War Glance
The Government is refusing to release minutes of Cabinet meetings before the Iraq War because they would reveal there was no discussion on the issue.
Details surrounding two crucial meetings on the eve of the conflict were laid bare for the first time yesterday when former Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who was present at both, gave a full account of what happened.
She told The Mail on Sunday the main reason for the ‘scandalous’ decision not to publish the minutes was not to protect confidential discussions about the war, but to cover up the fact there was no such discussion.
At the last Cabinet meeting, no debate on the legality of the war was allowed and Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, said brusquely: ‘That’s it.’
President Obama arrived at one of the nation’s most storied military bases Friday morning to unveil plans to pull most troops out of Iraq by August 2010 after receiving support from an unlikely quarter — Senator John McCain, the Republican he beat in last year’s election.
A military court on Friday found a US soldier guilty of premeditated murder in the killings of four blindfolded Iraqi prisoners in 2007, a US Army spokesman said.
MOST Americans know that last year there was a decline in violence in Iraq and an increase in violence in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, there’s a more complicated story to be told. The chart below shows the date and type of every death of an American or allied soldier in 2008, based on data from the Pentagon and icasualties.org, an independent research group.
