Chilcot Inquiry

Chilcot Inquiry

The current investigation (Inquiry) into the Iraq war is going through the paces of discussions with a number of selected people that had a controlling influence on the start of it. It will involve, primarily UK personnel without any real input of the USA, the major participant in the pursuit of this war. It is a tedious but necessary process and it is hoped that it will put to rest any number of observation on the veracity of information that was used as a bases for implementing a war. Whether it will ultimately satisfy people that a war was necessary and justified based on the ‘evidence’ of the time will continue to be open to debate.

Many of the key players are to have their day in the question seat some more than once and when required are allowed to give ‘evidence’ ‘in camera’ not open to any public hearing and therefore deemed to be of a secret nature as required of J. Scarlett, DG of MI6 2009. This possibility alone will be enough to keep open the debate; after having reviewed all information leading up to the war, what was the driving force behind the ultimate decision? Never the less there may not be any startling insights amongst the very carefully adjusted response themes to questions the panel will place on the hot seat.

Can there now be any doubt that the hyped statement of a 45 min launch window of WMD to land on the UK doorstep, which was the intended interpretation that was allowed to be placed before people as the reason to nail Saddam, had it any justification? Presumably no one now thinks that it was, if ever it was, wholly the case and never-mind any contra indication flowing from other expert sources.

There may have been other reason for the invasion; some believe it had much to do with long held plan of the American administration from bush senior to junior of unfinished business after the Kuwait invasion by Iraq and concern about stability in the region of oil resources. This may have been the American view with some evidence that there was an ongoing preparatory dialogue taking place which was given major stimulus, although diversionary, with the 9.11 attack. But this was not the UK point – it was more one of using the usual diplomatic channels via the UN and being aggressively proactive in the face of unsupportive and resistant EU members, a tack that was unsuccessful leading to the supportive passionate application of force alongside the US.

Not highlight in all the investigation of the persons concerned will be the 2 prime functions. (1) The belief driven view taken up by Blair to support the American mendacious view promoting a war and (2) The drive to be seen to be tackling the after effect of 9.11.01 and 7.7.05, compounding the misguided psychosis creation of a war on terror. Also it was important to be seen as a key player to the UK's most import ‘ally’ reliant on this constructed war on terror premise as it is expected that US support will be required in a future difficulty and on one were the UK will have to look to for succour when time become hard. It is this that is the ideological reason the UK succumbed to the worst political incompetence of modern times.

There are many questions that Chilcot will attempt to gain answer to within the remit of its terms of reference, this will of course exclude any subject it is not specifically allowed to look into or indeed pass a ‘judgment’ on, such as the legality of the war or to suggest any lies were constructed to deceive parliament. At a guess it will be shown that there was a process of a systemic creation of hubris to support an engendered view that some direct action for an unwarranted state of affairs, caused by Saddam, must be taken and this hubris was to find a way to create the dubious rational for action, no matter what, for doing it; ultimately inflicting an unnecessary and potential questionable illegal war onto Iraq.
For some the most startling piece of information to come out of the inquiry thus far, is not the miss-application of evidence, duplicity, hubris, cabinet cabal and neutered parliamentary assessment but something uniquely damaging to the UK. It may have been missed but the evident ‘theory driven belief’ systems that so guided Blair in his pursuit of inflicting war on Iraq is most amazing. From this belief came the near fervent apostolic conviction for him to judge without doubt and against advice or limited evidence that there was a direct immediate threat to the UK, or regions closer to Iraq that had much more to be worried about, is astonishing. This belief on its own was enough to carry his arguments forward and manipulate enough power to win over opposition. This action was presidential in style and gave him the use of the ‘royal prerogative’ an action that could be similar to tacit dictatorial power. However this is not a dictatorship so one person should not have the power to force a country to go to war, yet with his carful manipulation and clever disingenuous dialogue and the complicity of key parties together with acolytes in cabinet and a distinct lack of hard perusal of the evidence by parliament to launch an attack; war was made.

What Chilcot will not find is that the war was not an illegal one. That decision has already been made and will be allowed to remain vague for sovereign reason. It will not be challenged, for there are too many obstacles to overrule and more importantly by far, too much to risk to even suggest a counter legal view from such an inquiry that has no legal power. The future has an uncomfortable way of rewriting the past. Done too soon and it opens a massive problem – reparation for war crime, one the UK cannot afford to condone.

The report when it is published will without doubt highlight a massive failure in parliamentary proceeding, over excessive executive pressure and a culpable miss direction laid on and by the cabinet which was not questioned. There was a systemic failure to investigate information that had parliament done so would have made the affliction of a war at best unnecessary or worse possibly delayed it. Events would have, given Saddam’s Iraq pernicious ethos against its own people, eventually matured and created an alternative strategic necessity.

No doubt some people will be held critical, some process will be judge as deeply flawed, parliamentary process will have failed catastrophically, lives may have been lost unnecessary and some indicative evidence will not see the light of day. However there is a long term danger in this inquiry for the UK and it is a danger that will not affect the USA for it will not go through the same self flagellation over its mistakes as the UK. It is unlikely to ever have its own Chilcot inquiry. The danger will perhaps be on two counts. The UK in the eye of the EU and others will be open to having been willingly cohered into action by the need to be seen to keep a robust special relationship with the US and will have lost political creditability for a relationship that is one of subservience for very little reward or actual recognition. The other danger is more immediately tenuous and it is one related to the ability of the UK to ever respond to a threat unilaterally (ref Falklands) or in concert with others, against public and some political objection that will have become distrustful of politicians and wholly against participating in any other conflicts. Even if it wanted too, the process to gain agreement by parliament will in future be slow and tortuous, so much so that any urgency for immediate reaction will be lost and detrimental to minimal risk for armed forces. It is not difficult to see that in any future tension that could lead to conflict, the UK will step aside. In this event, will the prominent EU members step to the plate where it failed with former Yugoslavia etc?



© Renot 2010
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Weakened Euro?

Weakened Euro?

Recently the Euro has been under some pressure resulting from the exposures of the CC, national debt and raises the question of its strength. In order to answer the question of where the euro sits in relation to the world economy and the idea of its potential failure or ultimate success, one has to look at where the euro came from and why. This need not be a huge discourse but perhaps just looking at the prime factors that led up to its creation may be enough to realise that it is necessary for it to be here to stay; or should it collapse, be seen as the forerunning of a future global currency for what it, or something like it, eventually tries to achieve.

Prior to the 1940’s currencies were dominated by the power of trade, those who had the biggest carrot to control ‘value’ largely dictated terms and was I think an illusory thing often wrapped up in the confidence of being able to meet the cost of acquiring or selling things and translating that confidence into an excess return over the cost of fabrication. Such confidence may always rely on a degree of stability – normal human behaviour likes to have some idea stability, of planning for the future however limited and do not put effort into what they might think is terminal malfunctioning of influencing aspects. Two wars in quick secession strained that confidence of productive trade and the expectation of stability and although the wars generated technical and social shifts the rewards were not equitable or evenly spread as raw resources became more in demand. No reason to go into the whole effect of the 2ww, simple to say that afterwards the ‘modern’ world was in a mess particular the state of combatants. And apart from the destruction afterwards, this created trading uncertainty and loss of confidence in the value of trade.

There was a great danger that progressive instability would create continuing tension that would get worse holding back trade between the major economies. To rebuild, a stabilisation plan was required, formulated in the Bretton Wood agreement. With the Bretton Wood agreement and a sort of new Gold standard, created a ‘benchmark’ against which a stable system of currency valuation and trade could be operated giving rise to the IMF and fixing exchange rates to the price of gold and the US dollar. It worked but was not wholly what was required and had an inbuilt limitation which was created linked to increasing value of gold, this arguable was why countries started to amass gold as an hedge against uncertainty (little change there then from previous centuries).

From this agreement came the ECSC, the EC and Euro. Up to the creation of the Euro from the 60s onwards with the increase in trade, a new growing powerful effect was building up, one of market manipulative trading in and on currencies which became a perception game with players chasing rumours and weakness in a countries currency to make a marginal gain. The gold standard was dropped about 1970 in favour of benching just on the dollar as the currency that could always (?) pay its way. As gold was unstable as its price rose and fell it became obvious that more money could be made playing the market than simply holding gold and was one of the reasons that the UK started selling its gold from the mid 80s, as it had oil revenue and a strong pound; that bonus fell apart in Sept 92 with Black Wednesday and later with Brown selling off a large volume of gold to aid the national debt, shortly afterwards seen as at a bad piece of timing and at a low price.
During the boom year of 70-90s you can recall the antics that were played with a range of currency transaction with flushes of buying and selling on the franc, mark, pound, yen, dollar, etc all bouncing up and down on the whim of the market. The ‘market’ became the place to be with billions of currency being traded in London alone, 90% of which had no useful purpose in trade terms other than to make a margin on an overnight deal. Do I need to mention G Soros as an example?

In effect the world entered into a new form of bartering system this time with the value of things attached to what the money market decided as its value (money) it became a commodity and it was alone backed by the confidence of making more money on a gamble, guess, bet – linked to what a country can afford to pay, looking at ‘credit worthiness’, trade balances – interest rate, PSBR/ GDP, assets (like oil & gas) and rumour. Would value go up or down?

Now there is the unresolved effect of the credit crises and the reason why the euro is under pressure now has nothing to do with the concept of the euro or its adoption by 16 states out of the 27. (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Holland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain).It is under pressure because it has become in the way of how the market is dealing in currencies and how the free trade operates. It is no surprise that the after the shambles of the credit crises which is still rolling along, caused remember by the free market system and lack of administrative control and opaqueness which it ultimately relies on for its existence giving it excessive success for a limited number of participants, that it requires a constant source of opportunities to multiply monetary resources; fast money has to go somewhere to earn its keep and the machine needs to run at a rapid pace switching from one productive yield area to another. Three elements operate in this game, the perceived strength of the economic standing of a country, the trading requirement and the easy flow of money; all of which are virtual commodities to buy or sell subject to market attitudes. It is the money flow that has the most immediate and damaging effect on a countries long term fortune.

Although the euro is a signal currency it fronts a different level of economic strength for each country and this is its greatest strength if all support it, protecting it from the marauding financial band. Its weakness is the different levels of the practical and actual asset/resource strength of each participating countries. The level of debt to GDP is a problem, example currently: Germany v Greece or any mix of the others. This is a long known problem of GDP vs. nation debt (borrowing to spend) and not having the ability to earn a way out of it, a problem that now has to be tackled by a number of countries caught out and complicit in the hyped to burst economy cycle . Despite this there is no intractable reason why the euro should collapse, the best is it will hold its ground, it may require an average revaluation or potentially an unlikely two tier rate but given what it represents and the strength it offers against the market, I do not see it failing.

The money market has become far too powerful, too unregulated for EU governments to allow the euro to collapse –failure is not an option. The impact, should it occur will be a reversal to the past with countries having to be appealing to the market and play a revolving interest competition and heightened trade war to make their trade and currency buoyant. Failure of the Euro will be such a catastrophic development, the ramification of which will make the CC a mere blip in financial non rectitude. In this case no one country without any new constraint imposed on the market traders will be safe, not even the mighty dollar will be immune, It may be seen as a strong currency initially but its deficit can make it a market target, it will be sold in favour of a more credit worthy one, its value will fall, interest rate will be forced high, imports/exports will yoyo and without corrective action to live within its means, even it could face a default. It simply cannot be in America’s interest to see the euro fail, its (dollar) current dominant position is already under stress it could do with a strong euro to act as a buffer against the changing economic power shifts. Nor is it in any countries interest to continue to allow the market to operate useless currency trading ‘hedging and shorting’ and forcing the market value of currency to dictate their economic strategy. Without doubt all western countries will now have to look hard at their fiscal policies and move towards greater control, high debt is no longer a viable option, it ultimately leads to social penury and potential something far worse.

Now the interesting thing is what will happen to the pound, what will it do? It is now thought to be lucky to stay out of the euro and is not faced with the task of supporting it if an EMF (bank) be required to buttress the euro. However the pound has little intrinsic strength and it will get much worse, there is the option of jacking up interest rates to make it attractive to be in the pound or actually openly devaluing it but at what cost? The market may decide that it is too weak to pay its way in the short term (or longer) and do a run on it. Not having the weight of EU behind it, does leave it open to a great deal of manipulation – hostage to subsequent misfortune. When this happens and it is odds on that it will, is it about to become one of the 'piigs' or will it take a leap into the euro before or after it goes to the IMF next year?


© Renot 2010
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