Tony,
I thought I’d let the dust settle and egg yolks harden before writing this letter. I wanted to give you time to assess and digest the experience, to let it sink in a little. I’m referring to the defiant and determined public demonstrations against your attempts to publicise your book ‘The Journey’.
The ordinary ‘common folk’ of Ireland sent you a clear message that they were, and still are totally opposed to your decision to go to war in Iraq. They made that very clear to you at your first signing. It must have been a bit of a shock, but no doubt you thought they were just a few fanatics exercising their rights and it couldn’t possibly happen in London, where the society is a little more sophisticated and you’re adored by the people.
You soldiered on totally ignoring the opinions of the common folk and decided you’d have another go, because you thought that what you were doing was right. The exact same excuse you used for invading Iraq.
What a mistake that was!, the first signing in London I mean, as you only narrowly avoided being arrested in public by another concerned and determined citizen trying to exercise her right to a Civil Arrest, on charges of War Crimes. Luckily you had about twelve security guards to protect you from this woman, or it could have been extremely embarrassing when she tried to handcuff you.
As you quickly began to get the message, you decided it might be wiser not to put yourself out there among the common folk, those who have the rights to protest and are just “not listening”, as you referred to us when we told you not to go to war, and instead skulk away to the privacy of the Tate, a nice place where only a certain kind of people can get in, you would of course feel more comfortable amongst the sycophants and smilers who would allow you to revel in the false praise undisturbed.
You could have shown off your own art under the title ‘Blair the war years’
A picture of a barrel of oil, titled ‘The Reason’
A blank canvas titled ‘Weapons of Mass Distraction’
And a private showing of a very special piece, a portrait of the death, destruction and carnage after ‘Shock & Awe’ titled ‘Mission Accomplished’
Someone must have whispered in your ear ‘They just don’t like you Tony’ so you cancelled the private event because of the ‘the inevitable hassle’.
A remark I find flippant and insulting, it may lead some to believe that you regard the British, voting, tax paying public’s ability, determination and right to express their repulsion over the decisions made by a former Prime Minister, which reluctantly led the country to a war which is still continuing, as hassle! That does seem to be the way you think though. It’s as if you were trying to swat away an annoying insect that constantly buzzes around your nose whenever you step outdoors.
On the major issues of going to war, the criticism and opposition you received then was a lot stronger, the huge anti war demonstrations in London before the invasion of Iraq, the lack of necessary UN resolutions to justify the action of war and the resigning from your cabinet of prominent MPs in protest against your decision was an insect with a bigger bite, but hey ho, again you soldiered on because you thought that what you were doing was right. You completely forgot that you were working as a servant for the people.
Now on a more serious note, I can go into the reasons why I, millions of others and most importantly the Iraqi people knew you were wrong.
You said that “War became a nightmare I failed to foresee” I would like to invite you on a different kind of journey now Tony, one that will take you through the wide awake reality that is the humanitarian catastrophe of Iraq. The reality YOU helped to create.
Your decision to invade a country that was of no threat to us at that time has put Britain and the World at more risk. I've heard your excuses. Saddam was out of control, but it’s not surprising his confidence was growing as he had been rubbing shoulders with the big boys (US Govt) who were gladly selling him their weapons long before anyone decided he was a threat. Making deals with Mr. Rumsfeld and Co in 1983, shaking hands and smiling. The unprecedented and ugly rise in "Islamophobia" in the UK since 2003 is a direct result of your decision to do George Bush’s bidding and your continued demonising of Islam.
Some reasons why we should not have invaded, Iraq was already on its knees in 2003 due to the economic sanctions imposed in1990. Sanctions were the direct cause of increases in illnesses such as Diarrhea and Acute Lower Respiratory Infections. These conditions accounted for 70% of the total deaths in children under the age of five in 2003. Conditions that were easily treatable with simple medicines, unavailable due to sanctions. Cholera and Dysentery became endemic in Iraq in the early 90’s due to the destruction of sewerage treatment plants, electricity stations and the lack of sanitation and huge overcrowding.
Children were dying from de-hydration because no pediatric IV’s were available to the doctors, due to sanctions. Sanctions blocked the sale of Iraq’s oil which contributed to 95% of the country’s wealth. The import of all goods was blocked.
Telecommunications systems were completely destroyed.
UNICEF released a report in 1995 on the effects of sanctions saying “The use of sanctions is yielding a minimum of political dividends against a high human price paid mainly by women and children” UNICEF also reported that less than 60% of the daily calorific intake needed was being provided by US aid. The water and sanitation systems are in a state of collapse, there is a critical shortage of life saving drugs” United Nations Children’s Fund 1995 (UNICEF)
The oil for food programme was then introduced in 1996. This programme provided only a drop in the ocean compared to the real needs of the Iraqi people. The corruption was rife amongst US officials and their Iraqi stooges and as this was happening Saddam was getting fat by selling his oil on the black market.
It is also known that at this time Halliburton in collusion with Dick Cheney, were selling Saddam drilling equipment for his wells. Making a complete mockery of the sanctions imposed.
Another study by UNICEF in 1997 reported that over 1 million children in Southern Iraq were chronically malnourished, a 72% increase since 1991. A UNICEF representative in Baghdad said “The children are bearing the brunt of the hardship” (Phillip Heffink 1997)
Malnourished mothers were giving birth to starving babies and a serious lack of incubators meant that up to four small babies would be placed in one incubator at a time. No new incubators were allowed due to sanctions.
There were marked increases of women giving birth to babies with serious defects and deformities in Southern Iraq. It is claimed that these defects were caused by Cancers from exposure to ionised radiation from depleted uranium weapons used in the Gulf War.
In total 1.2 to 1.8 million Iraqis died from starvation due to sanctions.
It beggars belief that you would want to invade a country with such force and destruction when they had already been dying and suffering for so long.
The reasons the US wanted to invade Iraq.
The perfect storm of special interest with Iraq was formed by the usual suspects in the US Govt, The Bush Family, Dick Cheney and Halliburton, Condoleezza Rice and Zalmay Khalizad. Another group who had an agenda other than the liberation of the Iraqi people were the Zionist Neo Conservatives within the US Government. Richard Perle, Chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defence and David Wurmser.
Their main agenda was to control the oil coming from that area. Period.
This suited Dick Cheney because of his connections with Halliburton and the potential millions the company could amass. It suited Condoleezza Rice a former member of the board at Chevron, who also had an oil tanker named after her. It suited the Bush family and could finish what Bush Senior had started with the Gulf War and it suited the puppet Zalmay Khalizad who was inserted by the US to run the country. His only credentials were that he had been on the board at Chevron with Ms Rice; he was previously the US Ambassador toAfghanistan and Iraq. He doesn't even speak Arabic.
The interests of the Neo Cons were more sinister than controlling oil. In 1996 Perle, Feith and Wurmser were employed within a lobby working for Benjamin Netanyahu.
They produced a policy report for the US Govt. titled ‘A clean break, a new strategy for securing the realm’ their ideas to secure the realm advised to, cut off negotiations with Yasser Arafat.
Launch assaults on the occupied territories of Palestine and depose Saddam.
These were US officials with absolutely no loyalty to the US, working for Benjamin Netanyahu, determined to promote their agenda to support the Zionist State of Israel.
US Special Forces flew to Israel for training by Israel Special Forces. Israeli Special Forces flew to Fort Bragg in the US for training.
IDF canine units were used to intimidate Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
The US Special Forces took advice from the IDF on how to contain and manage the rise in use of IED’s in Iraq.
So Tony, if you had told us before the invasion that you wanted to send British soldiers to Iraq to die while defending Israel’s security and interests and to help the US take control of the oil and make lots of money. For our boys to back up and defend the US troops, whilst they pillage, rape, torture, murder, demean and humiliate a whole population mercilessly, it wouldn’t have been a good sell. Instead you pointed at Saddam and said “It’s him, he did it, he’s got WMD’s, he gassed the Kurds, he can attack within 45 minutes and he’s out of control”
This was a better sell.
To convince the public we were presented with controlled stereotypical images by the media of young angry Arab men, chanting in a language we didn’t understand, dressed in black, brandishing weapons, burning flags, their faces half covered.
We didn't see images of tiny babies blown to pieces by cluster bombs, weeping fathers carrying the broken, bleeding and maimed bodies of their children, grieving mothers crying in desperation. A child sitting next to the decapitated body of its mother, crying. These images of grief, death and carnage we did not see in the media.
War Crimes.
The aggressive invasion of Iraq was illegal. Every law applicable confirms this conclusion. There are no grey areas, no extenuating circumstances. According to the law. A WAR CRIME.
The determined and premeditated act of Genocide through sanctions. A war crime
The use of White Phosphorous in civilian areas is banned in warfare, but was widely used inIraq, with civilian casualties. A war crime.The use of Napalm in civilian areas is banned in warfare, but was used in Iraq, in civilian areas. A war crime.Cluster bombs contain multiple bomblets, up to 300 razor sharp and lethal fragments deploy on explosion.20% don’t explode and lie on the ground as potential landmines, they are also coincidentally coloured exactly the same fluorescent yellow colour as the food packs that were distributed by the US. A small hungry child would think nothing about picking one of these up, many did, with lethal consequences. This is a war crime.
98% of the casualties suffering injuries caused by Cluster bombs were civilians. This is a war crime.
UK forces used about 1.9 metric tones of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003, in civilian areas, alongside a range of toxic anti-personnel weapons, this is war crime.
In house raids, women and children as young as 7 were bound with plastic handcuffs, this inhumane treatment of civilians is a war crime.
None of the areas known to the coalition as highly contaminated by depleted uranium have been treated, cordoned off or made known to the people who live in or nearby those areas. They are still drinking the water, breathing the air and women are giving birth to babies with two heads, still borns and those with serious deformities. For decades to come the Iraqi’s, their children and great grand children will suffer from Cancers as a result. A war crime.
In June 2005 a survey was conducted of 13 hospitals by an Iraqi named Dahr Jamail. From 2004 to 2005 there were 4 new cases per week of Cancer diagnosis in Baghdad after shock & awe. There was no money being distributed to the hospitals as promised by the coalition. There was a serious lack of equipment due to looting and sanctions.In the Arabic children’s hospital the Cancer ward was full to capacity. No epidemiological studies could be carried out to find the cause, due to lack of security and resources, things that were promised by the coalition.
270’000 children were born from 2003 to 2006 in Iraq, not one of these children received immunizations’ to prevent disease. A war crime 68% of the population had no access to safe, clean water and only 19% had sewerage access.
243 million dollars was provided by US admin in early 2006 to build 142 health centres’s, by April 2006 only 20 had been built, none of them actually opened for service because of lack of equipment and the money had vanished. Millions of dollars set aside for the health care of the neediest people, just vanished.
In 2006 an estimated 2’000 doctors had been murdered, 250 physicians had been kidnapped, 164 nurses had been murdered and 174 injured. They were not protected by the coalition. A war crime.
In 2008 there were an estimated 9’000 doctors left in Iraq and only 15’000 nurses to serve the whole population. There was no health care in the remote areas and most of those still in Iraqwere junior doctors and nurses with inadequate training to deal with the carnage.
A report from the Guardian in April 2007 quoted a member of the International committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as saying “The plight of the Iraqi civilians is a daily reminder that there has long been a failure to respect their lives and dignity”
The massacre of Fallujah caused the deaths of 6 to 8’000 men, women and children. “The toxic legacy of the assault on Fallujah is worse that Hiroshima” (The Independent 24/07/10) The Red Crescent were blocked from entering Fallujah to attend to the wounded for 7 days by coalition forces. A war crime.
The total body count in Fallujah was higher than the total of deaths within all the coalition forces for the whole of the operation Enduring Iraqi Freedom.
God help us all for the crimes that were committed there.
The horror that was Abu Ghraib. 70% to 90% of those arrested by coalition forces were wrongly detained and never charged. The torture and death of Iraqi’s, whilst in detention. A war crime.
You must now see Tony, these are the main reasons why we don’t like you, but apart from the long since uncovered lies, the deceit and corruption, the intensifying of violence of the state, the broken lives, the shattered families, splintered society, breakdown of law and order, looting and collapse of the economy and disenfranchisement of the people under a nightmare parody of democracy.
There is the sensitive issue of how much money you’re now making from this almighty mother of mistakes. So sensitive that you will go to great lengths to make sure we don’t find out. Why is that Tony? I have a question, if the Middle East is so unstable, dangerous and governed by religious fanatics, why do you have your sticky fingers in so many of its money pies?
There is the sensitive issue of how much money you’re now making from this almighty mother of mistakes. So sensitive that you will go to great lengths to make sure we don’t find out. Why is that Tony? I have a question, if the Middle East is so unstable, dangerous and governed by religious fanatics, why do you have your sticky fingers in so many of its money pies?
Tony Blair Associates, worth £5 million a year. First deals of the business were made with UAE & Kuwait. Windrush & Firerush Ventures, a network of 12 businesses, which exploit a legal loophole allowing you not to publish your commercial income. Consultancy with JP Morgan, worth £2 million a year.
Consultancy with Zurich Financial Services, worth £500’000 a year. A report for the Kuwait Royal family on the future of the oil rich state earned you £1 million.
I wonder how much BP greased your palm with after you negotiated with Colonel Gaddafi for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Days later BP announced its £545 million deal and now you’re talking with Tesco and advising them on their plans to set up shop in the Middle East, another £1 million deal. Well I suppose every little helps doesn’t it Tone?
