After the journey — a UN man’s open letter to Tony Blair

[JohnyCanuck]

Hans von Sponeck, UN humanitarian co-ordinator from 1998-2000, demands answers from the former prime minister to a simple question: Why is Iraq in such a mess?

Dear Mr Blair,

You do not know me. Why should you? Or maybe you should have known me and the many other UN officials who struggled in Iraq when you prepared your Iraq policy. Reading the Iraq details of your "journey", as told in your memoir, has confirmed my fears. You tell a story of a leader, but not of a statesman. You could have, at least belatedly, set the record straight. Instead you repeat all the arguments we have heard before, such as why sanctions had to be the way they were; why the fear of Saddam Hussein outweighed the fear of crossing the line between concern for people and power politics; why Iraq ended up as a human garbage can. You preferred to latch on to Bill Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and George W Bush's determination to implement it.

You present yourself as the man who tried to use the UN road. I am not sure. Is it really wrong to say that, if you had this intention, it was for purely tactical reasons and not because you wanted to protect the role of the UN to decide when military action was justified? The list of those who disagreed with you and your government's handling of 13 years of sanctions and the invasion and occupation of Iraq is long, very long. It includes Unicef and other UN agencies, Care, Caritas, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela. Do not forget, either, the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in protest in Britain and across the world, among them Cambridge Against Sanctions on Iraq (CASI) and the UK Stop the War Coalition.

You suggest that you and your supporters - the "people of good will", as you call them - are the owners of the facts. Your disparaging observations about Clare Short, a woman with courage who resigned as international development secretary in 2003, make it clear you have her on a different list. You appeal to those who do not agree to pause and reflect. I ask you to do the same. Those of us who lived in Iraq experienced the grief and misery that your policies caused. UN officials on the ground were not "taken in" by a dictator's regime. We were "taken in" by the challenge to tackle human suffering created by the gravely faulty policies of two governments - yours and that of the United States - and by the gutlessness of those in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere who could have made a difference but chose otherwise. The facts are on our side, not on yours.

SNIP

I was a daily witness to what you and two US administrations had concocted for Iraq: a harsh and uncompromising sanctions regime punishing the wrong people. Your officials must have told you that your policies translated into a meagre 51 US cents to finance a person's daily existence in Iraq. You acknowledge that 60 per cent of Iraqis were totally dependent on the goods that were allowed into their country under sanctions, but you make no reference in your book to how the UK and US governments blocked and delayed huge amounts of supplies that were needed for survival. In mid-2002, more than $5bn worth of supplies was blocked from entering the country. No other country on the Iraq sanctions committee of the UN Security Council supported you in this. The UN files are full of such evidence. I saw the education system, once a pride of Iraq, totally collapse. And conditions in the health sector were equally desperate. In 1999, the entire country had only one fully functioning X-ray machine. Diseases that had been all but forgotten in the country re-emerged.

http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2010/09/iraq-humanitarian-sanctions

[JohnyCanuck]

1. kick n/t

[malaise]

2. Great letter

I wish all that is bad for all the war criminals. I hope Blair suffers mentally and physically to the end of his days.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. In whatever ways he suffers, if he suffers at all,

he won't suffer financially, that's for sure. It sure pays off in a big way to be a war criminal on the winning side.

Revealed: Tony Blair’s secret oil links to Middle East

The former prime minister has been in the pay of the Kuwaiti government and a South Korean oil firm for up to 18 months, a parliamentary watchdog has revealed.

But the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments allowed Mr Blair to keep his contracts secret because of “market sensitivities” and because the Kuwaitis requested confidentiality.

In a further revelation, a classified memo from Mr Blair to President Bush showed the full extent of his support for the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The personal note — which has been seen by the Chilcot Inquiry but not released by the Government — shows that Mr Blair wrote: “You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23817037-revealed-tony-blairs-secret-oil-links-to-middle-east.do

China and Tony Blair: the wealth circuit

During his premiership (1997-2007), Blair visited the People’s Republic of China only twice. Now, he passes through Beijing and Shanghai every few months. There is no evidence that his current projects - including the promotion of his modestly titled book A Journey - extend to any public role in the area: brokering a peace initiative, promoting the green economy, even preaching the merits of globalisation. The conclusion must be that he is here to chase his new passion - making money.

Many British people are sharply critical of their former leader’s embrace of a super-rich lifestyle fuelled by enormous payments for “consultancy” speeches and personal appearances. Chinese people by contrast tend to discuss his presence in their midst with the steady tolerance towards personal accumulation of wealth that is one of their most striking (and endearing) characteristics. In part this reflects an internalisation of the message Deng Xiaoping is reputed to have given at the start of the epic reform process he initiated in 1979: “to get rich is glorious”.

snip

Where Shenzhen and Tony Blair intersect is that it is only places like this and the nearby Donguan that can afford his now astronomical speaking-fees. Blair was reported in 2007 to have earned $500,000 for one short speech in the city. Now the Cantonese are among the world’s shrewdest businesspeople, and some journalists inquired whether his hosts in the area might feel short-changed. On the contrary: Blair’s mere presence for a time in their city was seen as money well spent. Blair’s ability to talk Cantonese out of such sums impressed almost everyone I spoke to in China about this - including the Cantonese themselves.

The Chinese also recognise that Blair’s visits are closely tied to China’s rise towards the status of a global superpower. Among the many other consequences and problems this brings is that China will join the United States and other countries as part of a lucrative “global circuit” of eminent former leaders. The shifting balance of world financial power may even make China a more attractive destination as corporate and institutional income-streams start to flow more thickly. And the appeal of China to leaders such as Tony Blair will not be lessened by the fact that most of his audiences will understand very little of what they are saying.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/kerry-brown/china-and-tony-blair-wealth-circuit?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=201210&utm_campaign=Nightly_%272010-09-16%2005%3a30%3a00%27