India, the then Prime Minister’s offer of unconditional support to the United States in the so-called war on terror declared personally by George W. Bush must be condemned. It should be condemned for eroding the moral authority and respect India commanded in the international arena for championing the cause of the third world, for opposing imperialism, for leading the non-aligned movement.

At last, all the people in different parts of the world who opposed the invasion on Iraq and participated in the anti-war protests should be appreciated and congratulated for upholding the spirit of peace, brotherhood and mutual goodwill at the time when the persons with power and authority were trying to construct an international conscience supporting violence and horror. The Chilcot report should also be a reminder to all those who are engaged in senseless violence in the Middle East and other parts of the world that the truth prevails over the bundles of lies spoken cleverly even by the most influential people and there is always enough space for getting justice with peaceful means. And that the people of the United States, the U.K. and of other countries have nothing to do with the decisions made by their leaders who lied to them, and therefore, these people should not be made the target of attack for the crime they have not committed at all.

M Mohibul Haque, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, AMU Aligarh, India

 

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