More should take lead from Maggie

“If the toe-rags of the TUC are wearing t-shirts celebrating Mrs. thatcher´s death, perhaps the decent people of Britain should wear t-shirts celebrating the death of Arthur Scargill, a traitor who attempted to bring down the elected government by acts of violence and who is an admirer of Stalin, the most evil mass-murderer in history.”

“This article, to me, reaffirms that the TUC are unable to move on from the salutary lessons they should have learnt in the years since the '80's.”

“@ depreg; Oh dear, no it's you that still doesn't get it. Strangely enough, countries with whom we have disputes brewing do not come clean with their true intents or circumstances. No matter how large the budget for MI5, MI6, GCHQ and any number of other quixotically named or numbered agencies (to say nothing of the foreign operators we share 'intel' with), there comes a point that when you're dealing with the defence of the realm and matters of national interest you have to make a judgement call based on the best info you have at the time, extrapolated to the worst case scenario.

You talk as if you believe Messrs Campbell and Blair personally knocked the dossier together with bit of 'cut and paste' word processing and presented the finished item as their 'what we did in the recess, 10 reasons to go to war' summer project...
In doing so you do a gross disservice to the members of our security services who labour to sieve signs of danger from a morass of idle threats, and also to the agents and informants who put themselves in harms way to discover what's real and what's just talk.

When it comes to the country's wellbeing, there's cross-party protocols and oversights in place before papers, debate and votes are held in Parliament. I'm afraid your simplistic version of responsibility might suit the colour of your politics but is wide of the mark.

Parliament as a whole voted on the best information that was available at the time, it was cobbled together and contained inaccuracy, but this is big boys stuff and there's no room in this game for 'benefit of the doubt' - if there's the slightest possibility a Scud missile could strike (and it doesn't necessarily have to be launched from Iraqi soil) at what stage would YOU declare it a threat?, after it explodes?

The intelligence turned out to be inexact, it happens; but within the context of Saddam's behaviour throughout was persuasive, parliament voted and decided the threat was creditable, 45 mins or otherwise.”

“@Graham_LE8

"The dossiers contained deceptive information that could not be verified at the time"

You've got it at last!!

Please point me to the time and place when Blair and/or Campbell EVER said their intelligence could not be verified. And what do you think Campbell was doing chairing JIC meetings, when he had no relevent experience whatsoever?

Rather, the two of them together combined to make possibilities and probabilities certainties, and, as Lord Butler found out, stretched the intelligence to the limit of credibility.

As for you claim of intelligence chatter - is this really a basis for going to war? Chatter?

And the 45 minute claim was based on the evidence of just one unreliable source. Either Blair should have carefully checked this, or he should have questioned the intelligence services. Either way he was negligent.”

“Blair was in bed with Gaddafi and sent Libya dissidents back to Libya to be tortured by the Libya regime , under the rendition system. All part of the Gaddafi, Blair agreement. Where Gaddafi supplied information to Blair's war on terror”

“Ultimately The British Parliament Voted to Go to War in Iraq.”

“Thatcher: Thatcher met her old friend General Augusto Pinochet on several occasions. I find that I am in agreement with Graham who stated: "I also know that history is riddled with despots who tried to brass neck out their latter days even though the writing was really on the wall for them."

Thatcher has many crimes to answer for, least of all her friendship with Pinochet - A hateful Man, a perfect match!”

“@ depreg; I'm not missing the point at all - the 'dodgy dossiers' you put so much stock into were compiled from intelligence chatter from within the Iraqi state - where no-one was prepared to give Saddam bad news (upon pain of death), as he was neither prepared to receive it, nor allow the UN weapons inspectors access to verify or discredit the widely held suspicion of WMD possession. Rather, as detailed extensively earlier, he used this situation as a tactic to strengthen his grip politically.

The dossiers were dodgy because they contained deceptive information that could not be verified at the time, but as evidence of government conspiracy they are not, misinterpretation maybe, overreaction (in hindsight) possibly...”

“Yet again you miss the point - please address yourself to the misleading of parliament, the dodgy dossiers and the 45 minute claim.”

“@ depreg; I understand more about the circumstances leading up to the invasion of Iraq than you give me credit for. I also know that history is riddled with despots who tried to brass neck out their latter days even though the writing was really on the wall for them. Ceausescu, Noriega, Pol Pot, al-Gaddafi ad infinitum, currently Mugabe and al-Assad are the latest.

Saddam Hussein was just another, an architect of his own demise, he needed to hold on to the fear factor to maintain his status regarding Iran, the Kurdish regions spanning the Turkish border, and Israel (to say nothing of his wider paranoia of his ex-allies in the West), and to suppress growing internal opposition within Iraq. The gulf war may have denuded Iraq of much of it's weaponry, but he could not afford to let his rivals know and see this as a weakness, additionally an internal policy of execution should any political or scientific agent suggest that re-armament wasn't possible created an environment that indicated strength and armed fortification in progress, where (with hindsight) it is now clearly understood the capability was no longer in place. To the intelligence services, this misinformation and the prevarication of the UN weapons inspectors led to one conclusion only - the tenancy of either the White House or Number 10 would only have affected the timing of the intervention (ie sooner rather than later I'll grant you), but would not change the decision to proceed.

As far as North Korea or Iran goes, or indeed Syria, there isn't the political will at this time (as there was with Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Former Yugoslavia for instance). Each little melting pot has it's own boiling point point I'm afraid, and the decision whether to let it simmer, boil over or turn off the gas is subject to many historical allegencies, diplomatic and cultural vagaries, some of which are beyond simple logic sometimes... but that's global politics for you.”