Starting in England, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has a made a few headlines. Roweana Mason (Guardian) reports:
Nick Clegg has called for the immediate publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war and urged those likely to be criticised to accept the public scrutiny.
Negotiations with the Cabinet Office for the release of about 200 cabinet-level discussions, 25 notes from Tony Blair
to George W Bush and more than 130 records of conversations between the
US president and either Blair or the then chancellor, Gordon Brown, are
thought to have reached near-deadlock.
BBC reminds, "The inquiry was set up in June 2009 and heard from final witnesses in February 2011.
It examined the background to the war, the conduct of
military operations, post-war planning and the UK's role in post-war
security and governance until British troops left in 2009."
The ones needing the report out quickly? The Labour Party. Tony Blair refuses to go away. He continues to tie Labour to the Iraq War and there's a chance the report could come out ahead of the elections. May 7, 2015 is when the United Kingdom is expected to hold a general election. The more time between that date and the release of the report the better for Labour. Even if the report should magically give War Criminal Tony Blair a pass, the reaction to such a move would be to inflame the public.
Labour has tried to draw a line between Labour 'today' and War Criminal Tony but with him refusing to crawl back under his rock, there's a feeling that a very public rebuke may be needed.
Nick Clegg may care about the report being released for truth reasons or he may be using it for electoral purposes (or a combo of both). He's a Liberal Democrat and Labour's fall has helped his party. (He's Deputy Prime Minister due to the Liberal Democrats partnering up with the Conservative Party to form the government.)
In the UK, the equivalent of the Democratic Party was Tony's Labour (actually 'New Labour' -- they sold out to corporations in the 90s, back when Tony danced for Rupert Murdoch -- Gore Vidal wrote a telling essay on that in real time). But they were in power in 2002 so they were the ones -- specifically Tony -- who sold the illegal war to the British people with multiple lies. Liberal Democrats are the center party in England -- and with New Labour moving Labour to the right, Liberal Democrats are now center-right.
In the crime scene Tony Blair left behind, thug and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki continues to terrorize the people of Falluja. In his latest bombing of Falluja residential neighborhoods, NINA reports, 2 women have been killed and two children badly wounded.
These are War Crimes and not only has the US government provided the weapons for Nouri to kill civilians, they're also training and advising on how. World Tribune reports, "Officials said U.S. advisers were training and mentoring Iraqi SOF units in the war in Anbar. The officials said the advisers were training the Iraqis in urban
warfare, counter-insurgency techniques, bomb detection and coordinated
helicopter assaults."
Al Mada notes Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi says the ongoing assault on Anbar has been prolonger in order to decrease voter turnout in the province.
In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports Joint Operations Command announced they killed 4 suspects, a Hit roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police member and left three more injured, a Baquba shooting left two people injured, 1 person was shot dead southeast of Baghdad, Baghdad Operations Command said they killed 10 suspects, and 1 traffic police member was shot dead in Mosul, 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul. All Iraq News adds 1 police member was killed in Tikrit and his body set on fire.
Parliamentary elections are supposed to take place April 30th. Al Mada reports that cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf and the two discussed current conditions in Iraq. Meanwhile Nouri's been insisting over the weekend that he will form a political majority government. Today, All Iraq News reports Kurdish MP Mahma Khalil has declared such talk is premature -- another rebuke to Nouri. Yesterday, MP Sheikh Hamid Maala al-Saedi (with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) also called out the propaganda and noted that the first thing that has to happen is elections.
Bonnie reminds that Kat's "Kat's Korner: Do The Beast" and Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Hillary's Shoe Response" went up Sunday.
the guardian
rowena mason
