Revealed in the
The Guardian (U.K.), it tells how the top lawyers of the Bush Administration strongarmed the UK attorney general and, in a series of high-pressure meetings, bullied him into agreeing that an Iraq invasion would be legal. These meetings took place in February 2003, the same month as Colin Powell's fraudulent speech before the UN. By that time, the top Bush Admin lawyers had long perfected their arguments for the war's legality and they subjected Lord Goldsmith to a bullying barrage in a series of "gruelling" meetings with five powerful lawyers of the Bush Administration. He had been sent to Washington by Jack Straw to
"put some steel in his spine." The decision had already been made to invade - not that they told HIM that - and they and Blair wanted his statement as the top UK lawyer as an additional gloss on their cover story that the invasion was both legal and justified.
To me, the story of what happened to Lord Goldsmith is not only a step in crafting this whole mountain of lies and moral corruption. Here is a man who had doubts about the legality of the invasion even after all the pressure that was brought to bear on him in the UK - and the US bullies brought him to his knees. Even people who mean well, who aren't criminals, can have their consciences overwhelmed by the massed attack of these criminal bullies.
The story also reveals the special usefulness of Bush's pet torture-justifier, Mr. "The Geneva Conventions are quaint" Gonzales. How shameful that he is the top lawyer in our corrupted government. We must REMEMBER who voted for him and hold them accountable.
To put all this into context, here's a site with an
excellent timeline for the unfolding of the Iraq War:
http://www.iraqtimeline.comWhat the DSM and newly leaked documents reveal suggests that the Administration lawyers who bullied Lord Goldsmith as well as their bosses are complicit.Here is the thread where this was posted at DU on May 1:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1755978Here are excerpts from the article:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474190,00.htmlIraq, the secret US visit, and an angry military chief
The legality of the Iraq war exploded on to the agenda last week, causing chaos to Labour strategy. Here we reveal the key US officials who persuaded Britain that invasion was legal - and the astonishing reaction from our military chiefs Antony Barnett, Gaby Hinsliff and Martin Bright
Sunday May 1, 2005
The Observer (snip)
… The Observer can reveal that this great-grandson of a former Republican president {William Taft IV, U.S. State Dept.} played a critical role in persuading Goldsmith {Lord Goldsmith, the UK Attorney General} that the war against Iraq was legal.
Taft was one of five powerful lawyers in the Bush administration who met the Attorney General in Washington in February 2003 to push their view that a second UN resolution was superfluous.Goldsmith, who had been expressing doubts about the legality of any proposed war, was sent to Washington by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to 'put some steel in his spine', as one official has said.
On 11 February, Goldsmith met
Taft, a former US ambassador to NATO who was then chief legal adviser to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. After a gruelling 90-minute meeting in Taft's conference room 6419, Goldsmith then met the
US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, followed by a formidable triumvirate including Judge
Al Gonzales, Bush's chief lawyer at the White House.Goldsmith also met
William 'Jim' Haynes, who is Defence Secretary's Donald Rumsfeld's chief legal adviser, and John Bellinger, legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser. This group of lawyers is as renowned for fearsome intellect as it is for hard-line conservative politics. Bellinger is alleged to have said: 'We had trouble with your Attorney; we got there eventually.' From copies of Goldsmith's legal advice to the Prime Minister published last week, it is clear that these meetings had a pivotal role in shaping Goldsmith's view that there was a 'reasonable case' for war.
(snip)
I find myself pitying Lord Goldsmith in a way. His moral compass was functioning, but first the people in his own government and then those in the Bush administration focused all their powers of lying and logic-twisting on him. For them, the end they desired justified any means they chose. For him, an ethical sense was there, was initially troubled, and was finally snuffed out by sheer bullying and lies and force of personality as he was confronted by one aggressive neocon lawyer after another. These people were fully prepared with a battery of deceptions and twists for any ethical doubts. They knew that what they were doing flouted all law and morality, and they had arguments and falsified documentation ready for people who still might harbor such quaint notions. Such bullies are so very useful to the Bush administration; it's a major reason why they want Bolton in the UN.
To me this incident is a microcosm of what must happen again and again in the subverting of moral people in the government and elsewhere to the service of the neocons. It is ugly, perverse, and tragic. And in the case of Lord Goldsmith, who was acting in a sense as the legal conscience of the UK in this, it had consequences that are still unfolding.
I don't imagine Lord Goldsmith sleeps very comfortably these days. But human maggots like Gonzales - and of course his leash-holder, Bush - do.
ed:typos
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