Obsolete

Shot man not connected to bombing:

A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday's London attacks was unconnected to the incidents, police have confirmed.

A Scotland Yard statement said the shooting was a "tragedy" which was regretted by the Metropolitan Police.

The man was shot dead after police followed him from a south London flat to Stockwell Tube station on Friday.

The statement read: "We believe we now know the identity of the man shot at Stockwell Underground station by police on Friday 22nd July 2005, although he is still subject to formal identification.

"We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets."

The statement confirmed the man was followed by police from a block of flats that was under surveillance.

Oh never again, oh never again. They gave us 5 shots to the back of the head. And we're all dead. Now.

It seems to have been proven that the man shot dead on the tube was
not carrying a bomb or any explosive device. Reuters and Sky have been carrying similar reports to the Times. Reports on this are still confusing and contradictory, but I'm going to attempt to piece together what seems to have happened.

It appears to be agreed upon that the man came out of a house which was under surveillance by police, as having some link towards the "attacks" on Thursday. Something I haven't seen in other reports and accounts features in the Independent's story, which is that the man first got on a bus. Now, while the Independent may well have got this wrong, what's so different from a bus than a tube train? Why did they not stop him from boarding the bus, or even arrest him when he left the house? Both need answering.

When the man approached Stockwell tube station, he appears to have jumped the barriers, and was at the time being chased by armed, plain clothes police. As he approached the tube train, he either tripped as he jumped on, and fell against a pole and a person, or was tackled by police, who then bundled on top of him. He was then shot at least 3, probably 5 times, in the head. It appears the train had been delayed, which hasn't been explained, but I presume it was because the next station on from Stockwell is Oval, where one of the "attacks" took place the previous day.

The Guardian has published 7 helpful eyewitness accounts, the most authoritative and quoted is that of Mark Whitby:

"An Asian guy ran on to the train. As he ran, he was hotly pursued by what I knew to be three plain-clothes police officers.

"He tripped and was also pushed to the floor and one of the officers shot him five times.

"One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead, five shots, he's dead.

"I'm totally distraught. It was no more than five yards away from where I was sitting as I saw it with my own eyes.

"As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified.

"He looked like a Pakistani but he had a baseball cap on, and quite a thickish coat. It was a coat like you would wear in winter, a sort of padded jacket.

"Maybe he might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked out of place in the weather we've been having.

"He was quite large, big built, quite a sort of chubby guy.

"I was crouched down and basically ran as fast as I could in a crouched position. I just was worried about bullets flying around.

"It was just an instinctive reaction to get out - people running in all directions, looks of horror on their faces, screaming, a lot of screaming from women, absolute mayhem.

"And the smell of cordite as well, the gunpowder smell, that sort of acrid sort of gunpowder smell.

"It was an absolute nightmare. I'm just waiting for the pubs to open to be quite honest - nice stiff Scotch.

"I've never seen anything like it in my life. I saw them kill a man basically. I saw them shoot a man five times."

The only person who seems to have claimed to have seen some kind of bomb belt was Anthony Larkin. He also said that he heard only 2 shots being fired. Whether he will be completely discredited remains to be seen.

This whole thing is very, very distressing and disturbing. The police seemingly had chances before he got to the tube to stop him. They chose not to. It has horrible echoes of being a chance to show the public that they mean business, as well being a plan to further terrify Londoners into thinking that there are suicide bombers all around them. Of course, this could be an entirely innocent incident. The police could well have just cocked it up, and saw something which wasn't there. Still though, some things don't add up. This BBC article which quotes Margaret Gilmore, the home affairs correspondent who I've often suspected of having right wing sympathies, as quoting a police source:

"He ran, they followed him. They say they gave him a warning, they then shot him.

"They brought in the air ambulance. They did everything they can to revive him. He died at the scene."

Other witnesses do mention there being a helicopter in the air. Was this an air ambulance, or just a normal police helicopter? When you shoot someone five times in the head, it's pretty odd to then try to revive them. The way they shot him shows that they obviously meant to kill the man. Calling the air ambulance or reviving him afterwards just seems to add insult to injury. It smacks of them trying to make what they did look better, as if they cared for this man they executed.

Vikram Dodd, in an excellent Grauniad article, spells out the police thinking and plans:

The shooting yesterday at Stockwell tube station was the first time police used special tactics developed to tackle the threat of suicide bombers.

Under Operation Kratos a senior officer is on standby 24 hours a day to authorise the deployment of special armed squads, who will track and if needs be, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers.

One of the most senior officers involved in protecting London confirmed there were special teams of armed officers ready to be deployed.

A senior Metropolitan police source with knowledge of firearms procedures said of the shooting at Stockwell: "This was an intelligence led operation, within the parameters of Kratos." Officially the Met will not talk about Kratos, but the tactics have been in place for a year and were developed after British officers learnt from their Israeli counterparts how best to tackle suicide bombers.

So it is admitted. Britain is taking lessons in stopping "terrorists", from the country which kills and assassinates with impunity.

My stomach has been churning ever since I first heard the news of the shooting. The police didn't try to stop this man; they killed him in cold blood. By all accounts, it seems like he was trying to run away. They didn't shoot him in the leg, the chest or the shoulder, they shot him in the head. Not once, but at least 3, possibly 5 or more times, in the head. This was an execution. I still find it reassuring that the police in this country don't ordinarily carry guns. That reassurance is starting to die. If the police can get away with killing a man like this in front of ordinary commuters who saw what happened, what next? Perhaps we truly are sleep walking into a police state.

Police shoot man dead at tube station:

Police today shot a man dead at Stockwell tube station in south London.

Scotland Yard said: "We can confirm that just after 10am armed officers entered Stockwell tube station. A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London ambulance service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene."

A witness described the man being "shot dead" in front of him as an officer "unloaded five shots" from a pistol. Another witness said he heard three shots.

None of the witnesses describe the man as carrying any weapon, or even a bag or rucksack. He did however have on a heavy coat, a sure sign that he was asking for it. There was talk of there being a 'shoot to kill' policy on suicide bombers, but this man doesn't fit that description, and neither does the way in which he was executed. In those situations it is meant to be one shot to the head, not 3 or 5 shots. The fact that the police tried to resuscitate him speaks volumes. Why shoot someone 5 times then try and bring him back to life? Obviously he may well have dropped an package or bag that may have had explosives or a weapon in, but I would have thought if he had the idea then would have been to take him alive, not dead.

On the 'bombings', police haven't made anything clear yet on what happened. Experts have said that the possibility of 4 bombs all failing to detonate would be extraordinary. Only 2 of the attacks have confirmed reports of men actually running away, at the Warren Street and Oval stations. The package on the bus in Shoreditch was apparently left on there. Witnesses have reported both smells similar to vinegar and to burning rubber. On the whole, these all seem like completely amateurish attempts. That said, the police may yet come forward and say that the explosives did fail to detonate. Many questions still remain though. Why let the bombs go off at 12:30 in the afternoon, when there's a lot fewer people on the tube than would be during the morning and evening rush hours? If you're an al-Qaida affiliated grouping, the point is meant to be to cause as much carnage and death as possible. The only things these achieved was a couple of hours of panic, at the most. The one thing they have demonstrated is that they have shown that security is woefully lacking, but in that respect there is very little than can be done about it. These challenges have to be faced up to. I still feel that it's possible these people could have been pranksters, or mules, perhaps thinking they were transporting drugs, which would explain the men transporting the rucksacks running away. The bag left on the bus could have been for someone to pick up at a later stop along the way.
Again, it seems like it could be a distraction away from something much bigger that is being planned. It seems pointless to speculate, but the whole thing is deeply worrying.

Even more worrying is the draconian measures which the police are now demanding in the wake of these further 'attacks'.
Police ask for tough new powers:

Police last night told Tony Blair that they need sweeping new powers to counter the terrorist threat, including the right to detain a suspect for up to three months without charge instead of the current 14 days.

Senior officers also want powers to attack and close down websites, and a new criminal offence of using the internet to prepare acts of terrorism, to "suppress inappropriate internet usage".

They also want to make it a criminal offence for suspects to refuse to cooperate in giving the police full access to computer files by refusing to disclose their encryption keys.

The police would also like to see much clearer information given to the public about the threat level, the creation of a specialist border security agency and further discussions about the use of phonetap evidence in terrorist cases.

The Association of Chief Police Officers published its list of 11 further changes in the law it wants after meeting Mr Blair and security services chiefs yesterday.

Other powers police told Mr Blair they needed include:

· Terror suspects to give compulsory answers to questions similar to obligations on company directors in fraud trials;

· A duty on the private sector to install protective security in designated locations;

· Putting private security staff at the disposal of the police in the immediate aftermath of an outrage;

· New generation CCTV cameras at ports and airports.

The police sought extra funding for a regional network of Special Branch officers and a further £45m to ensure national coverage for the new generation CCTV cameras, which scan number plates and alert intercept teams.

Police complain that 14 days isn't enough to get enough evidence against supposed terrorist suspects. Instead of then asking for a more reasonable month, or 6 weeks, they demand 3 whole months. These measures beg the questions: what are they doing to the suspect in those 3 months? Are they going to be depriving them of sleep? Are they going to be facing hostile questioning for hours at a time? Are they going to be allowed to have lawyers present? Even more frightenining is the possibility of them demanding encryption keys. How long before software companies demand that police use similar powers to take hold of programs created by others which they feel are a threat? The power to shut down and 'attack' websites, whatever that means, is even more of an attack on free speech. I've long felt that a huge clampdown on the internet is overdue, and it looks like the police are going to use the current circumstances to their advantage. What is inappropriate internet usage? Will record companies be able to use similar circumstances along those lines to attack by complaining to police about those using file-sharing software?

However, perhaps most frightening of all is the removal of the right to remain silent. This has been held to be one of the tenants of rights of anyone arrested in any democracy and courtroom. As we have seen with terrorist legislation being used against demonstrators and others, is there any chance that if this gets onto the statute book it'll end up being used against those arrested who have nothing to do with terrorism? At the moment the whole country seems to be on a very slippery slope. What's more, how do they make people talk? Do they just charge them with perverting the course of justice, or something more sinister? We seem to be now entering a new era in Britain, and it's one that's very frightening. Not because of those who wish to cause us harm, but because of those who govern us and think they are doing what is right.

Congratulations to the pranksters, extreme right-wingers, republican/loyalist dissidents, fundamentalists or security services which performed today's hilariously pathetic 'attacks' in London. There hasn't been such a humourously useless attack in Britain since the Real IRA fired mortars at the MI6 building, breaking a window.

There's little point in commenting on these incidents as yet, but the reliable Richard Norton-Taylor from the Grauniad has written some quick analysis. I'm not sure whether this was simply a warning or possibly a distraction from something else big that is going on/going to happen. The next few days may be very interesting.

Also of note today is this:

Overall crime in England and Wales has dropped by a further 7% in the past year, contributing to a "historically unprecedented" fall over the past decade, according to official figures published today.

But this continuing fall in total crime is marred by an apparent rise in violence against the person, with the number of incidents recorded by the police topping the million mark for the first time.

Home Office statisticians describe the continuing fall in overall crime - down by 44% from its peak in 1995 - as "quite extraordinary and historically unprecedented, at least for the last century".

The 2004-05 results of the British Crime Survey, which is regarded as the most reliable indicator of crime trends, show that overall crime fell by 7% in the past year, with a 20% fall in domestic burglary, an 11% fall in car thefts and an 11% fall in violent crime.

If these figures are right, have we all just become more sensitive to crime? It's still never out of the gaze of the media. Poverty certainly hasn't dropped by any significant margin, so it can't be down to that. I don't have any answers, and I haven't seen any that have been suggested either.

No surprises:

BBFC WINS VAC APPEAL ON NINE ‘R18’ VIDEO WORKS

The Video Appeals Committee (VAC) announced today the outcome of the appeal by eight distributors against the decision by the BBFC to pass nine video works ‘R18’. The seven members of the VAC were unanimously of the view that the appeal should be dismissed.

The distributors submitted their works with a request for an ‘18’ rating. The BBFC rated all of the works ‘R18’, the category reserved for sex works which are only available through licensed sex shops. The distributors appealed to the VAC under the terms of the Video Recordings Act 1984.

In upholding the Board’s decision on the nine works the VAC in its Judgment expressed the opinion that “the material which is the subject of this appeal is not suitable for distribution other than in a sex shop. We have considered each video individually but in none of them do we find any grounds to change the classification. The Board has the onerous task of ensuring that material of this kind does not fall in the hands of children or the vulnerable and the fact that a person may not order it by mail in this country and must purchase it in person goes some way to enable the Board to discharge this duty.”

The nine works were Lubed, The Secrets of Kama Sutra, Ben Dover – Cumming of Age Volume Two, Heart of Darkness, Queensway Trailers, Dungeon Diva 2, Semi-Detached, Catering for all Tastes – Finger Buffet for Six and L’Elisir d’Amour.

In case you're not familiar with the works of our quaint British censor, the BBFC has to give a certificate to every piece of film that is to be shown in a theatre, or sold on video/dvd. Until 2000, hardcore pornography was banned in the UK. After a ruling by the judicial court, such works, if they can be called that, were classified as R18, meaning they are only allowed to be sold in licenced sex shops. They cannot be sold by mail order, or on the internet by UK retailers.

Since and before the ruling, there have been several films which have featured unsimulated sex scenes, some of which have been passed 18 uncut, others not. These include Baise-Moi, The Idiots, The Pornographer and Romance. Then last year saw the arrival of 9 Songs, a film which consists essentially of bands performing and a couple of lovers having graphic real sex. It was passed 18 uncut for both cinema and DVD, mainly due to its art-house pretensions.

Understandbly, this has upset the companies behind adult film titles. If a film can consist mainly of real sex, no matter how boring or unerotic it is, and be passed at 18, why can't their works be passed at the same certificate? The fact is that the market for R18 works in the UK is tiny, due to the fact that there are very few licenced sex shops to buy them from, and that mail ordering is illegal. Web sites selling R18 titles have recently been prosecuted and shut down. Despite this though, it is perfectly legal to import hardcore from abroad, as long as it does not contain anything that would be illegal under the Obscene Publications Act. Hence the appeal by the distributors to have their works classified as 18. They range in err, hardness, from close to what is now passed as 18 as 'simulated' sex, to as far as the BBFC will allow at R18. (Fisting, most urination, choking and other nasty stuff is mostly forbidden.)

On the whole, this is a silly situation. I'm no fan of pornography, especially some of the degrading acts which take place in the 'gonzo' genre of films, in particular the way in which scenes nearly always finish with a 'facial', with the man ejaculating onto the woman's face. However, I also feel that most of it is completely harmless. If we can't face up to the fact that people want to have sex, and people want to watch other consenting couples having sex, then we'll be stuck with puritanical Victorian values for ever. There are a lot more pressing issues out than those to do with getting paid to have sex on camera.
The obvious solution would be for porn to be rated at 18, but it should be enclosed in special sections within shops, with appropriate packaging and ID required for anyone who looks obviously underage or relatively young who attempts to buy it. They could perform similar types of checking up as they do with getting teenagers to buy cigarettes and alcohol. This would be easy to achieve, and although it might annoy the Daily Mail, since when has that been a bad thing?

This article needs no comments:

Nearly 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the two years since the invasion, and four times as many died at the hands of US-led forces as from suicide bombers and other insurgents, according to a detailed study of the human cost of the conflict.

The survey, which calculates the toll of dead and injured since March 2003, also shows that the rate of criminal violence has risen dramatically.

According to Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group, the two independent researchers behind the study, the figures in the report should be regarded as the "baseline of the minimum number of deaths".

It has concluded that

· at least 24,865 civilians were killed up to March 19 2005;

· 9,270 or 37% died at the hands of the Americans or other coalition forces (86 were killed by British troops, 23 by Italians, and 13 by Ukrainians). Most of these deaths are thought to have occurred during the conflict and its aftermath.

· The second largest cause of death (36%) was criminal violence.

· Anti-occupation forces have been responsible for 2,353 deaths.

· At least 50 babies up to the age of two have been killed;

· 1,281 children aged between three and 17 have also died.

Just another part of consumer 'choice':

Fee-charging cash machines (ATMs) are aiding rather than hurting consumer choice, the government has said.

The government welcomed the spread of over 20,000 fee-charging ATMs as convenient and not posing a threat to the free-to-use machine network.

Overall, consumers now pay £140m a year to access their own money, the committee's report concluded.

This is mind boggling. I seriously can't believe that any government, let alone a supposed Labour government, new or not, could possibly justify charging people to access their own money. Even worse, these charges affect those on benefits, which are now paid straight into bank accounts. When you're living on £64 a week, having £1.75 taken from it to access it isn't just unacceptable, it should be viewed as theft.

BNP founder dead:

John Tyndall, the 71-year-old founder of the far-right British National party, has been found dead at his home in East Sussex, police said today.

Tyndall, who was due to appear at Leeds crown court on Thursday for allegedly stirring up racial hatred, died at his flat in Westbourne Villas, Hove. He had been charged in connection with a speech he made in March 2004 in Burnley, the site of race riots in 2001 that were blamed on the BNP.

Death is not something we should celebrate, or wish on people. That said, when a person such as John Tydall kicks the bucket, it's not exactly something to cry about either. The BNP and National Front have been poisoning politics in this country for decades. If you want to read a load of lies and the kind of cultural analysis written by someone who thinks that Hitler had the right idea, then his commenting on this year's BNP manifesto is worth a gander. It includes such gems as:

Then Hitler again gets a mention when he is included among Continental rulers who sought to invade and conquer Britain. This is factually untrue; Hitler could easily have walked-in in 1940, but chose not to do so, because he never wanted conflict with this country.

and:

Many will feel that there is indeed a conspiracy behind the drive to eliminate the British people as an ethnic group, and that certain Zionist elements have a hand in it. But why bring the matter up here? And why make a denial concerning it that is clearly contradicted by thousands of facts?

also:

Also noticeable in the Manifesto is any reference at all to the soaring rates of illegitimacy, the breakdown of family life, the absent fathers, the single mothers who deliberately seek that status for their own advantage as distinct from having it forced upon them, and the appalling rate of abortion and its detrimental effect on the birth-rate, particularly among Whites. The British social fabric is simply falling apart but no one would suppose that the BNP has any ideas for reversing this process.

I'm sure you'll agree, this man was quite a guy.

It's very easy to fall into the trap of constantly being cynical and pessimistic. I often get into this cycle of misery. Just to try to counter this, with all the depressing news of political parties coming together to fight free speech, Iraq fast becoming the most deadly place on the planet and President Bush moving the goalposts over his previous pledge to sack whoever leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press, here are two heartening and optimistic news stories you may have missed.

Mugabe asks South Africa to bail him out:

President Robert Mugabe is pleading for a loan worth hundreds of millions of dollars from Zimbabwe's neighbour South Africa to buy food, fuel and electricity in what is being seen as a sign of the deepening crisis afflicting the country.

Far-ranging negotiations are taking place between South Africa and Zimbabwean officials that could lead to Mr Mugabe agreeing to significant economic and political reforms, South African officials said yesterday.

In what could be a turning point in resolving Zimbabwe's crisis, South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, is demanding that Mr Mugabe make substantial reforms, including an immediate halt to housing demolitions.

...

Economic reforms that South Africa will require include a significant devaluation of the Zimbabwe currency. Another requirement will be for Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party to hold talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change over the constitution, conditions for elections and human rights abuses.

As long as those economic reforms don't involve enforced privatisation, this could finally be the beginning of the end of Mugabe's reign of tyranny against his own people. It shouldn't be forgotten that he was first thought of as an excellent leader, and one of Africa's foremost statesmen. It's only in recent years, with his expulsion of white farmers which so thoroughly annoyed the west, especially Britain, that he has become an international pariah. His despicable demolitions of "slums", have been the last straw, after his crass human rights violations and stolen elections. Hopefully now other African leaders will denounce him, but also help to rebuild the shattered country.

Indonesia and Aceh rebels agree peace:

Indonesia and the rebel province of Aceh have struck a peace deal to end a 30-year-conflict that has killed up to 15,000 in the region worst devastated by last December's tsunami.

The deal will lead to the withdrawal from the province of 27,000 Indonesian troops and police, and the disarming of 5,000 guerrilla fighters, and speed up the delivery of aid to the area's 4.1 million people.

Negotiators expect a formal peace agreement to be signed on August 15, in time for Indonesia's independence celebrations two days later.

The breakthrough came after Jakarta agreed to drop objections to Gam becoming a political party, a move with ramifications for separatists elsewhere in the archipelago.

Jakarta has traditionally banned regional political parties for fear of stoking separatist movements.

The draft deal submitted by Gam was approved by Jakarta on Saturday, said Mr Djalil. "The president has agreed to the draft submitted by Gam about political parties" the minister said yesterday. "Finally we have reached common understanding about the issues we discussed last night."

Around 250 EU observers and 100 monitors from the Association of South-east Asian Nations will oversee the end of the war, which will involve the guerrillas laying down their weapons under an amnesty, while more than half of the 50,000-strong Indonesian force in the province withdraws.

I realise that these agreements are often broken, as can be seen in the inexorable chain of war and peace between Israel and Palestine and Sri Lanka, not to mention Northern Ireland, but they can often also lead to relative calm between sectarian communities. It's a start, if nothing else.

If liberals and left wingers are constantly negative, and fail to have a vision of what we actually do want to change, we will never be taken seriously. The revolution will still take a long time in coming, but the quicker we start the quicker it will arrive.

FO accused of censoring insider book on Iraq war:

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, is blocking passages from a fly-on-the-wall account by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former ambassador to the UN, on the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Downing Street disowned any involvement in the censoring of the book yesterday after reports in the Observer and the Mail on Sunday that Tony Blair had wanted to block publication.

No 10 put the responsibility on the Foreign Office and Whitehall procedures to vet civil servants' memoirs for the removal of parts of the book, The Cost of War.

Sir Jeremy, who was also Mr Blair's special envoy to Iraq for a year, has been known to be a critic of the politicians' handling of the war.

The Observer said yesterday that some of the removed passages were highly critical of the US.

In one, Sir Jeremy calls America's decision to go to war "politically illegitimate" and says that negotiations in the United Nations "never rose above the level of awkward diversion for the US administration".

The story here isn't about the fact that the government is censoring his book, although that is important and should be condemned. What is the story is the way that Jeremy Greenstock has gone from being one of the biggest supporters and spokespersons for the war on Iraq, to being a supposed critic. Until June 2003, "Sir" Jeremy was Britain's ambassador to the UN. He had a major role in drafting the failed second resolution which would have "authorised" war (source: Blair's Wars by John Kampfner), which was never presented to the UN Security Council. He regularly appeared on Newsnight and other programmes at this time defending both the British and American governments efforts. He followed the line.

His first major break with policy was in July 2004, over a year after the invasion, when he was one of the first associated with the attack on Iraq to admit there had been major failures, as in the small matter of there being no weapons of mass destruction, and that the US had listened to the lies and distortions of Iraqi exiles too willingly, hearing what they had wanted to. He's now written his book, as many others have/or are doing. What's going on in here is the rewriting of history. They want us to forget that they supported this disastrous war, and what's more, they're succeeding. Is the situation in Iraq on the front pages of newspapers or on the main headlines of the news anymore? Do bears defecate in tree-rich environments? It doesn't matter that 150 died over three days of suicide bombings last weekend.
What really matters is that these people get their money.

A forthcoming book by Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission and British ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003, will reveal the inner workings of Britain's lobbying in the run-up to the war, but it does not appear to have been censored.

Like Sir Jeremy, he has negotiated a newspaper serialisation deal and his book is due out this autumn.

That means that "Sir" Jeremy will have a nice fat wad of cash for his book. Let's see what else he's been up to since his posting to Iraq. Ex-ministers cleared to work for lobbying firm:

Civil servants faced much tougher restrictions. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special representative to Iraq, had to agree not to visit that country on business for six months last year after taking a job as special adviser to BP.

BP eh? What's BP when it's at home? Oh yeah, I think they just might have had an interest in war in Iraq. Too bad that the US doled out nearly all the contracts to their own firms. "Sir" Jeremy also now has took up a directorate at the Ditchley Foundation, which seems to have a nice line in hosting talking shops for politicians and others concerned in "international affairs".

The sad fact is that the deeper you dig into the Iraq war, the more corruption you run into. This war was all about greed and hypocrisy; "Sir" Jeremy Greenstock is just one tiny cog in it.