Inquiry on the Iraq War: Who is Accountable?

In June 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced an independent inquiry into the Iraq war, but the seriousness of the inquiry had already been jeopardised by claims of covering-up evidence. As an organisation that pushes for transparency and renewal of democratic processes, Action for UN Renewal held a public meeting to establish the truth about the Iraq War and put forward recommendations for the investigation. The event attracted a large audience, which led to an emotionally stimulated debate driven by a handful of Iraqi activists. We would like to thank the World Disarmament Campaign and Rita Payne (Chair) from the Commonwealth Journalists Association for supporting this event.

The Washington Post stated, “As of a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the US Intelligence agencies reported that no such relationship existed.” Therefore, what were Bush and Blair’s reason to instigate war? In the absence of an Iraq spokesperson, distinguished speakers, including General Sir Hugh Beach, Robert Fox (Evening Standard), Nick Grief (Prof., International Law), Nicholas Jones (Former BBC Political Correspondent ), and Vijay Mehta (Chair, Action for UN Renewal) explored various issues establishing the reasons, legality, and hidden agendas to the build-up to the war.

To open the debate, Vijay Mehta firmly indicated that the war on Iraq was a violation of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and America’s War Powers Act. Over 1.3 million Iraqi’s were killed against 4,500 US troops and 179 British, and even till this day more than 3 million people are displaced refugees. The decision to invade Iraq was taken well before 2003, and was certainly a “crime of aggression.” The 9/11 attack was the perfect excuse for Britain and America to declare into a pre-planned military adventure; in Sir Hugh Beach’s view, the perfect excuse to overthrow Saddam Hussein. While the former Iraqi President committed numerous humanitarian crimes to his people, no humanitarian crisis like the gassing of the Kurds in 1988 had taken place in 2003. The argument begins whether the West had the right to declare war on the assumption that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. It seemed quite clear that the Bush administration was continually justifying its decision as a means to protect the nation from “the continuing threat posed by Iraq,” however even now, there is no evidence of this.

As a lawyer, Nicholas Grief suggested that Tony Blair should be prosecuted for his ‘crime of aggression’ behaviour, however even British parliamentary law does not have the power to veto declaration of war, nor does it have set regulations in conducting ‘crime of aggression’ investigation. Former General Secretary Kofi Annan indicated the war “was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, [therefore] it was illegal.” Yet America to have declared war on Iraq despite pressure from the Security Council against the decision shows that the UN is in serious need of renewal as the US should not solitarily speak or act on behalf of the Security Council.

Robert Fox was sceptical that the war inquiry would truly establish evidence for war, due to what Robert described as “media massage.” He asked whether intelligence about the inquiry is credible, especially with the amount of ‘phoney propaganda’ and false documentation that is planted in the British and American media. Robert affirmed that the media dominates controls and manages the news to deceive its country and people. To confirm Robert’s claim, Nicholas Jones read out a conversation between media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair, with Murdoch praising Blair with the decision to go to war and his promise to back Blair through his media channels. It quickly became apparent that Murdoch was telling the truth when Nicholas exhibited front cover pages of The Sun supporting Blair’s re-election as Prime Minister and grand support for the Iraq War, with ridiculous headline news such as “The Sun takes on the Taliban”.

Recommendations

The Iraq inquiry should be a full transparent and accountable public inquiry with UN civil servants, weapons inspectors, leaders and others to come forward with evidence with its decision to war. The investigation should also include allegations of human rights violation and abuses committed by the British, while training remaining troops in peacekeeping, conflict prevention and reconciliation. The authorisation to go to war by the UK government and the Security Council urgently need to be reformed to prevent future conflicts. It was also recommended that the UK government should compensate the people of Iraq by restoring infrastructure and national heritage sites that were damaged or destroyed during the war.

The public will need to put pressure on the government to make sure the war inquiry has been fully investigated without the disruption of ‘media massage’ messages to enable full transparency. While it is important to hold the former Prime Minister account in co-leading the war, one person cannot take full responsibility for a near decade war, therefore the inquiry needs to establish allies and other instigators to take account.