Stop New Labour Changing the Law To Protect War Criminals

Amnesty Int. UK

The UK Government are planning imminent changes to the law, to avoid any future attempts to prosecute suspected war criminals, Israeli or otherwise.

This would see the UK reneging on its international treaty obligations, particularly those under the Fourth Geneva Convention which commit signatories to ‘seek out and prosecute persons suspected of war crimes wherever and whoever they are, whatever their status, rank or influence, against whom good prima facie evidence has been laid.’ Such an attempt to undermine the judiciary’s independence and integrity must be rejected in the strongest terms.

Background information
Foreign & Commonwealth Office Minister Ivan Lewis and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, have stated that Britain may consider changing its laws to avoid any future attempts to prosecute suspected war criminals, Israeli or otherwise.

One year after the end of the last round of hostilities in Gaza and southern Israel and both the Israeli and Palestinian sides have completely failed to investigate well-documented violations of international law, including war crimes that were committed by their forces.

The UK should not be working against steps, now long overdue, to ensure that the victims obtain justice, truth and reparations (including restitution, rehabilitation, compensation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition). They should be working to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. They can show their commitment to international justice and human rights by not altering the law on universal jurisdiction

What is Universal Jurisdiction?
The ability for national courts to prosecute serious human rights violations committed anywhere in the world.

As genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, extrajudicial and enforced disappearances are crimes under international law; all states should investigate and prosecute the crimes before their national courts.

Recognizing that impunity exists mainly when the national authorities of countries affected by the crimes fail to act, it is important that the national criminal and civil justice systems of all countries can step in to prosecute the crimes on behalf of the international community and award reparations to victims.

Amnesty International campaigns for all governments to empower their national courts to take on this important role by enacting and using legislation providing for universal jurisdiction. Such legislation should enable national authorities to investigate and prosecute any person suspected of the crimes, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the accused and the victim and to award reparations to victims and their families.

In doing so, governments will ensure that their countries cannot be used as safe havens by the worst criminals.

Amnesty International’s legal memorandum, Universal Jurisdiction: the duty of states to enact and implement legislation, documents more than 125 states that have universal jurisdiction over at least one of the crimes. The organization is campaigning for all states to enact universal jurisdiction legislation over all six crimes.

Since the end of the Second World War, more than 15 countries have exercised universal jurisdiction in investigations or prosecutions of persons suspected of crimes under international law, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and others, such as Mexico, have extradited persons to countries for prosecution based on universal jurisdiction.

Click here to take action.

Short

Campbell’s lies at a pantomime that does not require witnesses to massive crimes to be under oath is beneath contempt nor will I dignify it with many words, just this- failing a war crimes trial in a neutral court, I wish him ill.

Blair & Campbell Were Bush & Cheney’s Stenographers For Iraq Lies

Fucking scum-

Fresh evidence has emerged that Tony Blair’s discredited Iraqi arms dossier was “sexed up” on the instructions of Alastair Campbell, his communications chief, to fit with claims from the US administration that were known to be false.

The pre-invasion dossier’s worst-case estimate of how long it would take Iraq to acquire a nuclear weapon was shortened in response to a George Bush speech.

As Campbell prepares to appear before the Iraq inquiry on Tuesday, new evidence reveals the extent to which – on his instructions – those drafting the notorious dossier colluded with the US administration to make exaggerated claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

In a keynote speech to the UN on 12 September 2002, Bush claimed: “Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.” This contradicted the first draft of the British dossier, drawn up two days earlier, which stated that it would take “at least two years” for Iraq to get the bomb.

The Cabinet Office has disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act that those who drafted the dossier were immediately asked to compare British claims against the US president’s speech. The next day the dossier’s timescale was halved to claim Iraq could get the bomb in a year.

A Foreign Office official who helped draft the dossier, Tim Dowse, told the Chilcot inquiry that disputed claims that Iraq had acquired special aluminium tubes for a nuclear programme were included because the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, had publicly referred to them.

Both changes to the weapons dossier were part of a detailed process of comparing the British claims with US statements and those in a forthcoming CIA dossier. The comparisons were made on the express instructions of Campbell. He told the joint intelligence committee (JIC) chairman, John Scarlett, in a memo on 9 September 2002, that the British dossier should be “one that complements rather than conflicts with” US claims.

New evidence has also emerged of Scarlett’s extensive US consultation on the dossier. On the same day as the Bush speech, Scarlett met political and intelligence officials in Washington to discuss the dossier, according to a previously classified US state department memo.

The government has sought to conceal evidence of Scarlett’s consultations with the US over the dossier. One email sent to Campbell was disclosed to the Hutton inquiry with a sentence blacked out. It was later disclosed that the sentence was: “Clearly John will be speaking to US.” (ht2 Bloggerheads)

Stop Our War Criminals Changing The Law To Protect Themselves & Israeli War Criminals

Via SU–

Please act now! Contact your MP!

Following the news that Tipi Livni, who served as Foreign Minister in the Israeli government that planned and executed Israel’s brutal bombing and massacre in Gaza, faced arrest if she entered Britain, tell the government there must be no impunity for Israeli war criminals.

Please act URGENTLY – if possible e-mail your MP today, and come to the vigil on 27 December to show the government that we will not let them forget Gaza.

Ask your MP (find them here) to do the following:

1. Sign Early Day Motion 502 tabled by Jeremy Corbyn MP defending the right to bring war criminals to justice: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40074&SESSION=903

2. Urgently contact the Foreign Office raising the following points:

The government has a duty under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ‘seek out and prosecute’ alleged war criminals. Under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, the UK has universal jurisdiction to arrest and try suspected perpetrators of “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949 (IVCG). War criminals should be pursued – Britain must not become a ‘safe haven’.

The judicial system is meant to be independent and the government’s role is not to intervene. If a judge believes there is sufficient evidence for an arrest warrant to be granted, it is irrelevant whether this embarrasses or causes problems for the British government.

The Goldstone Report detailed war crimes and potential crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza. It was shameful that the government abstained on the vote for the Report at the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

Instead of responding to pressure from the Israeli government to end the right to charge and prosecute war criminals, the government should immediately change its position – it should support international law and justice, and act itself to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Britain cannot be a true and independent ‘partner’ for peace if its policies are one-sided, and it allows those responsible for war crimes against Palestinians to avoid justice.

Tzipi Livni is just the latest in a list of Israelis who have come under scrutiny over allegations of war crimes. Our government should reflect on this, and change its foreign policy, including ending its arms trade with Israel.

Note today-

Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a government decision that bars Gaza Strip residents visiting relatives in Israeli jails, saying this is not a “basic humanitarian need.”

It is a violation of the Geneva conventions to imprison residents of an occupied territory outside of said territory.

‘Sir’ John Scarlett’s Cavalcade of Whimsical ‘Facts’

All guaranteed to be presented not-under-oath!

• JFK was a suicide.
• The Loch Ness Monster is Bigfoot scuba diving.
• Hitler was acting in self defence.
• Alastair Campbell won’t come in your mouth.
• Simon Cowell makes a great contribution to music.
• Don’t worry I’ll pay you back next week.
• Saddam Hussein parachuted out of the first plane (which he piloted) to hit the WTC then was smuggled back to Iraq by to oversee the building of atom bombs coated with anthrax by Elvis (or Mohamed Islam, as he is now known, Osama Bin Laden’s right hand man).
• I just can’t believe it’s not butter.
• It is entirely coincidental that on the afternoon David Kelly died he amended his will to leave his priceless Subbuteo collection to me.
• Rod Liddle is an intelligent witty writer, a leading anti-racism activist and not a beater of pregnant partners.
• Miss Scarlett in the Cluedo board game was my mum.
• Only 100,00 people died in the Iraq war, just like only a few hundred thousand Jews, Socialists, LGBT people, Romany died in the Holocaust, all the rest are hiding in secret enclaves funded by a shadowy international conspiracy funded by aliens, human rights activists and lefties keen to smear war and genocide as some kind of a bad thing.
• No one ridicules my freakishly deformed slaphead behind my back.
• Tony Blair is bit like Jesus really.

Despite Setback International War Criminal Still At Large

Tony Blair will not seek another big international job after being rejected for the new post of “President of Europe”, his allies said yesterday. Close friends of the former prime minister said he was “entirely happy” with his current roles – lucrative public speaking engagements, working as the international Middle East peace envoy, bringing democracy to Africa, tackling climate change, and heading an inter-faith foundation and sports charity.

A video posted to an extremist website included this personal message from Anthony Blair-

“Yeah well I never wanted your stupid job anyway, EU, E-Poo more like. Hey look, you just made yourself owe me 13 grand, that’s how much my totally brilliant words are worth and I had to say 13 of them to tell you how rubbish you are and how much I like never even wanted your shitty job, did I mention I didn’t want it and it was shitty? Oh look someone important is on the phone, actually it’s a party line, it’s the Pope, Margaret Thatcher, Dick Cheney, Binyamin Netanyahu and Sarah Palin, Presidents Obama, Bush (like fucking both!) and Clinton, and they want me to come to a party that, oh dear, Europe isn’t invited to! L-O-S-E-R-S! Oh what’s that, they want me to be Emperor of Earth and impose Peace ‘n’ Democracy™ on all warring nations by nuking them, and all the World’s religious leaders have disavowed their religions and instead are going to worship me as a living God. Well ok but it’ll be 1 million an hour plus expenses and if you want me to save the planet I’ll want that in intergalactic dollars…no reason. That’s like the tenth phone call just this morning asking that, like I’d have time to be King or whatever it was of EU-Land! I’ve already forgotten, it’s soooo unimportant.
Please like me.”

Rubbish Excuses Part 743

(Reuters) – A Rwandan doctor working at a hospital in northern France is suspected of being a wanted war criminal, in a case that has puzzled French authorities. Eugene Rwamucyo was suspended from his post at a hospital in the northern town of Maubeuge after a nurse did an Internet search for his name and found an Interpol arrest warrant linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, French media reported. The arrest warrant, issued in 2006 on request from Rwanda, is still on the Interpol website and lists Rwamucyo’s offences as “genocide, war crimes”.

Rwamucyo said on Sunday he was innocent. “I didn’t participate in the genocide, close up or from afar. There is nothing against me. I don’t see why the justice system wants to arrest me,” he told French television.

But he said he had attended meetings with people who took part in the genocide.

The Interpol notice is not an international arrest warrant, but a notice issued by Rwanda. The man has not been arrested so far, although Interpol said many of its member countries considered such a notice a valid request for detention. Rwamucyo’s name also features on a list of more than a dozen suspected Rwandan war criminals living in France who are the object of a lawsuit by the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda, a victims’ rights association. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in Rwanda’s 100-day massacre.

“He was an ideologist, for us he’s one of the planners of the genocide of the Tutsis. There are testimonies from people who knew him,” Alain Gauthier, the head of the collective, told French television.

Oh that’s ok then, you just happened to attend the planning meetings, but y’know we are talking about genocide here, sort of a serious crime type thingy. If that is the best he can do methinks he is very guilty. Still given what France did and didn’t do about the genocide, not a lot of moral high ground around on this one.

All who study the Rwandan genocide, as I did while researching a book about that ill-fated country, come away stunned by what they learn about French support of mass murder. France was so eager to defend a client regime against English-speaking rebels that, as the new report asserts, it gave that regime “political, military, diplomatic and logistic support” and “directly assisted” its genocidal campaign.

The report names 33 present and former French politicians and military officers as conspirators, among them the late President Francois Mitterrand and other well-known figures like former foreign minister Alan Juppe and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin.

The report, commissioned by the government and prepared by a panel that heard from more than 150 witnesses, is not only a devastating account of France’s eager participation in mass murder. It is also the most provocative example in modern history of a victimized nation pointing a credible finger of blame at the supposedly virtuous West.

France armed Rwanda’s murderous regime, sent soldiers to support it as the genocide was unfolding, and accepted some of its most heinous perpetrators as “refugees” after rebels forced them from power. Later, France helped the genocidaires regroup in the Congo and launch a savage cross-border campaign aimed at retaking power so they could complete their murderous work.

Meanwhile those who plotted the genocide level of death in Iraq… still free and we not only know they didn’t just attend meetings, also…some of the meetings were held in public. Ideologists who assisted them hold prominent positions in the UK too. Genocide is the killing the losers get called on, winners have no so such liabilities, we are so fucking civilised.

To Those Who Resist The Idea of a Ruling Class

This is how it works.

Update: More.

Honour Among Thieves

Predictably the rapists, murderers and torturers profiteering off the Iraq war turn out to be falling upon each other like animals now the spoils are not so easy to come by and hide. Would it be wrong to start taking bets on Erik Prince dying by his own hand, being whacked by his colleagues or Cheney/Bush, er I mean some shadowy third party eager to keep things quiet. Yes it would… still… profiteering off death, it’s a growing industry.

Thugs & Child Kidnappers Charge Gray Lady of Bagram

Several former detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have said they heard the screams of a woman, who’s been dubbed “The Gray Lady of Bagram.”

Ok, quick recap, are you ready?- Aafia Siddiqui is taken by US forces and disappeared for FIVE YEARS, she then miraculously reappears in the US where she is being charged with trying to kill American interrogators in Afghanistan. So first this current report (in)complete with memory hole-

(Reuters) – A Pakistani woman charged with trying to kill American interrogators in Afghanistan is fit to stand trial, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday after months of examination of her mental state. The U.S. government says Aafia Siddiqui, 37, a U.S.-trained neuroscientist, had links to al Qaeda.

“The Court finds that Dr Siddiqui is competent to stand trial by a preponderance of the evidence,” U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan federal court said in a written order. “Dr Siddiqui has sufficient present ability to consult with her lawyers with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and she also has a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against her.” Prosecutors say Siddiqui grabbed a U.S. warrant officer’s rifle in mid-2008 while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan and fired it at the interrogation team, which included two FBI agents, but no one was hit. The warrant officer then shot and wounded her with his pistol. Siddiqui was transferred to the United States and charged with attempted murder and assault of U.S. soldiers. She has pleaded not guilty. No one has been able to verify her whereabouts for the five years before her arrest. At a hearing this month Siddiqui, wearing a white hijab covering all but her eyes, interrupted a doctor’s testimony to say, “Please take me seriously, I am not psychotic.” Judge Berman found that Siddiqui “understands the nature of the charges and can assist counsel with her defense.”

Ok, so from this you might think ‘what an evil woman’, that is what the US authorities want you to think, or maybe her five years in a ghost site made her mentally ill, but you certainly won’t be informed of the different story of the incident-

The complaint says that she got hold of an officer’s M-4 rifle in an interrogation room and fired two shots, which missed. The officer used his pistol to fire back and hit her at least once in the torso, according to the charges.

Afghan police, however, said that U.S. soldiers demanded that local police hand over Siddiqui, but they refused, according to a report from Ghazni by the Reuters news agency. When the Americans disarmed the Afghan police at gunpoint, Siddiqui approached the Americans, complaining of mistreatment by the police, according to this account.

The U.S. troops, according to an unnamed Afghan police officer, “thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and took her,” Reuters reported.

Sounds a lot like when cops brutalise someone they then charge them with resisting arrest just in this context it’s amplified by The War on Terror™ to five years in secret prison then renditioned to the US to be charged with attempted murder. Is this a woman fearing torture (including rape) being shot by US forces then held for five years in secret before being charge with crimes, not say- the shooter and the people who held her for five years being charged- this is state gangsterism. While in US custody she is repeatedly sexually assaulted-

Aafia remains in a US detention facility in New York, in poor health, subjected to degrading and humiliating strip searches and cavity searches whenever she receives a legal visit or appears in court. She has subsequently refused to meet with counsel. It has been reported that she may suffer from brain damage and that a part of her intestine may have been removed. Her lawyers say her symptoms are consistent with a sufferer of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She might have also been distraught at the time of her arrest kidnapping because they also kidnapped her three children…

All 3 of her children were detained by a shadowy mix of ISI/US forces-

2008 Human Rights Network president, Intikhab Alam Suri had filed the petition in SHC through Iqbal Aqeel Advocate, making a plea that Aafia Siddiqui along with her three children was abducted and they were being kept at separate unknown places and tortured, while Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in sub-conscious state was handed over to US although no evidence against her exists. The petition further said, “She is a Pakistani citizen, her security was the government’s responsibility and, therefore, the respondents—federal interior and foreign ministries and the federation should be ordered to recover and bring back Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her three children by fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities.

The FBI admitted they held Ahmad since 2003-

2008 The United States has confirmed that Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s 12-year-old son has been in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since 2003, reported Channel Five. Michael G Garcia, the US attorney general of southern region, in his letter addressed to Dr Aafia’s sister Dr Fozia Siddiqui, has revealed that Dr Aafia’s son was in the FBI’s custody.

Ahmed is now under the care of his aunt-

Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui sister of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has refused to allow media to talk to Ahmad Siddiqui son of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui saying that he was yet in a state of shock. While talking to Private TV Channel she expressed Ahmad’s profound happiness on return of Ahmad Siddiqui and said that Aafia’s son name was changed many times. “Though, Ahmad had matured but he was mentally disturbed, therefore, Ahmad cannot be allowed to talk to media, “ She maintained. In response to a question she said that Ahmad Siddiqui would be shifted from Islamabad within two or three days and government was also assisting them in this connection. She also thanked the government for making efforts for return of Ahmad Siddiqui, and expressed her gratitude to media, civil societies and people for projecting the issue, hoping that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui would soon return to Pakistan along with her two other children. Similarly, in letter addressed to President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, Interior Minister and other officials she has thanked them for helping Siddiqui family at all fronts.

No one knows where the other two children are. More at Caged Prisoners

This Shit Is Fucked

A popular Australian comedy show took the fight over the US’s torture program straight to John Yoo’s law class at the University of California-Berkeley. A performer from The Chaser’s War on Everything interrupted a lecture by John Yoo — the former Department of Justice lawyer who wrote many of the legal memos justifying the Bush administration’s torture program — by standing up on a desk dressed in “Abu Ghraib” fashion — a dark cloak and a black, pointed hood.

“Professor, I’ve got one question,” the comedian asked. “How long am I required to stand here until it counts as torture?”

When students suggested that the comedian leave, he replied: “I’d love to move but every time I do my balls get buzzed.”

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to end the class,” Yoo said, gathering his papers and moving towards the exit.

Said Yoo to the comedian: “I’ll give you a certain amount of time to leave before I report [this] to security.”

Ok

1. The students sided with the torturer (also implicit in the fact they are sitting his course!), oh goody can’t wait for the world those lawyers will bring into legal being, it really is only a matter of time before a national debate on extermination camps is provoked when the govt is discovered to be running some, all nice and legal of course. Reporters will go to the death camps and be embedded with Sonderkommando who explain the humane American Dream™ system that allowed them to earn the privilege and the other inmates suffer very little and after all if they were set free after what was done to them they’d be dangerous terrorists (oops, sorry that last argument is already being used for Gitmo).

1. Security will come and get the comedian, not the torturer? Yeah have a nice long proud look at yourself in the mirror there security peeps, admirable!

War Criminal Seeks Power

These rumours keep popping up, he should be in a jail cell not eyeing this gig. Why does NewLabour want to increase BNP-lite UKIP’s vote? Fuckwit solidarity? (nevermind the Tories who they have now made electable, Jeebus)

Tony Blair is a contender to become the first president of the EU with the full backing of the British government, the new Europe minister said today. Glenys Kinnock, in Strasbourg for the opening session of the new European parliament, said that although the former prime minister had not formally declared his candidacy, it was “certainly” the government position to support him. “I am sure they would not do it without asking him,” Lady Kinnock said. “The UK government is supporting Tony Blair’s candidature for president of the council.”

The new post is to be created under the Lisbon treaty, which will streamline the way the EU is run if it is endorsed in an Irish referendum in early October. Blair would be the first sitting president of the EU, who will be appointed by European government chiefs for a minimum of 30 months and a maximum of five years.

Guilty Evasions

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a “show trial” if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.

Blair is believed to have been alarmed by the prospect that he might be asked to give evidence in public and under oath about the use of intelligence and about his numerous private discussions with US President George Bush at which the two leaders laid plans for war.

Renowned Peace Envoy & Christian Tony Blair’s Condoning of Torture

I’m sure you’ve all seen it by now and Craig Murray is right to be a bit mystified since he revealed this ages ago, still for those who believe in the good faith of Blair and that Iraq and torture were mistakes or well intentioned differences of opinion…he is a war criminal, take your naivety and…well actually there’s this bridge I have for sale you might be interested in…

Tony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which ­effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal. The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

 British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not “be seen to condone” torture and that they must not “engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners”. But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated. “Given that they are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this,” the policy said.

 The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world’s leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain’s obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence’s relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK’s allies in the “war against terror”. The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees “if circumstances allow”. (ht2 Rafael)

Timeline and Philippe Sands @ CiF

Why Even Fucking Bother, Gordon?

And Chilcot, for fuck’s sake. Why not just have it chaired by Whitey McWhitewash. In a concrete box. At the bottom of the ocean. At least it will waste less of our money on further obscuring New Labour’s war crimes that way. Of course I know why you’re bothering, it is to rewrite history, sort of the British equivalent of the GW Bush Presidential library but with less literary merit (Chilcot will find a way to make that possible!). Oh fuck off Gordon, are you actually on the Elect Cameron committee? Go on, you are aren’t you? Can’t wait to see a NL cheerleader gold plate this steaming pile of shite. 

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has been accused of staging a cover-up after he ruled that an inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq would be held in private. He also said it would would take a year to complete – taking it beyond the date the prime minister must hold a general election.

The investigation will be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, 70, a former permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office. Chilcot has been chairman of Britain’s Police Federation since 2001 and sat on the Butler inquiry, which reported into the intelligence which the UK government had about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Brown, who cited national security issue for not holding the investigation in public, said: “The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned.

“The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability.

“It [the inquiry] will consider the period from summer 2001 before military operations began in March 2003 and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right until the end of July this year.”