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Why let facts and reality stand in the way?

As time marches on, more and more revelations appear to clearly show that going into the Iraq War was propelled by idealogy [those now totally discredited die hard neocons, including Dick Cheney] and for reasons which were nothing less than blatant lies.

The Guardian Unlimited, this past weekend, revealed in a piece, "The Calamity of Disregard" how MI6s' pre-Iraq War warnings were ignored by an obsessed White House. Reading the piece one must wonder why it was thought Tony Blair had any credibility to bring to his recently appointed role as some sort of mediator or interlocutor in the Middle East. And PM John Howard, the other little "me too" man in following George Bush wherever he wanted to go? He seems to be facing defeat in the Australian elections, whenever held, although the topic of Iraq and Australia's engagement there hasn't, as it ought to be, been on the radar.

"In the run-up to war, senior British security and intelligence officials as well as diplomats made it clear that they were strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq - though not clear enough. Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the US attack on the country. Concern in Whitehall was shared by some perspicacious Americans, including General Tony Zinni, the former head of US central command, which is responsible for operations throughout the Middle East. He called it the wrong war, fought in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

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