British, U.S. lied about justification for pre-war Iraq airstrikes

[jasmeel]

<snip>
Britain and America’s reasons for stepping up bombing of Iraq in the ten months leading up to the war in Iraq was a sham, official figures released by the British Ministry of Defense show.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Geoff Hoon, his UK counterpart, said the stepped-up attacks by U.S. and Royal Air Force aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were a response to increased attacks by Iraqi air defences.

The minutes of a meeting of Tony Blair’s Iraq war cabinet on July 23, 2003, leaked to the London Sunday Times, record Hoon as saying “the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.”

UK ministers have since insisted that the stepped up attacks, which began in May 2002, were a direct result of Iraqi attempts to shoot down allied aircraft and were not, as Hoon suggested, an attempt to provoke a response that would give the allies an excuse for war.

<snip>
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/British_U.S._justification_for_increased_prewar_bombing_foun_0804.html

[Just Me]

1. BAM!!!

How much damn evidence does it take to get these b*stards convicted!!!! They betrayed their own countries and their own people.

Time to issue indictments!!! :grr:

[xchrom]

2. shrug -- i no longer believe bushco

will suffer for this.

[daleo]

3. Does Blair consider this an obscenity too?

He should, but will lie his way out of it.

[flakey_foont]

4. Need some signatures on this

<<http://elandslide.org/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign=iraq1>>


need a million signatures...US out of Iraq

[Iowa]

5. Done! And thanks for pointing it out. eom

[lumpy]

6. Done

n/t