Amid the accusations
By
Salama A Salama
The row which has erupted between Britain and the US over the evidence on which both states relied in waging war against Iraq is telling. Both the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and US President George W Bush, were adamant in claiming the evidence as authentic until zero hour. But three months have hardly passed since military operations ended in Iraq before the truth of the game has begun to emerge. The threats posed by the Iraqi regime's possession of weapons of mass destruction have now crumbled into dust.
The world is now uninterested in following the predicament of the US troops in Iraq, or the cat and mouse games played out between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas atop the ruins of the roadmap. Attention is now focussed on heated debates in the British House of Commons and the US Congress. And if they result in the overthrow of Blair's government he will have reaped what he deserves.
It is ironic that the two allies are exchanging accusations that each deceived the other with inaccurate intelligence information, with bogus stories of Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger, or else the reworking of an academic paper written a decade ago and posted on the Internet. The crossfire has revealed that the two allies lied to each other, hid intelligence information from each other, and always intended to launch the war first and only later look for the evidence to justify it.
CIA Chief George Tenet's statements have helped to dig Blair deeper into a hole as he attempts to defend himself before the House of Commons. Never before has a British prime minister lost the ability to distinguish between British and American interests to the extent that Blair has.
London's standing among other European countries, as well as in terms of its relations with the Arab and Muslim world, is in sharp decline as a result. British public opinion is increasingly outraged, and the British press is intent on uncovering the truth of the situation.
And despite all these sacrifices to serve US interests London has been unable to secure just trials for its nationals in Guantanamo.
Neither has the UK been able to secure any significant role in managing the deteriorating situation in post-war Iraq. Washington's appointee, Paul Bremer, holds all the strings -- he even has a veto over decisions taken by the new governing council formed in Baghdad.
Meanwhile the US is exerting great effort to convince Arab states, including Egypt, to support the new governing council, recognise it and even enter into diplomatic relations with it, as if it somehow represented the people of Iraq.
What is certain is that the appalling situation in Iraq will not be redressed as long as the US insists on unilaterally governing the country while it is under occupation by American and British troops. French and German objections to the governance of Iraq is forcing Washington to turn to NATO and other countries in increasingly desperate attempts to control the security situation. This bizarre situation will continue and conditions in Iraq will keep deteriorating until there is a return to the United Nations and a commitment to working beneath under its umbrella of legitimacy
