Malaysian Court Finds Bush and Blair Guilty of War Crimes in Iraq Invasion

George W. Bush (R) and Tony Blair (AFP Photo / Jim Watson) © AFP

Those who lobbied to have George W. Bush and Tony Blair tried for their role in the Iraq War have finally got their wish. Though the verdict of the court carries no legal weight, its supporters believe its symbolic value is beyond doubt.

Coming out on election day might not be doing Labour any good, either.

The court in Malaysia where the trial took place may not have the power to convict, but the verdict against the former British and American leaders was unanimous.  

“War criminals have to be dealt with – convict Bush and Blair as charged. A guilty verdict will serve as a notice to the world that war criminals may run but can never ultimately hide from truth and justice,” the statement from the Perdana Global Peace Foundation read.

The foundation was set up by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who was always a staunch opponent of the war against the regime of Saddam Hussain in 2003. He previously branded Blair and Bush “child-killers”.

The tribunal, which consisted of a former federal judge and several academics, paid particular attention to the failure of the Western military to find a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. WMDs were cited by the Western coalition as a major reason for their military intervention. It also declared the war to be in contravention of the will of the United Nations.

“The evidence showed that the drums of war were being beaten long before the invasion. The accused in their own memoirs have admitted their intention to invade Iraq regardless of international law,” said the tribunal.

The tribunal has no powers of enforcement, and as yet there has been no response from Bush or Blair. But the Perdana Peace Foundation says it hopes to maintain pressure from the international community on the two leaders, both of whom have now retired from domestic politics.

Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence during the Iraq War, is next on the list to have his case heard by the mock court.

VP Cheney ought to be next since it was he who appears to have altered the CIA report indicating there was no concrete evidence of WMDs in Iraq, to say the opposite. 

This was not a global policing action against WMDs; it was a Deep State action to keep the inventory of war moving and making billions of dollars for the war-mongers, and getting some control over Iraq's oil.

MI6 Knew That Terror-Suspect was Tortured into Giving False Iraq-Al-Qaeda Info

Will we ever know the truth about Hussein's WMDs?

A US Marine watches a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein toppled © Reuters/Goran Tomasevic

UK ministers relied on questions from a tortured terror suspect to make their case for the Iraq War, the Middle East Eye (MEE) has claimed. British spies fed questions to the suspect even though they knew of his mistreatment.

According to redacted documents, seen by the MEE, an MI6 officer knew that Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi was placed inside a sealed coffin by the CIA at a US-run Afghanistan based prison. Al-Libi – alive inside the coffin – was then taken, aboard a truck, to an aircraft that was to fly to Egypt.

© Global Look Press/ Peter Marshall

The MI6 officer and his colleagues reported the incident to their department’s London HQ, stating that they “were tempted to speak out” on behalf of al-Libi, but failed to do so, adding: “The event reinforced the uneasy feeling of operating in a legal wilderness.”

Once al-Libi was in Egypt, a country with a well-documented history of human rights abuses, both MI6 and MI5 fed questions to the detainee, receiving reports from his Egyptian interrogators.

Al-Libi, under torture, told his jailers that Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda had links to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program. The claim was cited as fact by US President George W. Bush as he made the case for war.

Upon being returned to the CIA, al-Libi stated that he had lied to avoid further torture. By that point the US, along with the UK, had already invaded Iraq.

© REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

As well as Bush, al-Libi’s false information was cited by then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous speech advocating for war at the UN Security Council on February 5 2003. On the same day, then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament there were “unquestionably” links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq.

“There is evidence of such links. Exactly how far they go is uncertain. However… there is intelligence coming through to us the entire time about this,” Blair said.

So, the question is, was Blair kept in the dark about the form of 'questioning' of the prisoner? If he was. who was responsible for that, and why is he not being criminally prosecuted? 

Did the CIA inform Bush and Powell as to the nature of the questioning? Did they inform Cheney? Who briefed Bush and Powell? And why do I suspect it was Cheney? 

It's disappointing, and a little frightening, that America seems to have no appetite to find the truth about Hussein's WMDs and the intelligence scam that led to the invasion of Iraq? 

The US had been keen to link Iraq to Al-Qaeda in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In evidence disclosed to the Chilcot Inquiry, Bush had raised the issue in a phone call with Blair, who is said to have replied that he couldn't accept it without seeing compelling evidence.