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Wednesday, 19 March, 2008

  • Newsnight
  • 19 Mar 08, 06:47 PM

Iraq Special

branagh203x152.jpgFive years ago tonight, US bombers were preparing to attack targets in Baghdad. On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the war, a special Newsnight asks what went wrong, what have been the successes and what does the future hold for the country?

Jeremy Paxman will interview Tony Blair's former Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell and we will have guests from Britain, Iraq and Washington, including Richard Perle, the high profile conservative who enthusiastically backed the war, and Charles Kennedy who opposed the war here in the UK.

Newsnight will follow the final drama which tonight stars Kenneth Branagh as Colonel Tim Collins preparing his troops for battle.

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  • 1.
  • At 07:22 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • mary tobias wrote:

What is url?
George Bush says the world is a safer place five years one.
Does this man live on the planet Zog?
hopefully he will remain on such whilst others repair the damage
Mary Tobias

  • 2.
  • At 08:31 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • steve wrote:

I am looking forward to Jeremy's 'interview' with Powell. If the fawning sycophantic and demeaning charade of the Lord Hutton interview is repeated Jeremy's reputation will have ytrashed itself. I have never seena more subdued Jeremy Paxman. Lord Butler smiled throughoput the whole interview and we aere talking 175 UK lives here on a war that should have been avoided if all the usual precautions had been observed. None of the UN details were discussed, none of the ohoney 45 minute warnings that Blair was allowed to go without challenge. The C4 documentary the night before was an illustration of how we have plumbed the depths of human behaviour in this country when we have a supine Labour party that went along with all the guff that Blair threw at them and aided by an incompetant, weak Conservative party we have arrived at this sad stage. Jeremy had a perfect opportunity to at least put forward some of these points to Butler put let him get away with murder. The Westminster village cabal that created this war think that the ivory tower they live in is somehow aloof from the real world and that they are somehow insulated, I talk to people everyday who think that MP's are totally irrelevent. That is the tragedy. It is because they think they are immune from scrutiny they will carry on with this madness. Jeremy's surrender can only encourage them.

SHOCK AND AWE

I have never understood why the world did not seem to register that
SHOCK + AWE = TERROR. If the opening bombing campaign had been called
鈥淎ttack and Neutralise鈥 or 鈥淒isrupt and Weaken鈥 it would have been credible military strategy. But 鈥淪hock and Awe鈥 was clearly intended to demonstrate the TERRIFYING potential of Bush鈥檚 wrath to cowering Sadamite Evilists, with just a bit of COLLATERAL TERROR on the side. Terror is obviously like torture in the dense shrub mind of George; there is good American Terror and that stuff that the bad folks do.


BUSH

I looked up the meaning of 鈥淏ush鈥
You could say it鈥檚 鈥渄ense shrub鈥 at a push
Now this thick vegetation
Is leading a nation
We鈥檝e all gone to war in a rush.

  • 4.
  • At 10:48 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • David Statham wrote:

Just watched Justin Webs report, fascinating. Where he got 80,000 civilian deaths, it was 600,000 last summer, which the official Iraqi body count said was 400,000 short, so where his figures came from is very questionable.
sort it out 91热爆

  • 5.
  • At 11:01 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • David Hartfield wrote:

The soldiers truths -buried by the the US corporate media.

The Bush/Cheney/McCain media offensive on how well the war to liberate the Iraqi nation is proceeding without mentioning the estimated 1.3 million dead,2 million refugees,infrastructure destruction,lack of water and almost a complete loss of medical facilities etc.is taking front page in the business friendly media.

But in reality the returning service men and women are recounting the horrors of their experience, condeming Bush & co., calling for an end to the occupation,tearing up their merit awards in a two week event combined with Vietnam Vets..

Much to its credit 91热爆 Radio did a prog. on this last weekend.

The event is called a Winter Soldier -a reference to Thomas Paine-and can be seen on democracynow.com.

Its heart breaking stuff and should never be buried in the back pages of the US press but imprinted in all our consciences especially those of the criminals that brought this genocide about.

(Note: genocide need not be the total eradication of a people but the destruction of its culture and displacement eg. the North American Indians.)

  • 6.
  • At 11:09 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • Alan Firminger wrote:

After the first Gulf War, President George Bush, was asked why he did not go to Baghdad. He said "Because I did not want to stay there five years."

  • 7.
  • At 11:39 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • Thersites wrote:

Could the "rogue trader" undermining all these financial institutions be Osama bin Laden? Or his mates.

  • 8.
  • At 11:54 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • John wrote:

Hat's off to Newsnight, you've been talking about Iraq for a fortnight and have studiously managed to avoid discussing the control of strategic resources, the desire for the USA to have permanent bases in Iraq, the positioning of troops in relation to Iran and the Zionist agenda of the architects of the war. Not once has the 'Rebuilding America's Defenses', or the 'Clean Break' reports been touched upon. We've had talk of mistakes and poor panning, of our ambition to spread democracy going a wee bit wrong.

The 91热爆 is suffering from the same malaise that British politics is suffering from, it is afraid to give voice to anything but the narrowest of opinions. Not only has there been a glaring lack of strong advocates against US/UK imperial policy in the Middle East, you allow Perle to go largely unchallenged to the claim that the invasion of Iraq was to do with 9/11, al-Qaeda & WMD when no such thing was true.

There has been a whitewash in White City; the broken trust between the population and the government over the war is replicated with so many of the British people and their national broadcaster. Hang your heads in shame Newsnight, following orders from on high is no defence.

  • 9.
  • At 11:58 PM on 19 Mar 2008,
  • James McCann wrote:

In the Newsnight debate tonight,
Richard Perle was allowed to get away, without challenge, with distortion of the truth.

He started by saying they went to war because they "knew" Iraq had WMDs and the US feared they may be used against them.however everybody, except, it seems, Bush and Blair knew this was total nonsense and was proved to be absolute nonsense after the invasion. Later in the debate Perle said,The reason for the (illegal) invasion was to dispose of Saddam, which was achieved ,thereby justifying the war. This last utterance proves the war was illegal because imposing regime change is specifically banned under international law

  • 10.
  • At 12:38 PM on 20 Mar 2008,
  • wrote:

Hindsight is always 20/20!

  • 11.
  • At 01:40 PM on 20 Mar 2008,
  • John wrote:

Hat's off to Newsnight, you've been talking about Iraq for a fortnight and have studiously managed to avoid discussing the control of strategic resources, the desire for the USA to have permanent bases in Iraq, the positioning of troops in relation to Iran and the Zionist agenda of the architects of the war. Not once has the 'Rebuilding America's Defenses', or the 'Clean Break' reports been touched upon. We've had talk of mistakes and poor panning, of our ambition to spread democracy going a wee bit wrong.

The 91热爆 is suffering from the same malaise that British politics is suffering from, it is afraid to give voice to anything but the narrowest of opinions. Not only has there been a glaring lack of strong advocates against US/UK imperial policy in the Middle East, you allow Perle to go largely unchallenged to the claim that the invasion of Iraq was to do with 9/11, al-Qaeda & WMD when no such thing was true.

There has been a whitewash in White City; the broken trust between the population and the government over the war is replicated with so many of the British people and their national broadcaster. Hang your heads in shame Newsnight, following orders from on high is no defence.

  • 12.
  • At 04:08 PM on 20 Mar 2008,
  • John wrote:

In the 91热爆's own words, 鈥淚mpartiality involves breadth of view, and can be breached by omission.鈥

  • 13.
  • At 02:05 PM on 22 Mar 2008,
  • wrote:

" This is NOT about regime change, this is about WMDs capable of 45 minute deployment " A Liar.
Or was that a B Liar?

  • 14.
  • At 06:07 PM on 24 Mar 2008,
  • scott treadwell wrote:

illegal or legal like it or not this generation or the next would have had to go in to Iraq, if the Middleastern states really cared about there neighbours we would never have had to go in simple, when Iraq started this chain of events many moons a go which countries in that frankly hot and horrid part of the world got involved and i don't mean someone going on the TV and saying this is wrong, actually putting men and equipment on the ground.pull are guys out of Iraq and Afghanistan. government needs to start spending some serious money on alternative energy, build nuclear power plants we could use are soldiers to protect them聽 if the government and the opposition made serious plan on these issues we could stay away from that region for good.in short get a working alternative to oil based fuels and we as a country have a chance at a peaceful future, if not then everybody who lives here should be prepared for the worst, pull them out or give them everything and i mean everything the men on the ground need to win.

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