Source: Islam Online

Tony Blair's Testimony: Lessons Not LearnedFormer Prime Minister Tony Blair’s testimony in front of the Chilcot Commission on January 29 was a polite affair unlikely to provide clear answers to the difficult questions concerning Britain’s participation in the Iraq war.

The Commission was set up in July 2009 to draw lessons from Britain’s intervention in Iraq, in order to prepare the government to better handle future challenges. The commission was thus set up to avoid mistakes in the future rather than to establish whether mistakes were made in the past or, worse, whether the British government acted improperly or illegally when it decided to go to war in Iraq.

The terms of reference drawn up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the House of Commons were designed simply to throw light on how the government handled its policy in Iraq from the summer 2001—before the September 11 attack on New York’s twin towers—until the end of  2009, when the commission started holding hearings.

Changing Attitudes

The high point of the hearings was expected to be Tony Blair’s testimony on January 29. Yet, it was a low key testimony, notable not because it provided new information, but because it showed that neither the commission nor the general public are anxious to reopen the bitter debates of 2003.

Although the small room where hearings are being held was packed to capacity with spectators—reportedly for the first time since the commission started its hearings in November—demonstrations outside were small. Britons may not feel more favorably about the war in Iraq but no longer appear angry enough to mobilize.

Not surprisingly, during the hearings Blair defended both the political wisdom of the decision to go war and the legality of the intervention. He reiterated the position that intelligence reports at the time suggested that Saddam Hussein controlled weapons of mass destruction.

He denied accusations that such evidence was deliberately fabricated or that flimsy information was presented as confirmed facts, although he admitted that the information turned out to be incorrect.

But he also went further, arguing, as he has done repeatedly since the beginning of the war, that the invasion was justifiable even in the absence of weapons of mass destruction because of the danger the regime posed for its citizens and more broadly the international community.

He also insisted that the intervention was legal under international law—this was an issue hotly debated in Britain at the time. When the possibility of a military intervention was first broached in March 2002, Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith warned that such action would not be legal under international law, because there was not sufficient evidence of imminent danger to the UK.

A Blind Rush into War

A year later, on the eve of the invasion, the attorney general reversed his position, arguing that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002) had found Iraq in breach of its obligations and warned that the country would face serious consequences if it persisted; implicitly, the resolution thus authorized military action against Iraq.

Opponents of the intervention rejected the argument and accused the attorney general of having simply caved in to political pressure. 

The testimony of Blair and other members of his administration in front of the Chilcot commission are extremely unlikely to change opinions about the war in Britain. Those who supported the decision will continue accepting the arguments defending it; the opponents will remain as unconvinced now as they were then.

What the hearings are showing, though, is that the passion and the bitterness of 2003 have for the most part dissipated and that nobody appears interested in an in-depth discussion of the decision to go to war. Despite the creation of the commission, Britain appears more interested in moving on than in learning lessons.

Future Mistakes in Yemen?

This reluctance to reopen the Iraq war dossier, while understandable, is also unfortunate. While that particular experience is now in the past, with the last British combat troops having been withdrawn from Iraq in April 2009, Britain, together with the United States, faces a situation in Yemen which could lead to a new military intervention. Yemen is a country under siege both on the economic and the political level.

The government is challenged by the Houthi rebellion, the Southern Movement, and al-Qaeda. The country is running out of oil and, most tragically, water. The government’s capacity to provide solutions to this onslaught of problems is limited; in fact, the government has contributed to creating many of the problems.

Britain has invested heavily in the development of Yemen through its department for International Development, as have many other countries. But as the problems mount and become more urgent, economic development will look as an increasingly inadequate, slow answer to imminent crises that threaten the country’s stability and, as seen in failed attempt to blow up a US airliner last December 25, the security of other countries as well.

It would be all too easy for Britain and the United States to slide toward military action, defending an intervention on the ground that, as in the case of Iraq, they need to protect their security.

The Yemen government has made it clear that it intends to handle the problem of security on its own, without the help of foreign troops, but the resolve may not last if the situation worsens.

At that point, the British and US government, and the public in both countries, will need to think long and hard about the implications of sliding again into some form of military action. The lessons of Iraq will no longer be about history, but about the present and future.