Jack Straw's pre-war verdict on Iraq

Soon after George W Bush first spoke of striking Iraq, the UK government began heatedly denouncing Saddam Hussein. But the most vocal (Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon) were quiet about Saddam's atrocities prior to this PR-blitz. All through the 1990s, the parliamentary protests against Saddam's crimes were missing a few names, notably Blair, Straw and Hoon.

In January 2001 (prior to the PR-blitz), Jack Straw rejected the asylum appeal of a tortured Iraqi, because Straw said the Iraqi courts would not "convict and sentence" a person improperly, and that a "fair trial" could be expected. (Source: ZNet, 29/12/02)

Echoes here of the later revelation (in the famous memo leaked to the Sunday Times) that Straw was of the opinion that Iraq presented a no bigger threat than any other country in the region. Both stories indicate that Straw's public announcements about Iraq in the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion were most likely barefaced lies. Media editors and journalists are presumably aware of this.