Downing Street Says

Asked if the British Government was concerned that US troops had used white phosphorous in combat in Fallujah and what was the British military’s policy on the use of white phosphorous, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that use of white phosphorous by the US was a matter for the US Government. British forces did possess white phosphorous but it was used for producing smoke. This was how it was being used in Iraq. We had also signed the third protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, which covered incendiary weapons.

Asked if the brush that tarred US activity also tarred the British Government, as it was a major part of the coalition, the PMOS said that what he had heard on this was assertion rather than evidence and as such it was better for the US to deal with this matter. However it might be useful to put Fallujah into context again. It was important to remember first and foremost that efforts were made to settle the Fallujah issue by the Iraqi Government in a peaceful way. The offer to talk was made but the insurgents had refused that offer. The approach of the Iraqi Government had always been that the future of Iraq should be settled by elections not by insurgency such as we had seen in Fallujah. Asked if the policy on the convention was clearly understood by our troops out in Iraq, the PMOS said that operational detail was a matter for the Ministry of Defence to comment on. However, as a matter of broad policy we made every effort to ensure that our troops understood the rules of engagement. Asked to confirm for clarification that our troops had used white phosphorous in Iraq, the PMOS said yes as had been made clear by the MOD.

Asked what impact the 16 December elections would have on deployment in Iraq and whether it would facilitate withdrawal, the PMOS said that people should first of all recognise the significant achievement that the elections would represent. 15 million voters had registered for the elections next month. That was on top of the 10 million that had voted for the referendum. 317 parties and over 1000 lists had registered. In terms of public engagement and the rise of democracy the election would be a major step forward not least because there was clear evidence that the Sunni parties were engaging in the electoral process in a way that they had not done last January. That was very encouraging. The situation on troops was, as John Reid and the Prime Minister had set out, that the capability of the Iraqi forces had to be such that they were able to take responsibility for the security of their country. You would also have to take into account the view of the new Iraqi Government.

Put to him that articles in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph today had suggested that after the elections there would be a marked change in emphasis and language, instead of talking about capability of the Iraqi forces it would switch to troop withdrawal unless the insurgency prevented that, the PMOS said that he did not quite see the argument. The capability of the Iraqi forces was growing all the time. Their ability to take on lead roles in countering the insurgency was now significantly increased. This was not a new process. The first time that we set this out was in April 2004. This was a policy that had been a long time in gestation and in essence had not changed in that period. Asked how we would characterise the planning for withdrawal, the PMOS said he would not provide a running commentary on where we were because it all depended on the capability of the Iraqi forces to take the weight as well as the views of the new Iraqi government.

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"Asked what impact the 16 December elections would have on deployment in Iraq and whether it would facilitate withdrawal, the PMOS said that people should first of all recognise the significant achievement that the elections would represent. 15 million voters had registered for the elections next month. That was on top of the 10 million that had voted for the referendum. 317 parties and over 1000 lists had registered."

Please! There are 300 MILLION people in supposedly democratic America – but that didn’t stop BushCo from fiddling at least one election (and more than likely 3 in total, so far). Here in the UK, the supposed home of democracy, we are trying to push through legislation to bring back internment, and our own track record on voting fraud is not the best in the world, as the bi-elections in Birmingham and Manchester last year should remind people.

So how the PMOS can keep a straight face while pointing to a load of statistics about supposedly democratic elections in Iraq (a country under military occupation and on the brink of civil war, let’s not forget) and actually expect people to BELIEVE them is beyond me. I mean, we KNOW how many people have enrolled, how many parties, blah de blah. But at the end of all that it still didn’t stop the USA from getting it’s own puppet (Chalabi the Embezzler) to within spitting distance of the hot seat – and may well yet eventually sit in that seat. So I find the PMOS assertions laughable in the extreme, and I only wonder how supposedly honest and honourable people can continue to peddle such obvious lies without having some kind of breakdown (preferably in front of the cameras, though!)

And right from the off the use of the words "insurgents" and "insurgency" demonstrates quite amply that the PMOS and the rest of the government (for whom the PMOS is effectively a mouthpiece) care nothing for the truth of the matter. For they know that there is no insurgency; there is a resistance movement, sure, but it is an outright and outrageous LIE (I wish I could really give that word the emphasis it truly deserves…) to attempt to claim that all anti-Coalition activity is part of an insurgency. As many of us have pointed out time and time again, how would YOU react if the bloody Yanks were strolling around YOUR streets waving their guns around, and kicking your doors in when you’re sitting down to dinner?

And let’s not forget the (less than) honourable part played by the main stream media; apologists and facilitators for a corrupt government, one and all. Their silence condemns them to a fate worse than a fate worse than death. I think Edmund Blackadder said that.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 16 Nov 2005 on 6:19 pm | Link

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» Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Iraq

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