TopicsCarmarthenshireEconomics Fair Funding for Wales International Iraq War Miners Compensation and Pensions Parliament for Wales Pensions |
Second Beretta Shipment Revealed
Posted 6 days, 23 hours ago on April 2, 2006 by Adam
Dominic Kennedy of the Times has revealed a new twist to the Beretta affair. www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2113631,00.html A second Beretta shipment was sent from the UK in early 2005. This cache of 5,666 semi-automatic pistols was paid for by the MoD. It’s not currently known if any of these have also ended up in the hands of the insurgency. Meanwhile, Kim Howells , the Foreign Office Minister, has told me in a written parliamentary answer:
The Italian prosecutor has been investigating since United States forces in Iraq uncovered large numbers of Berettas in the hands of the insurgents in February 2005. British Government policy states that “overseas posts have standing instructions to inform the UK of any suspected mis-use, or diversion of UK arms exports”. We are forced to conclude that the Italians and the Americans – our allies in Iraq – neglected to tell us that our guns had gone missing. Meanwhile, the British Government has admitted it didn’t tell the Italians – who have a much stricter export control system than us – that we were re-exporting the Berettas to Iraq. International rules – the Wassenaar Arrangement, for example, place a duty on signatory countries, to report re-exports to the country of origin to clamp down on convoluted attempts to circumvent national controls. Broken rules. Allies who don’t talk to each other. The insurgents armed. Another every day tale of ineptitude in Iraq. Another Parliament Misled
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago on March 30, 2006 by Adam
The British Government has confirmed that the Norwegian governmet lent it four radars to help with the invasion of Iraq:
The trouble is the Norwegian Government didn’t tell the Norwegian Parliament (the Storting). Norway earned 17m kroner (about £4 million) for renting out its Ericsson built radar equipmet that were used in targeting missiles in the early “shock and awe” phase of the military campaign. According to television journalist Erling Borgen, the then UK Defence Minister, Geoff Hoon, wrote to his Norwegian counterpart, the Conservative Kristin Krohn Devold on 27th March 2003, just eight days into the war thanking Norway for their support. Borgen also claims that British soldiers were trained in using the radar in advance of the invasion at a time the British Parliament was being told that no decision had been taken. Now we’re told this war was about creating democracy in Iraq. At the expense of democracy virtually everywhere else it seems. The Bourne Supremacy
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago on March 28, 2006 by Adam
The British Labour Party, Wales and the West Region, as they are now known have been beevering away of late, trying to scare the wits out of the vulnerable with the nightmarish prospect of the return of a Tory government in Wales post-2007. The fear factor is clearly going to be their main plan of attack for the next Assembly election (as it was in 1999, remember the A to Z of Nationalist Madness). Labour’s strategy – unlike their funding – is actually quite transparent. Polarise the debate between Labour and the Tories, refashioning Welsh politics on British lines, sending us back to the 1970s, all flares and Ford cortinas, like an out-take from Life On Mars. But this is 2006. And Rhodri Morgan will need more than a bottle of Ty Nant this time to prove “clear red water” between “new Labour” and Cameron’s new model “blue Labour”. Of course, Labour knows this really is just posturing. I am pretty sure that their private polling in Wales will already be showing the Tories faring badly as the Cameron bandwagon begins to become unstuck. For the time being, I am happy for us in Plaid to be given free rein by the Labour Party to rebuild our support under the radar as Labour trains its guns on the Tories. But I am worried that voters in Wales are being deceived for party political reasons. So time for a reality check. Apart from the fact that if it ever happened we could kiss goodbye to any hope of seeing a popular vote in favour of deepening democratic devolution in Wales for a generation (which is a pretty BIG problem), there is an even more fundamental problem with the prospect of a Tory-led Assembly government. It is an arithmetic, political, philosophical and historic impossibility. I don’t think I could be clearer than that. Plaid’s national executive and its national council have made it absolutely clear that there are no circumstances, whatsoever, in which we would join a Tory-led administration after the 2007 elections. We want the chance to serve the people of Wales and help build a self-confident, successful and socially equitable country. But we will never do that by removing one right-wing London-based party from power (Labour) and simply replacing them with another. If people in Wales want change – and after ten years of failure in health, housing, jobs and transport I genuinely think they do – then there’s only one game in town: choose Plaid. So, a helpful message to the Tory Party in Wales, and their cheerleaders: The Bourne Supremacy is a work of fiction. And, no, Nick, you’re no Matt Damon…..though, to be fair, neither am I. Britain bounces Afghan cheques
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago on March 27, 2006 by Adam
The international security think-tank, the Senlis Council , claimed yesterday in Kabul that millions of pounds of compensation promised to farmers in the troubled Helmand Province in south-western Afghanistan in return for poppy eradication has not been paid. According to local community leaders British officials met with them in 2002 and agreed to pay $350 per jerib (about one-fifth of a hectare) for the voluntary eradication of 62,000 jeribs. Up to $21 million of the compensation remains unpaid four years later, and, according to the Council, four hundred cheques have bounced at a local bank in Lashkar Gar because the British Government account has insufficient funds. As the Council points out, it’s not just British Government credit that has suffered: goodwill and trust, which were already in short supply, have now all but evaporated – along with the impoverished farmers’ only source of income. And all this on the eve of a major British deployment to this war-ravaged region. This sounds as if it has all the hallmarks of yet another lions-led-by-donkeys blunder, destined to makes an already difficult mission all the more dangerous for Service men and women. When I challenged Defence Secretary Reid on the Council’s allegations today, he shrugged it off, arguing the Council, who support the (eminently sensible) idea of licensed opium production for pharmaceuticals like codeine and morphine, are not a reliable source of information because they have an ‘agenda’. We’ll see who’s right when the farmers sue the British Government in the British Courts for “breach of contract”. www.drug-policy.org/modules/events/kabul_international_symposium/Cheque |