The Mess in Iraq, It's all our fault - Official!

Yesterday watching Channel 4's 7 O'clock news I happened across an interview with former Assistant Secretary of Defence Ken Adelman. You know the one, the fella who kept popping up saying how well it was going, and how right it was.

Well tonight he blamed us for the mess. I have written about why we are in this mess in Iraq here.

Ken's says we should have known that L. Paul Bremer was making mistakes and should have done something about it.

We should have resisted the various mistakes made. Like making 500,000 armed men unemployed.

What a cheeky yank!

But he is right. We have experience in these things the Americans lack, and we should have said do it our way or we pull the plug. End of.

Meanwhile in other news Donald Rumsfeld the former incompetent pratt Secretary of State for endangering America Defence has said the problem is the USA has not got the historic experience of dealing with occupation and insurgency. Two things I'd like to say.

1. Why not listen to the State Department's 900 page plan instead of tossing it in the bin.
2. Ask the worlds authority on occupying land, the British Government.

Just goes to show what an arrogant pratt Donald is really.

Bit cheeky to blame it on us though.

Lastly I have heard several interviews over the last few days explaining away the mess in Iraq and they all seem to refer to the points I raised in this article, which are listed below:

• The coalition forces failed to impose martial law when they captured areas, because they just did not have the men or the will.
• They failed to plan to have a working police force.
• They made 500,000 armed men unemployed.
• They failed to guard the ammunition dumps.
• They failed to guard the borders.
• They failed to understand who the losers would be in the liberation of Iraq.
• They made political blunders of epic proportions.

Thing is that the State department and many Generals in the Pentagon saw this before the war, as indeed did I. Not rocket science is it?

Evening Standard gets it wrong in Cash for Peerages scandal!

In today's online edition of the Evening Standard (The article is dated the 8th though) there is an article with the head line:

Blair to escape indignity of first PM to be quizzed by police

It is an interesting article rehashing quite a lot of what we already knew. the body of the article indicates that the Police will not hand over the file to the CPS until 2007, and it will take the CPS several months to decide whether to charge or not. They contend (Possibly wrongly) that Blair will go in May. He might, but all he has actually promised is not to be leader by the time of the next party conference. That is all fair enough, but it seems to me that the Police WILL quiz Tony Blair before they hand over the file to the CPS, which then seems to be early 2007, in other words before May.

Would be nice if journalists read what they write. Us bloggers don't get paid they do.

There is of course more news on Guido's blog here.

UPDATE 16.13

I have just checked, and that was in yesterdays paper edition. Today's paper edition would like to correct the idea that TB is consulting lawyers. Apparently he isn't. It would also like to say that Tony may be the first PM since Lloyd George to be quizzed by the police, except that's wrong too. The law was passed after Lloyd George ceased to be PM. Nice to know they are trying hard to be accurate.

Cash for Peerages, another update.

Well, bringing all the stories of today together so far...

Guido has seen Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General's letter to Dominic Grieve, the Conservative shadow Attorney General and has it published here.

The long and the short of it is that Lord Goldsmith intends to be involved where in the prosecution process where the law requires that his consent is required. He does however say that he will seek independent legal advice from senior council. If he veto's a prosecution he will say why. How nice.

Meanwhile there have been reports that all cabinet members during the 2005 election have been written to by the police asking them to state their position on the cash for peerages scandal. You can read the BBC's report here.

Chanel 4's 7 o'clock news speculated as to why Yates of the Yard would want to ask everyone in the cabinet about the scandal, and indeed 5 have been interviewed including Alan Milburn and Patricia Hewitt. Alan Milburn said he had been interviewed as a witness not a suspect.

Channel 4 news pointed out that Yates of the Yard has been involved in some very high profile cases before, including the Paul Burrell theft case which collapsed in 2002 when the Queen suddenly remembered something just before Paul Burrell was going to take the stand. The speculation is that Yates does not want a repeat of this, so his aim is to make sure that no one recalls having recommended someone for an honour once charges have been laid, as they will have been questioned first. Good thinking Inspector Yates. Cover your bases these are Liars politicians we are talking about.

You can read about the Burrell trial here and hear. You can read the BBC's profile of Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates here.

Donald Rumsfeld resigns!

Hooray!

Donald Rumsfeld the incompetent pratt Secretary for Defence of the United States has resigned. Good. You can read the BBC's article here.

Donald is a very clever man. He calculated very well the exact amount of troops and equipment to defeat the Iraqi army of Saddam Husein. Unfortunately he was just to stupid to realise that winning the war was only the minutest part of the task, and that winning the peace is what counts.

He was advised about the recklessness of his proposed course by experienced generals. He did not like what they said so retired them. It is without doubt that the mess in Iraq is largely his fault. However George W Bush's judgement has to be questioned. Rumsfeld should have been sent packing long ago.

I wrote an article on why we are in this mess in Iraq here. Below is a summary from that article of what coalition forces failed to do.

• The coalition forces failed to impose martial law when they captured areas, because they just did not have the men or the will.
• They failed to plan to have a working police force.
• They made 500,000 armed men unemployed.
• They failed to guard the ammunition dumps.
• They failed to guard the borders.
• They failed to understand who the losers would be in the liberation of Iraq.
• They made political blunders of epic proportions.

The blood of many coalition troops, and Iraqi's civilians or otherwise is on Rumsfeld's hands.

Lastly a Conservative government should be competent, fiscally prudent and pragmatic. The current US administration is none of these things. I look forward to a proper conservative government in the US in 2008.

Cash for peerages - A clarification?

On the way home from work I heard that Lord Goldsmith the Attorney General had yet again insisted that he will not stand aside in the decision making process as he thinks his consent is needed for a prosecution under the Honours, Prevention of Abuses Act 1925.

However when I got home I read this on the BBC news website, according to which Lord Goldsmith has written to his shadow Dominic Grieve to say that he need not be involved in those decisions but his consent may be needed as a matter of law in some corruption cases.

Meanwhile Guido appears to have unearthed Lord "Cheerful Charlie" Falconer saying that Lord Goldsmith would stand aside in evidence to a select committee back in April. You can read his article here.

Well, it's so very unlike Lord Goldsmith to change his legal tune when pressed isn't it? He's never done that before.

Cash for peerages - late breaking news

Well, according to the LibDemograph Independent, Lord Goldsmith the Attorney general has now bowed to pressure to stand aside from any decision over prosecuting Tony Blair in the cash for peerages row. You can read the article here.

Bizarrely according to some reports, The Honours, prevention of Abuses Act 1925 does require the Attorney General to approve of ANY prosecution under the act.

This bit of legal information is of course acquired from journalists, who in the public mind are a shade less reliable than an estate agent, but there you go. I can't comment as the act is not online, nor have I had reason to seek legal advice on the issue as I have never been in a position to buy or sell an honour.

What is interesting though is that the report as far as it goes does leave the Attorney General in a position to quash all other potential charges. If the above reports are correct then clearly parliament in 1925 either had no idea of just how low the publics opinion of politicians would sink, or were merely outlawing the opposition selling honours.

Reid wins battle with Brown over Queens speech

According to Martha Kearney on BBC2's Newsnight, Dr John "Comrade" Reid has got the Queens speech focusing on security.

The Queens speech deals with the Governments legislation program for the coming year.

What new laws do we need? Killing people has been against the law since Babylonian times. Conspiracy to Murder since the 1861 Offences against the people act (Also murder is in there too).

Security is a matter of executive action not parliamentary action. There are plenty of laws out there to deal with the threats we face. The only issue there may be is changing the rules of evidence in court so that we can use our own wire tap evidence rather than having to use Belgian stuff.

You therefor have to assume that what is going to be in the Queen's speech is a mindless pointless attack on civil liberties which will further alienate disaffected Muslims, whilst executive inaction keeps us unsafe in our beds at night.

Fantastic! You could not make it up.


In further news, ID cards to save the world before breakfast. Sounds fantastic I know, but it is substantially more plausible than the claims the Government makes for them.

Cash for peerages update.

For those who are not up to speed on the issue, don't read Guido or the Evening standard, here are today's developments.

Firstly The Director of Public Prosecutions (head of the CPS) Ken MacDonald has stepped aside from any consideration of the case because he had a professional relationship with Cheri Blair. Quite right too. Shows the man has integrity. However apparently according to the Evening Standard he is also threatening to resign if a prosecution is blocked. You can read the article here.

Secondly despite the close relationship Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General has to Tony Blair, he is insisting he will not stand aside from the decision making process leading to much gnashing of teeth. Bizarre. You can read the article in the Evening Standard here.

I would also check Guido out here.

Update 19:50

Firstly I just wanted to say that whilst the reported threat that the DPP Kevin McDonald would resign if the CPS decision to prosecute is over ruled is serious stuff, it could also be the result of badgering and clever question asking by a journalist who may for example have asked "If Lord Goldsmith over ruled the CPS in a decision to prosecute Tony Blair would you resign?" rather than an active statement on his part.

Secondly the most important part of the news above for me is Lord Goldsmiths failure to clearly step aside. No Judge or prosecutor could act where such a conflict of interest arose. If they did then there actions would have to be revisited, but also they would face serious disciplinary action.

Lastly I have heard that there is an incriminating email floating about putting Lord Levy in it up to his neck. If any one has any good links or info I would be grateful.

Here is what has been seen on Comment is Free.

Fisking Ruth Sunderland in the Observer.

I have never been found of the Grauniad or it's sister papers except they do provide some good laughs when quoted in Private eye.

However this article caught my eye as some one on politicalbetting.com linked to it.

Lets work through the air headedness of it.

"The latest crop of insolvency figures is horrific."

How good of you to notice.

"Loan addiction, as any debt counsellor will tell you, is as destructive to individuals and families as alcoholism or gambling, and we have become a nation of binge borrowers."

I'm not going to ask either what this means of what evidence backs this up as I doubt there is any. However people being in debt over there heads is an obvious problem and causes all sorts of problems. People can get used to living beyond there means because their credit rating has just given them lots of cash. So they spend up to their limits and pay the minimum payment or a bit more until the banks either increase their credit limit or they apply for another card.

"One major culprit is lenient insolvency legislation, which came into effect in 2004 and has encouraged people to walk away from their responsibilities."

I see. Would this be the Enterprise Act 2002 which in part amended the Insolvency Act 1986? It seems this rather silly statement assumes that people borrow lots of money in full knowledge of the new insolvency rules. Some how I doubt that very much as they are not that kind for people who like like they have run up massive debts prior to pulling the plug. Besides which most people live in total ignorance of the law. I suspect the problem might be that people can get what ever credit they like on things like credit cards as long as they are prepared to pay silly interest rates which they are not fully informed about.

"This was the brainchild of Gordon Brown, who wanted our system to be modelled on that of the US. The idea was that a more forgiving regime would encourage entrepreneurship."

Seems like a good idea to me. That said I think in the US credit card debt may not be provable in bankruptcy. That said in some states you get to keep the family home no matter how big it is.

"Yet company liquidations have fallen slightly, showing that the legislation has misfired. It is individual consumers who are behind the surge."

And? banks are more careful about lending to companies. Besides which if a company goes bust, it may well be the case that this causes personal insolvency for the owner or directors so we would need more information about where the debt came from to be sure.

"Bankruptcy-lite is not pain-free, as a borrower's credit rating will be flattened. But much of the stigma attached to insolvency has been removed - with predictable results."

Well in that case Gordon has achieved exactly what he set out to achieve. Therefore entrepreneurs will not be bothered about sailing close to the wind and will be more willing to take risks. Good. That said it does cause problems for borrowing more money.

"The only winners are firms such as Debt Free Direct and Accuma, which are cashing in by advising on IVAs."

Really? What about the people who have been the victims of irresponsible lending? Don't they win to some extent as well?

"The banks are seeing a tidal wave of bad debts, which prudent customers will end up funding."

Well, presumably prudent customers will decide not to deal with irresponsible banks. That is the free market after all.

"According to one industry executive, at least 2 million Britons are irretrievably indebted and will only clear their loans if they win the lottery. That is a major social problem."

I see. And just which bunch of shysters lent them this money? Did they not ask how much these people were earning or indeed what other debts they had? No. Why? Because they would rather lend the money, make a killing, and then get airheads to plead poverty for them in the press.

I wrote an article on this subject on the 2nd of October which you can read here. I detailed the steps banks could take to protect themselves. They choose not to. I list them below:

However the banks could also try responsible lending. They could when issuing new credit cards, ask:

* Have you got any other credit cards?
* If so what is the limit and balance?
* Can we see some statements please?
* Have you just been making the minimum payments?

It should of course be noted that Insolvency law comes under the remit of the DTI not the Treasury so i wonder how much this was Gordon's brainchild. Also the issue was and is unsustainable consumer debt rather than what insolvency law is. That clearly is a Treasury issue.

Bonfire safety tip

I was very saddened to hear that last night a man died at a bonfire because something inside it exploded, and launched itself at the man.

You can read the sad story here.

For as long as I can remember I have always followed the following practice.

If I am going to light a fire , I may gather everything together in advance but once I start building the fire I never leave it until it is alight. Not for one minute.

Occasionally I have bonfires on my allotment to get rid of garden waste and the sort of weeds you get in West Sussex (You get dandelions, we get those too, but we also get trees all over the place).

One time a friend has some stuff to burn, so he set up his bit before I got there. When I did get there with my stuff I realised that the fire had been left unattended and took it apart. There was an empty aerosol can in there which would have gone off like a bomb, causing injury.

So never ever leave a fire and then light it. By all means get everything ready, but when it is time to get it going build it from scratch. Please.

Obfuscation and the Politcs of fear

It is interesting to note that both David Blunket and Dr John "Comrade" Reid when Home Secretaries have used the politics of fear to keep their parties rating up, as indeed has Tony Blair. This seems to be there to cover up and obscure the fact that what they are actually very ineffective at what they are doing.

They use the passing of new laws to show how tough they are on things when passing laws makes very little difference to anything unless they are enforced.

This government now seems to be drifting from one fiasco to another. They sold off a prison ship only to now be tendering for a new one. They let foreign prisoners go with out considering them for deportation and then in the back lash tried to deport any one they could find.

I could go on.

When politicians use fear as an electoral weapon I always think of FDR's famous line "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". How very true.

I was also amazed to hear on Radio 4 that the British Crime survey, favourite of this government does not interview women over 59 so they is little record of sexual assault on them. With the BCS also not covering crime against under 16's there are clearly massive gaps in its crime gathering statistics.

Comrade Reid Fisked by the Register

Just thought I would share this article from the venerable tech and indeed ID related E-Paper The Register.

Look at this article which Fisk's the government totally.

Here is a quote:

"Quality control issues at the Ministry of Truth & Fear? To shore up his speech to the Society of Spook gear Suppliers yesterday Home Secretary John Reid produced some impressive (but strangely implausible) numbers showing the devastating effect the UK security services are having on terrorism. But by bizarre coincidence (?), on Monday Tony McNulty, Home Office Minister for tags, shackles and prison hulks, trotted out numbers covering precisely the same territory.

But, ahem, they're different! Comrade Reid thanked the Plod on our behalf for its efforts: "On behalf of the nation I am delighted to pay tribute to our police, judicial, security and armed services for their great work and unstinting sacrifices. For example, from 9 September 2001 to 30 September 2006 there have been 387 people charged under the Terrorism Act and other criminal legislation..."

Go read the article. It is worth it.

Conservatives inconsistent on terror?

Yesterday on politicalbetting.com Nick Palmer MP posted this:

"personally I don't think Iraq will be a major factor in the next GE either way. Whether it is ultimately seen as a success or not, it will be seen as less relevant to the 2009-2014 period. But of course terrorism will probably still be a live issue, and a record of inconsistency on that may be a handicap."

You can read the comment in context here.

It seems the argument is that if a party opposes the Government on any proposed measure then it is either weak or inconsistent on terror. I would assume that the argument also applies to Liberal Democrats as well. The position does not hold up to logical scrutiny (or words to that effect).

Firstly it assumes that what ever is being proposed by the government is going to achieve the results that government thinks it will. Secondly it assumes that the government has a monopoly of good ideas.

Neither is the case for any government on any issue, and very much so in this case. That's why we have debates to discuss the best way forward.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have opposed Labour on some Terrorism legislation because neither thinks that certain proposals will reduce terror. The Rev. Iain Paisley seems to agree as well, and I understand that the good Dr NO! is no softy. What these parties are interested in is the safety and security as well as the liberty of the British people.

The charge of inconsistency is of course a school boy taunt. I would not be impressed with it in a school yard and I can't say I am impressed with it in a debate as important as terrorism. It seems there to score cheap political points or rather more worryingly close down debate on a subject where debate is very important.

Terrorism will not be beaten by masses of repressive measures, in fact they may make the matter worse. It will be beaten by understanding the ground rules, dealing with the propaganda and investing in the intelligence services to look for and track these people. What the law is or is not makes little difference as frequently terrorists are already conspiring to commit an offence which in it self an offence. The trick is finding them, and again that is down to people being out there gathering intelligence.

I have written articles on the war on terror itself here and here.

Tom Watson's blog is down again!

When I last mentioned his blog here, it was down. Since then it came up and is now down again, which is a bit of a shame as I posted some comments there about flag burning and things on it and now I can't see if they have been passed or not.

Perhaps Tom needs to move his blog. Tom Watson's blog is here. He is famous for not doing Gordon Browns bidding by sticking a knife unsuccessfully into Tony Blair, as well as having an odious friend in Sion Simon who I discussed here.

India 6th largest investor in renewable energy ahead of UK!

This was a surprising fact to come out of watching Newsnight tonight with Jeremy Paxman going over the Stern report (which I will comment on when I have had a chance to read it)

I can't remember what the Indian representative s name was, but it seems to me to be a startling fact that we are investing so little that we come BELOW 6th, and that India which has many more problems to deal with is ahead of us.

That goes to show just how ineffective this government has been. It talks lots on the environment but does not seem any thing like as committed to it as the previous Conservative government.

I regret to say that Newsnight wheeled out Nigel Lawson who seems to be an ardent climate change denier. No mention of the fact that much of the ground work for global climate change treaties was under a Conservative government and that Mrs Thatcher was a early evangelist dealing with climate change on the global stage.

Tax credits fiasco The scary letter!

I got this letter from the tax credit office.

What can it mean?

I have seen two different entitlement letters in a single day saying that I owe them money on the one hand and they owe me money on the other. Easy to figure that one out. Just wait to see what turns up in the bank account. This letter I can't fathom out.

If you have any idea please post in the comments section.

If you want to find out what the other side looks like, find a blank sheet of A4 and turn it over.

Priceless.

To be fair to the hard working people at Preston they are all pleasant and I have not spoken to one who thinks Gordon Brown can find his arse with both hands, even with the benefit of a map.

Never was so much owed to so many by so few

I wrote an article on the promises made to our troops in Afghanistan here.

Some one on politicalbetting.com linked to this graphic I thought I would share.

Hat tip to an artist with imagination, Beau Bo D'Or whose blog is here.

I have moved my blogs to beta

Because earlier today I almost lost the will to live whilst trying to post this. I sat there for hours trying to get it published only for blogger.com to report that it could not complete due to a java error.

Any way it is done now, and the template editor looks good. Just one little niggle to sort out and I will be there.

Update 23:45.

I have to say the new spell checker is fantastic, fast easy clear and generally all round fantastic.

Publishing speed is bullet fast as well.

Carbon Dioxide emissions and the environment

Just wanted to clear something up just so there are no misconceptions in the green debate.

According to the Fascist Mail on Sunday David "Look at my lovely face" Milliband is proposing to tax on green issues until the pips squeak. This will hurt the poor more than the rich, the rural poor doubly so. You can read their article here. Us conservatives need to come up with better answers.

However when we talk of Carbon emissions we should be clear on what it is we mean.

If you did up some coal, or drill for some oil, and burn it you are releasing fossilised carbon. That results in higher concentrations of CO2 in the environment, and as I said in this article, it absorbs heat more than air does so the atmosphere gets hotter.

However, that does not mean that carbon based fuels are in any way bad, if they come from plants that have removed carbon from the atmosphere first.

Also from an environmental point of view it is nuts to scrap all the cars we have in favour of new ones, if we can find non fossil based fuels to run them on. Well they do exist. Cars can be adjusted, but more interestingly you can mix bio fuels with fossil fuels to get net carbon emissions down NOW. The only problem is, you may have to reduce tax on something.

Hat tip to Dizzy who also has a good article on the subject here.

Cash for peerages - has the Times beaten Guido to it?

Guido Fawkes, past master at breaking political news and covering the cash for peerages scandal appears to have been beaten to it by the Times on Sunday in this article.

Mind you they could just be recycling old net news, (Which is good, Conservatives are in favour of recycling) but they do appear to have a recent source saying Lord Cashpoint is passing the blame up the line.

What I can't stand about all this is the insinuation by blind Labour party loyalists that us Conservatives have been doing it for years. Well if so how come the 1925 Honours act was brought in to deal with Liberals abuse, and no Conservative government has ever looked like being prosecuted over anything like this.

Whiter than white is what the promised us in 1997, Sleazier than sleazy is what we have got.