* A factual errort: Ed Balls and Ed Miliband didn’t vote for the war, as they weren’t MPs until 2005. You can argue that they should have given up their role as advisers to Gordon Brown, but that isn’t the same thing.

* You don’t seem to be engaging with why David Miliband says there is a case to move on. It doesn’t seem to me that the piece fairly reflects his position: “While Iraq was a source of division in the past, it doesn’t need to be a source of division in the future. I said during the election campaign that I thought it was time to move on. “If we had known then that there were no weapons of mass destruction, obviously there wouldn’t have been a war.”

while he is arguing that it shouldn’t be a major focus of the leadership contest now, that suggests he agrees somewhat with the thrust of what Ed Miliband and Balls are saying.

So that is a different position to Andy Burnham’s for example, in that David Miliband is saying ‘I wouldn’t have noted for it if I knew what I knew now [and indeed that there wouldn't have been a vote]‘ whereas Burnham stresses the liberation of Iraq from Saddam despite there being no WMD.

* There are many salient differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, between Iraq and Kosovo, between Kosovo and Bosnia, between Sierra Leone and Macedonia, (or indeed cases that did not happen between Darfur and Rwanda, etc) One can take a position against all of these interventions, or arguments about intervention, or in favour of all of them, or a mixture, but it surely depends on engaging both with general principles and very different cases.

Many people who strongly opposed the Iraq intervention might legitimately also think the Sierra leone intervention was perhaps one of the best things the last government did. But I don’t think that tells us very much at all about Afghanistan.

What I’m confused by though is what your policy in Afghanistan would be- you say you can derive it from principles learnt from Iraq- how? We shouldn’t have invaded? But the cases were different- in Afghanistan the Taliban were harbouring Al Quaeda, in Iraq Saddam was not harbouring people who had killed 3000 Amercans. And anyway irrespective of whether we should have invaded, we broke it and now we have to try and find a way of leaving without a civil war and a human rights catastrophe- so how would you do that?

You object to liberal interventionism- but what does that mean? Again is that only about Iraq or a mroe general principle- do you object to Sierra Leone and Kosovo? Do you believe that intervention in other sovereign states is always wrong? What about in other sovereign states when they disappear into warfare? What about states that do actually pose a real, not an imagined threat to the UK? When would you invade- or would you not invade ever? What would you do should another country pass chemical weapons say to terrorist organisations- would you invade?

THe problem with Iraq is that it is an individual case. We may have got it wrong- I agree with you that we did get it wrong- but foreign policy is not all about Iraq. Whatever problems come up in the future we can be certain that they will not look like Iraq- North Korea looks very different to Iraq. The question though that I want asked on foreign policy to the leadership candidates is why should we bother? What is it to us that things happen on the other side of the world- we are a small island off the coast of Europe, with a declining population and a stuffed economy, could we try to stop behaving like an empire- whether in Iraq or pretending that we have any ability to solve issues like Darfur. Do you agree?

The argument that we ‘should just move on’ is both ignorant and arrogant. It displays the dismissive attitude to large sections of public opinion that became so commonplace in the latter years of New Labour.
But how about that ‘moving on’? A couple of years ago I remember Alex Salmond picking up Lord Falconer on Question Time, when Falconer dismissed questions about the Iraq saying it was in the past and we ’should just move on’. Mr Salmond pointed out that this was coming from a Government that was considering the possibility of apologising for Britain’s role in the slave trade. They certainly didn’t dismiss that so readily.
Perhaps a little selective with the ‘history’ they want to move on from?
Maybe in two hundreds years time we will hear something from Tony Blair’s descendants? Now there’s a thought…

Count on it. The Iraq War issue will continue to be stirred in order to deflect attention from the gross failings in the Labour government’s economic policies in which both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband are implicated as advisers to Gordon Brown.

There were warnings aplenty from reputable, non-partisan think-tanks about the uncorrected structural deficits in GB’s budgets going back at least to 2001 and Charles Goodhart was warning about the inflating house-price bubble as far back as 2002. Others, including the IMF, supported those bubble warnings in 2003. If necessary, I can repost the links.

This is the legacy of Labour governments advised on economic issues by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband:

“The chances of a child from a poor family enjoying higher wages and better education than their parents is lower in Britain than in other western countries, the OECD says”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility

I’m not sure now what percentage of the public were against the Iraq war from the beginning, but many more people turned against it as it’s failure to acheive what was promised became obvious and it broke down into sectarian savagery and the loss of British and American lives.

Afghanistan is the same now I think and many people would be supportive of the Nato mission there if it seemed to be working and wasn’t taking such a toll on our soldiers.

I saw this to be the case when Salma Yaqoob appeared on Question Time from Wootton Bassett and instead of being hostile to this hijabed woman from Respect, the audience were agreeing with her.

@1

[quoting D Miliband]:
“If we had known then that there were no weapons of mass destruction, obviously there wouldn’t have been a war.”

But that discards a massive factor, which was at the core of anti-war public opinion: the fact that Bush and Blair did not give weapons inspector enough times to confirm the presence of WMDs. Hans Blix has said about 100 times that they had almost come to a conclusion and they just pleased for a little more time to finish their job but with no avail.

See…it’s this conveniently partial reconstruction of the events which shows D Miliband still doesn’t get it. At all.

I obviously meant they just pleaded for a little more time to finish their job but to</b< no avail.

Sunder did you oppose the war? Did you criticise and call for the resignation of Blair and his cabinet over it? Have you now or ever considered tearing up your membership card because of the hundreds of thousands who lie dead because of Labour’s war?

Miliband also claims that “every intelligence service in the world” believed Saddam had WMDs. This is so blatantly false one wonders if he’s a) lying or b) ever thought about the issue. Either way: sod ‘im.

while he is arguing that it shouldn’t be a major focus of the leadership contest now, that suggests he agrees somewhat with the thrust of what Ed Miliband and Balls are saying.

But Sunder – whilst I agree that it shouldn’t be the main focus of the leadership – the idea that D Miliband can dismiss it as an issue doesn’t look good.

He wants to just fudge it by saying if WMD didn’t exist he wouldn’t have gone in. But it’s more than that. Why were recommendations of intelligence services ignored? How did the dodgy dossier come to light?

How did we end up going to war even though the evidence was so flimsy? And why was the post-invasion planning to dire? Is he going to answer those questions? After all, if we are to judge a future leader, surely we are allowed to ask questions on the one issue he was managing for quite a while?

Miliband also claims that “every intelligence service in the world” believed Saddam had WMDs. This is so blatantly false one wonders if he’s a) lying or b) ever thought about the issue. Either way: sod ‘im.

Plus, you know, the man who actually destroyed them said there was nothing there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbOaKJwUQ5c

The ‘we were lied to’ mob are just a bunch of cunts who won’t admit the plain truth – they wanted to kill brown people and now it’s cost a bit too much they want to make out like they couldn’t possibly be responsible, christ, even David Letterman admitted it was about vengeance, on international tv no less.

I’ve still got logs from an American chatroom the night it all kicked off, they weren’t bothered about finding any weapons, they wanted to know when they were bringing out some new fangled bomb or other.

“I’m not sure now what percentage of the public were against the Iraq war

A Guardian/ICM poll in February 2003 showed “Opposition to the war has risen five points in the past month to 52%, with support for the war falling to 29%, the lowest level since the Guardian’s tracker poll started last August”.

The poll also showed “that at least one person from 1.25 million households in Britain went on Saturday’s anti-war march in London, confirming estimates that between one million and two million people went on the march. and Blair’s popularity taking a nose dive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/feb/18/politics.iraq

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls may have not been around to vote for the illegal invasion of Iraq, but does anyone really think these two New Labour-wonks would have voted against it if they had been MPs?

And Ed Miliband voted ‘Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war”, while Balls ‘Voted strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war’ (it would have been “very strongly” but he was absent for some votes, everytime he was present he voted against an investigation.)

And Ed Miliband voted ‘Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war”,

I believe that was because they didn’t want an investigation while troops were still there. Which makes sense.

I believe that was because they didn’t want an investigation while troops were still there. Which makes sense.

Why though, Sunny?

In 2006, Ed Balls was prepared to admit that the government had been mistaken. Now, he’ll talk about “tactics and devices“. Give it another four years and he might be talking straight.

@9: “This is so blatantly false one wonders if he’s a) lying or b) ever thought about the issue. Either way: sod ‘im.”

Absolutely. Blair knew the “intelligence” about Iraq’s supposed WMD was fixed even before the invasion in March 2003:

- According to this secret memo of 23 July 2002, leaked to the Sunday Times and published on 1 May 2005, shortly before the 2005 election on 5 May:

“C [the traditional title for the head of MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service - at the time: Sir Richard Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

The final sentence is absolutely damning: “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

- Dr Brian Jones quietly blew up the credibility of Blair’s signed claims in the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD, published at a special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002.

In the Ministry of Defence, a branch of the Defence Intelligence Service was tasked to monitor and assess incoming intelligence on WMD. At the time of the Iraq invasion, Dr Brian Jones was head of this branch. A report in The London Times on 4 February 2004 relates to the doubts he had about the claims made in the government’s dossier published at a special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1011171.ece

This letter of 8 July 2003 from Dr Jones to the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence was submitted to the Hutton inquiry:
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/mod/mod_4_0011.pdf

The letter includes this passage:

“Your records will show that as [blanked out] and probably the most senior and experienced intelligence community official working on ‘WMD,’ I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessment for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002, that I was moved to write formally to your predecessor, Tony Crag, recording and explaining my reservations.”

In the discrete language of the civil service, Dr Jones disowned responsibility for the claims made in the government’s dossier.

In addition to the estimated 100,000 civilians killed in the sectarian and ethnic conflicts in Iraq instigated by the invasion in March 2003, the official rationale for the war touches on issues fundamental to the Labour Party.

In a keynote speech in Chicago in April 1999, Blair set out his foreign policy “doctrine”. The speech included this passage:

“If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html

That sentence essentially reflected what had been the traditional Labour Party policy since the foundation of the UNO. By engaging in the Iraq invasion of March 2003 without prior UN Security Council sanction, Blair was effectively repudiating that previous Labour Party commitment. It is absolutely essential that the constituency electing the next Labour Party leader is made fully aware of how each of the candidates stands on this and the Blairite prescriptions for “liberal interventionism” regardless of UN approval.

Btw note these news reports in American media from a few years ago:

“CRAWFORD, Texas — Paul O’Neill, President Bush’s Treasury secretary in the first two years of his presidency, says the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq long before the Sept. 11 attacks and used questionable intelligence to justify the war.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-11-oneill-iraq_x.htm

“WASHINGTON – At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.

“The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority’s own inspector general blasts the CPA for “not providing adequate stewardship” of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.

“The audit was first reported on a Web site earlier this month by David Hackworth, a journalist and retired colonel. A U.S. official confirmed that the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth were accurate. . .

“One of the main benefactors of the Iraq funds was the Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid more than $1 billion out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians.

“The monitoring board said despite repeated requests it had not been given access to U.S. audits of contracts held by Halliburton, which was once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, and other firms that used the development funds.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5763483/

The invasion of Iraq still matters because it was a breach of international law. It still matters because many leading politicians still don’t seem to realise that, and still don’t seem to understand when military action is legal and when it is illegal. It still matters because they don’t seem to understand that liberal interventionism is a doctrine that is outside international law. It still matters because any politicians (including, it would seem, the Millibands) don’t know the difference between liberal intervention and humanitarian intervention.

“If we had known then that there were no weapons of mass destruction, obviously there wouldn’t have been a war.” This is a fudge. In March 2003 the inspections were in full swing and there was nothing to stop them continuing except that George Bush wanted to invade Iraq whether or not there were inspections or WMD. If David Milliband thought that it was an established fact that Iraq had WMD, or that Blix’s Clusters Document was a list of Iraq’s WMD, and that this made the continuation of the inspections irrelevant, he is very foolish and shouldn’t be a candidate to lead a political party.

Why though, Sunny?

I expect the military chiefs said: ‘don’t have the fucking enquiry now or we will basically be so pissed off you might get stitched up in the national press about lack of helicopters and such’ (which they did anyway).

I don’t know what exactly went on behind the scenes.

But I don’t see what they gained by having the enquiry after the war ended rather than once Brown came in. So the logical explanation is a lot of pressure by military chiefs. There’s also the view that having it during the conflict would have led to less info coming out. Not sure I buy that view but I’ve heard it a few times

I have some sympathy with @2 Friend: “Again is that only about Iraq or a mroe general principle- do you object to Sierra Leone and Kosovo?”

I don’t expect that Sierra Leone is a comfortable place to live. Or that the UK/NATO intervention in the Balkans made enough difference. But they happened, and some people are better off or still living. They were the right way to respond.

I do not have enough words to describe why the Iraq invasion was wrong, so I won’t bother.

But there is something wrong in Afghanistan. Nine years to invade and eight years to put things right. Eight years is a good enough period to demonstrate your social and political ambitions in most places. Carrying on as before will not suffice.

@18: “‘If we had known then that there were no weapons of mass destruction, obviously there wouldn’t have been a war,’ is a fudge.”

Yes – but the evidently medacious claims made about Iraq’s supposed WMD were invoked to suggest that Britain’s security was directly threatened by Iraq’s capacity to use the weapons within “45 minutes” of a command from Saddam Hussein.

Blair clearly imputed great significance to this claim because it was referred to no less than four times in the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD published at a special session of Parliament called for 24 September 2002 – on the first instance in a forward over Blair’s signature:
http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/reps/iraq/iraqdossier.pdf

Note this press report from February 2004:

Israel knew Iraq had no WMD, says MP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/04/iraq.israel

Note too this claim of Blair at the G8 summit in Evian in June 2003:

“‘Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false,’ he said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955036.stm

@Sunny the enquiry which Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham voted against would not have been about helicopters or the fact that soldiers haven’t got enough bullets with which to kill the next lot of Iraqi passers-by, but about why we went there in the first place.

The lesson of the Iraq war is that a Labour govt should be very reluctant to go to war in the future.

The fact is that the military establishment is overwhelmingly Tory. The grunts on the ground may be a variety of political colours, but the top brass is, by and large tory. To watch the British army basically conducting a policy of winging to the press because they are being asked to do the jobs for which they are paid is not at all surprising with a labour govt. It would be very much muted under a tory govt.

Labour govts will NEVER get credit for using force, because the tory press will always say “yes, but.” Labour politicians should never think they can whip up a feeling of patriotism like the tories do because the right will never except the legitimacy of a Labour govt. In America the Right is quite blatant. When the Republican party in office everyone must bow and salute the military and no critiscm will be tolerated. Yet when a Democratic President is at war the same republican politicians will critisce his every move.

Under a Labour govt the troops will NEVER have the right equipment in the eyes of the tory media. The tories will always have weasel words of support, while all the time attacking the govt. Look at Rifkind, a tory weasal if ever there was.

Sunny@10
“How did we end up going to war even though the evidence was so flimsy? And why was the post-invasion planning to dire? Is he going to answer those questions? After all, if we are to judge a future leader, surely we are allowed to ask questions on the one issue he was managing for quite a while?”

Yes, good questions. That’s why an inquiry was very important.

You cite pre-2003 questions. David Miliband’s view of them will be interesting, along with those of the other candidates who have been in government. But I don’t really follow why you direct those very especially at the MP for South Shields (from 2001) who became Schools Minister from 2002 and then joined the Cabinet Education Secretary before 2005. He was in Cabinet for Communities and then Environment 2005-07, before then being made Foreign Secretary when Gordon Brown became PM in June 2007.

Certainly, he was managing Afghanistan and Iraq from mid-2007 to 2010, but your questions don’t seem to much relate to that, except around the decisions about the scope of an inquiry.

Sunder. “But I don’t really follow why you direct those very especially at the MP for South Shields (from 2001) who became Schools Minister from 2002 and then joined the Cabinet (as) Education Secretary before 2005″

Because, in the absence of a specific UN mandate, the invasion of Iraq was a breach of international law and Milliband was a member of a government which took a decision to invade a country without a specific UN mandate. Milliband D. should have done the same as John Denham and Robin Cook, and resign on the spot. Alternatively, if he really did believe that Tony Blair knew better than the weapons’ inspectors, he should have resigned when it became clear, a few months later, that there were no WMD in Iraq. He should not have remained a member of a goverment that had either made a monumental blunder or didn’t believe in international law.

The Labour Party needs to be clear whether it supports international law or whether it bought into George Bush’s dangerous and illegal doctrine of preventive military intervention. If it believes in international law, it should come clean about the terrible blunder of thinking that it was an established fact that Iraq had WMD; it should release all the documents to the Chilcot Inquiry about Blair’s dealings with Bush in 2002; it shouldn’t have Blair campaigning in general elections. If it believes in liberal intervention, it should be clear what it means by that phrase: if it means humanitarian intervention it should say that. If in fact it means starting wars because it thinks that the UK can create new regimes in other countries, then it should say that (though it should recognise that international law doesn’t allow that and should recognise the enormous risks of such as doctrine).

It cannot, though, just move on from this issue. If Milliband D. wants to lead the party he has to help resolve the question of whether the Labour Party supports international law. He also has to explain why he stayed in a government, and became foreign secretary of a government, that made a terrible blunder in this area.

…… and if David Milliband thought that Blix’s clusters document (a list of issues and how they might be resolved) showed that Iraq had WMD, and if he still thinks that, then he shouldn’t be an MP let alone a candidate to lead a major political party.