Khoodeelaar! told you so. Jack Straw's 'evidence' is denounced as CRASS! That word, the one that Khodoeelaar! has used more than a thousand times now to describe ‘MIC’-agenda CrossRail scam is now being used by OTHERS, to describe the ‘MIC’-serving Jack Straw. Which vindicates the universality of our diagnostics and analysis of ‘MIC’ and its touts and its pretexts. As all objective students of Jack Straw’s career would know, Straw has been a loyal ‘MIC’-servant all his career. No wonder that he is denounced just in the same way, by using the same word, CRASS, by others that we have used to diagnose the ‘MIC’-scam CrossRail.
Anger as he quotes Dr Kelly to back him
Dr David Kelly was quoted by Straw
Mr Straw provoked anger by using the words of the late Dr David Kelly to support the Government's decision to go to war.
In a 25-page memo for the Chilcot committee, he sought to invoke the late weapons scientist to show that Saddam Hussein was a threat before the invasion.
Mr Straw was branded 'crass' for quoting Dr Kelly because the minister was a leading member of a government seen as partly responsible for driving the weapons expert to suicide.
Dr Kelly was found dead near his Oxfordshire home in 2003, days after he was exposed as the source of a story that Tony Blair's government 'sexed up' its dossier on Saddam's WMD to justify invading Iraq.
The Hutton Inquiry heard that Government spin doctors released Dr Kelly's name - forcing him into the public eye.
Yesterday, Mr Straw sought to use Dr Kelly's view that Saddam had WMD programmes as political cover.
He wrote that at a briefing in September 2002, Dr Kelly 'appeared to have no doubt in his mind about the threat from Iraq.
This was confirmed publicly in the Hutton Report, which quotes from a letter he wrote on June 30, 2003: "I was personally sympathetic to the war because I recognised from a decade's work [as a weapons inspector] the menace of Iraq's ability to further develop its non-conventional weapons programmes".'
Reg Keys, of Military Families Against the War, said: 'In my opinion the Government helped hound Dr Kelly to his death. If I was a member of Dr Kelly's family I would think it was a no-go area to mention that gentleman's name.'
LibDem foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said: 'It's totally crass for Jack Straw to rely on the late David Kelly.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245013/Iraq-inquiry-Jack-Straw-admits-stopped-war.html#ixzz0dLaVOmwE
Jack Straw turns up the heat on Blair by telling inquiry: I could have stopped Iraq war
Jack Straw denounced Tony Blair's slavish backing for President Bush over the Iraq War yesterday and revealed a deep split on whether regime change to topple Saddam Hussein was legal.
The former Foreign Secretary told the Iraq Inquiry that, unlike Mr Blair, he would not have written cosy letters to the U.S. President promising that Britain would 'be there' when America went to war.
In an explosive day of evidence, Mr Straw said the dodgy Downing Street dossier was an 'error' that has 'haunted us ever since'.
On the spot: Jack Straw at the Chilcot Inquiry this afternoon
He became the first Cabinet minister to express 'deep regret' about the thousands of deaths that followed, saying that the war had 'undermined trust' in politics.
Mr Straw, now Justice Secretary, said that he clashed with Mr Blair over his belief that it was 'self-evidently unlawful' for Britain to oust the Iraqi dictator without a UN mandate for military action.
And he revealed that he shared doubts about the invasion on the eve of war with Gordon Brown and Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary.
But Mr Straw said that while he could have stopped the war if he had opposed the invasion, he chose instead to remain loyal to Mr Blair.
Mr Straw's evidence is significant because as Foreign Secretary in the build-up to the invasion he was the minister other than Mr Blair most closely associated with the cheerleading for war.
But under aggressive questioning from the Chilcot committee, he was forced to acknowledge deep splits between him and the then prime minister that further erodes Mr Blair's position before he gives evidence next Friday.
Mr Straw dramatically distanced himself from what Mr Blair wrote in private letters to Mr Bush in 2002. Mr Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell has said the 'tone' of Mr Blair's letters was that Britain would 'be there' with the U.S., come what may.
Asked if he felt 'entirely comfortable' with the letters, Mr Straw appeared uneasy but eventually said: 'Would I have written the memorandum in the same way? Probably not, because I am a different person.'
Mr Straw also refused to defend Mr Blair's recent statement in an interview with Fern Britton that he 'would still have thought it right to remove' Saddam Hussein even if he had known for sure that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
On three separate occasions, Mr Straw said that he believed regime change was illegal - a point repeated in a 25-page memo the Justice Secretary submitted to the inquiry team.
Mr Straw said it was never British policy to achieve 'regime change' in Iraq 'and there would have been no legal base for it ever to be our policy'.
He added later: 'A foreign policy objective of regime change I regard as improper and also self- evidently unlawful. It had no chance of being a runner in the UK, it certainly would not have got my support.'
But again pressed on whether Mr Blair shared his view, Mr Straw said: 'We are two different people. It is no great surprise to know that people at senior levels in government hold different views and debate those. What I had to offer the prime minister was my best judgment and my loyalty.'
Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull told the inquiry last week that Mr Blair was 'a regime changer from the start'.
Mr Straw acknowledged that his support was 'critical' to Mr Blair and that he could have brought the military juggernaut to a halt.
'If I had refused that, the UK's participation in the military action would not in practice have been possible,' he said. 'There almost certainly would have been no majority in either Cabinet or in the Commons.'
He revealed that he sent notes to Mr Blair in March 2003, the month of the invasion, offering alternative courses, suggesting that Britain might back the U.S. attack but not participate.
But Mr Straw said the Cabinet never got a chance to discuss his fears that Mr Blair was 'out on a limb'. Instead he shared them privately with Mr Brown, then Chancellor, and Mr Hoon.
Mr Straw called the decision to back the war 'the most difficult I have ever faced in my life' and said he was a 'reluctant' convert to military action. But he added: 'Did I ever think: I'm going to resign over this? No.
Rift? Jack Straw with Tony Blair in summer 2003 after the spring invasion
'I made my choice. I have never backed away from it, and I do not intend to do so, and fully accept the responsibilities which flow from that.'
Unlike Mr Blair, who insists he would have done the same, and Mr Brown, who has only acknowledged 'mistakes' over Iraq, Mr Straw did express regrets.
He said: 'It made many people very angry at the time, and subsequently. That and the failure to find any WMD has undermined trust.
'Above all, there has been the grave loss of life - of our military personnel and civilians, others in the coalition, and the many thousands of Iraqis. I deeply regret this.'
Mr Straw concluded his memo to the committee with a quote from the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: 'Whilst life can only be understood backwards, it has to be lived forward.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245013/Iraq-inquiry-Jack-Straw-admits-stopped-war.html#ixzz0dLacXTp3
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