'Dragged into a war on false pretences'

By Paul Tate

The long awaited Butler report was finally published on Wednesday. The report took six months to complete and focused, like its counterpart in the US, on the intelligence that was used to justify the war on Iraq. Unlike the Senate report, Butler''s was quintessentially English - carefully crafted and constructed in such a way as not to offend anyone.
This was to be expected. Butler is a former Cabinet secretary and an establishment insider in the full sense of the term. Whereas the US inquiry a week ago cut straight to the chase, with Senator Jay Rockefeller stating aggressively that Congress was misled and adding "we went to war on false claims", Butler''s style was far more subtle in both tone and delivery.
Nevertheless, although the language was cautious, there was plenty of meat for those discerning enough to pick through the niceties. Plenty of mmunition to fire at Prime Minister Tony Blair - despite the fact that Butler himself remained perched firmly and securely on the fence, with every criticism quickly followed by a qualifier. The inquiry concluded that there were "serious intelligence flaws", but Butler saw no evidence of "culpable negligence".
The report stated that the 45-minute claim should never have been included in the September 2002 dossier. This was the dossier on which Blair''s argument for military action was based. Butler, however, despite agreeing that the claim may have been inserted for its "eye catching quality" - refused to make the connection that it was inserted to sell the war to parliament and to the general public. The report strongly criticised the government''s claim that the above dossier was "owned by the Joint Intelligence Committee", which it was not.
This claim gave credibility and legitimacy to the government''s case for war. The report makes clear how Blair saw fit to remove all the qualifiers. In the Blair version, possibilities became certainties and maybes became definites. A selective approach to the intelligence was used, giving the impression that the intelligence was solid when it was not. But yet again, Butler refrained from accusing the government of sexing up the document and maintained that the government had "acted in good faith".
Another criticism was aimed at the "informality of decision making" in No. 10 and the concentration of power in only a few chosen allies of the prime minister. Apparently, according to the report, Cabinet meetings were called at short notice and ministers were given no advance notice of the issues to be discussed, giving them no time to receive adequate briefing - thus, no awkward questions for Blair. But according to Butler, there was no reason to suggest that this style is "any less effective". And this was the nature of the report, criticism followed by qualification.
Despite the litany of failures detailed in the report, apparently no one is to blame. The British citizens were drip fed faulty intelligence - selective and "eye-catching" intelligence over the period of a year - including, let us not forget, a plagiarised PhD thesis complete with typographical errors, yet according to his lordship, no one is to blame. Prime Minister Blair chose to leave out important information and insert other "eye-catching" information that, according to Butler, should "not have been in the September 2002 dossier, yet no one is to blame.
According to Butler, "there was no case for stating that the parliament and the British public had been misled". So what are we to make of this? The report, while giving plenty of mmunition to the government''s critics, also cushions every blow in the true English spirit of fair play. But we are not talking about a game of cricket here or a game of polo. We are talking about war. The most unevenly contested conflict in the history of modern warfare. And let us not forget the fact that it was this "flawed intelligence" - this "selective" and "eye-catching" information - that was sold to the British public by Blair with the cunning of a second hand car salesman and the zeal of a TV evangelist.
This is what won Blair the March 2003 vote in the House of Commons to pursue his war - a war that according to the Sir Christopher Meyer, the ex-British ambassador to Washington, was planned in September 2001 during dinner with George W. Bush. Although Butler''s thoroughly British report will be seen by Blair as closure to the whole affair, MPs and the British public will see it differently. Both will feel hoodwinked by Blair. Should the UK face a serious threat of war in the near future, it is doubtful whether Blair would be believed.
This could have grave consequences for the security of the UK. Also, in drawing the intelligence services into the political process, Blair has done the country a great disservice at a critical time when trust in these services is essential in the face of the real threat to the UK from international terrorism. What is absolutely clear from the Butler report is that the UK was dragged into a war on false pretences. It is simply just not good enough for Blair to claim now that getting rid of Saddam wasrestore public confidence in the government, a full public enquiry should be conducted into the political judgements that resulted in the Iraq war.

The writer is former lecturer at the University of Durham, UK. He ontributed this article to The Jordan Times. Friday-Saturday, July 16-17, 2004