|
TONY BLAIR - LIAR OF THE CENTURY
- DESTROYER OF
ENGLAND AND ITS ANCIENT CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATION - TRAITOR
AND INVADER - CLOSE FRIEND OF WARMONGER GEORGE W. BUSH.
*
PETER OBORNE
ON POLITICS AND POWER
[Daily Mail - Saturday
,October 18, 2008]
As it's confirmed Blair lied to PARLIAMENT
over Ecclestone, I can reveal he lied to them again - and
here's my proof.
BUT for the collapse of the
financial markets, last week's devastating revelation that
Tony Blair lied to Parliament at the height of the
Ecclestone affair would have had a far more deadly impact.
While prime minister, Mr
Blair shamefully
misled MP's by claiming the decision to exempt Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Motor Sport from the Government ban
on tobacco advertising was made through normal Whitehall
processes -when the TRUTH was that the DECISION
was MADE BY BLAIR personally within hours of
a meeting with the MILLIONAIRE TYCOON in DOWNING STREET.
NOW I can provide compelling
evidence that the former prime minister LIED to PARLIAMENT
over an infinitely more serious matter -the extent of
BRITISH GOVERNMENT knowledge of what was happening in the
Iraqi prison- ABU GHRAIB ....
This disturbing story dates
back to May 2004, when leaked documents and shocking
photographs exposed the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners by
their American captors.
After the international
outcry, the reputation of American troops and, more
worryingly that the whole coalition operation in Iraq, was
irreparably tainted.
YET when the news of the
atrocities came to light in the Press, Tony Blair played
dumb and merely expressed surprise. He told MPS that neither
he nor any
MEMBER OF HIS GOVERNMENT
had known about the
barbaric scenes.
'It is not correct that
ministers or I were aware of these allegations in respect of
American troops.' the prime minister told the then Tory
leader Michael Howard.'
HOWEVER, I CAN PROVE that
despite Tony Blair's glib assurances, his MINISTERS knew
what was going on inside ABU GHRAIB. Last week Bill
Rammell, who at the time was a junior Foreign Office
minister and has recently been promoted to
MINISTER OF STATE
issued a
STATEMENT
confirming
THAT HE HAD KNOWN THE
TRUTH.
He had been briefed during
a meeting in
GENEVA
by the
PRESIDENT of the
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE of the RED CROSS
which had been
investigating the abuses.
This meeting took place
seven weeks before the atrocities became public
knowledge and Abvu Ghraib become a byword for
AMERICAN BRUTALITY.
To his credit, Rammell says
he was so shocked by the revelations that he IMMEDIATELY
convened an EMERGENCY MEETING of FOREIGN OFFICE officials.
In his statement, he
said:
'I was ASSURED that
DEFENCE MINISTERS were ALREADY AWARE of the ALLEGATIONS and
that ACTIONS were BEING TAKEN by the MINISTRY OF DEFENCE to
deal with the ALLEGATIONS, which was THE CASE.'
The minister's comments
this week released in response to my column last Saturday,
in which I accused him of
DOING NOTHING.
I NOW ACCEPT, in
view of his FRESH EXPLANATION that RAMMELL behaved in a
BETTER LIGHT than I had suggested. But the irony is that, in
the process of SAVING HIS OWN SKIN he has IMPUGNED the
HONESTY of his old boss TONY BLAIR. For his
version of events is IMPOSSIBLE to square with the one that
the former PM gave to the COMMONS four years ago.
Thanks to Rammell, we now
know that at the very moment when Tony Blair was claiming
ignorance of Abu Ghraib, there was a wide pool of
ministerial knowledge, including MINISTERS at the MINISTRY
of DEFENCE and the FOREIGN OFFICE. Such a deception is also,
of course, a clear
BREACH of the RULES of
the HOUSE of COMMONS.
According to the
MINISTERIAL CODE
drawn up by
TONY BLAIR
himself in 2001:
'It is of paramount
importance that ministers give accurate and truthful
information to PARLIAMENT, correcting any inadvertent error
at the earliest opportunity.'
Even if Tony Blair had
innocently misled the HOUSE in his original statement of May
12, he never made any attempt
TO PUT THE FACTS RIGHT
As a result, the former
PM's conduct appears utterly cynical and a blatant
contradiction of al the rules of
DECENCY and MORALITY.
The Commons Speaker ,
Michael Martin has already - very commendably - launched a
Commons Inquiry into the revelations that
BLAIR MISLED PARLIAMENT
during the
ECCLESTONE AFFAIR.
He must widen this
investigation to embrace Blair's statement to the Commons
about Abu Ghraib.
Furthermore, Bill Rammell's
statement raises other serious questions. For example, who
were those
DEFENCE MINISTERS
who knew about the
U.S. ATROCITIES
and
DID THEY ALERT ANYONE
ELSE?
Yesterday, I sought to
contact all four of the ministers who served at the Ministry
of Defence at the time of the Abu Ghraib:
GEOFF HOON
ADAM INGRAM
LORD BACH
and
IVOR CAPLIN
I asked what details they
had known and what action they took. I also approached the
Ministry of Defence itself.
By the time the
Daily Mail went to press last night, none of these ministers
had offered a reply that went beyond a
REFUSAL TO COMMENT
SO WHAT is the TRUTH about ABU GHRAIB?
WHY DID
Tony Blair
MISLEAD
the
HOUSE of
COMMONS?
Of
course it is impossible to give a clear answer. But I
would guess all the key players in the
BRITISH GOVERNMENT
knew something had gone horribly wrong at Abu Ghraib by
February,2004.
Ministers and officials would also have known that the
correct course of action would have been to protest to our
American allies in the strongest terms about the inhumane
treatment of
IRAQI PRISONERS.
But there was a problem that it was the Blair
Government's policy not to upset President Bush or the U.S.
So the unspoken -and dishonourable -decision was made to
pretend that Britain did not know what was going on.
This egregious course of events means that,
from a very early stage, the
BRITISH GOVERNMENT
was complicit with the
AMERICANS
in
THE SCANDAL OF ABU
GHRAIB
Moreover, this disreputable
episode is not only a reminder of the shameful
BRITISH DEPENDENCE on
the U.S.
it also provides
FRESH EVIDENCE
of how ready
TONY BLAIR WAS TO LIE
and thus degrade the
STANDARDS OF PUBLIC LIFE
This week's embarrassing revelations are yet
more evidence that the
REPUTATION
of the
BLAIR PREMIERSHIP
is unravelling before our eyes.
In the coming weeks, this column will expose
some other examples of how the former PRIME MINISTER
LIED TO PARLIAMENT
One of the main reasons that Gordon Brown was
welcomed into Downing Street last year was that he seemed,
in contrast, a fairly honest man.
But the news that Alastair
Campbell , for so many years Tony Blair's LIAR-IN-CHIEF, is
back in the heart of DOWNING STREET operation is profoundly
DEPRESSING.
*
[Font Altered-Bolding & Underlining
Used-Comment in Square Brackets]
[TO BE CONTINUED]
*
OCTOBER 2008
|
