Zugzwang

Another contribution to the 19 March Iraq War Blogswarm.

If you ever have the misfortune to encounter one of the few remaining supporters of the invasion of Iraq please draw their attention to the Commons motion of 18 March 2003 (see below).

Ask them why there is no reference to any of the justifications now being put forward for the invasion: fighting terrorism, deposing Saddam Hussain or bringing democracy to Iraq.

That this House notes its decisions of 25th November 2002 and 26th February 2003 to endorse UN Security Council Resolution 1441;

recognises that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security;

notes that in the 130 days since Resolution 1441 was adopted Iraq has not co-operated actively, unconditionally and immediately with the weapons inspectors, and has rejected the final opportunity to comply and is in further material breach of its obligations under successive mandatory UN Security Council Resolutions;

regrets that despite sustained diplomatic effort by Her Majesty’s Government it has not proved possible to secure a second Resolution in the UN because one Permanent Member of the Security Council made plain in public its intention to use its veto whatever the circumstances;

notes the opinion of the Attorney General that, Iraq having failed to comply and Iraq being at the time of Resolution 1441 and continuing to be in material breach, the authority to use force under Resolution 678 has revived and so continues today;

believes that the United Kingdom must uphold the authority of the United Nations as set out in Resolution 1441 and many Resolutions preceding it, and therefore supports the decision of Her Majesty’s Government that the United Kingdom should use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;

offers wholehearted support to the men and women of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces now on duty in the Middle East;

in the event of military operations requires that, on an urgent basis, the United Kingdom should seek a new Security Council Resolution that would affirm Iraq’s territorial integrity, ensure rapid delivery of humanitarian relief, allow for the earliest possible lifting of UN sanctions, an international reconstruction programme, and the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people and endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration for Iraq, leading to a representative government which upholds human rights and the rule of law for all Iraqis;

and also welcomes the imminent publication of the Quartet’s roadmap as a significant step to bringing a just and lasting peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians and for the wider Middle East region, and endorses the role of Her Majesty’s Government in actively working for peace between Israel and Palestine.

This is my contribution to the 19 March Iraq War Blogswarm.

The BBC reports a recent survey of opinion in Iraq.

The Iraqis’ feelings about the presence of foreign troops are clear: 72% are opposed:

 Q20 Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the
 presence of Coalition forces in Iraq? 

                 Mar08 Aug07 Feb07 2005 2004
                     %     %     %    %    %
 Strongly Support    7     5     6   13   13
 Somewhat Support   19    16    16   19   26
 Somewhat Oppose    31    26    32   21   20
 Strongly Oppose    41    53    46   44   31
 Refused/don’t know  1     -     -    3   10
 

Meanwhile, in today’s Guardian Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg pose the important question What is the real death toll in Iraq?

Their conclusion:

The controversy will clearly run and run, probably long after the Iraq war eventually ends. One thing is certain, and it provides no comfort for Bush, Blair and other occupation supporters. They continue to claim that, whatever errors may have been committed since the invasion, the judgment of history will be that the toppling of a brutal dictatorship was an unmitigated benefit. That alone means the invasion was a blessing for the people of Iraq.

Alas for Bush and Blair, most statisticians do not support their case. Nor can any journalist or other independent witness who has seen the pain of the bereaved still living in post-invasion Iraq or the millions who have escaped to Jordan and Syria. Estimates of the Iraqi deaths caused by Saddam’s regime amount to a maximum of one million over a 35-year period (100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign in the 1980s; 400,000 in the war against Iran; 100,000 Shias in the suppressed uprising of 1991; and an unknown number executed in his prisons and torture chambers). Averaged over his time in power, the annual rate does not exceed 29,000.

Only the conservatively calculated Iraq Body Count death toll credits the occupation with an average annual rate that is less than that - some 18,000 deaths in the five years so far. Every other source, from the WHO to the surveys of Iraqi households, puts the average well above the Saddam-era figure. Those who claim Saddam’s toppling made life safer for Iraqis have a lot of explaining to do.

Don’t forget to mark the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by contributing to the blogswarm.

European Tribune has organised a petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as President of the European Union.

Please sign it (if you are a citizen of the EU).

A PDF of the answers to the King William’s College quiz is now available.

How many people in the UK know that a library card gives online access to a vast range of reference books, such as the OED, Who’s Who and Encyclopaedia Britannica? Rather few, to judge from Magnus Linklater’s column in today’s Times.

He recounts how he went about comparing Google’s entry for Nancy Mitford with the EB’s:

The Britannica required a 20-minute trip to my nearest library. It gave me 350 words and a bibliography with one entry (Harold Acton’s memoir). The online version offered the chance of signing up to a 30-day free trial, but still required my credit card details, replete with reassurances about taking my privacy “very seriously” - always a worrying sign. The DNB provided by far the best and fullest entry (but so it should). However, a month’s subscription costs £29.35, and a year will set you back £195 plus VAT.

Had he stayed at home he could have used some of the time saved also to check his own entries in Debrett’s People of Today 2006 and Who’s Who 2007.

(Note for Hampshire residents, as well as those who work or study in the county: take a look at Reference Online.)

There’s a petition for anyone concerned by the STFC’s funding crisis. A supporting statement reads thus:

Due to cost overruns the UK’s funding agency for particle physics and astronomy, STFC, is recouping £80M with deep cuts to UK physics operations in these areas. These include ending the UK’s involvement in the International Linear Collider - the next generation of particle physics experiment. This risks relegating the UK to second tier involvement in future research and critically damaging the country’s standing within the community. Furthermore UK Astronomy will be seriously hit with up to a 25% cut in grants. This is incompatible with the government’s stated aim of making Britain a world leader in science. A review of this decision has recently been announced and we urge the Prime Minister to press for another solution to this problem before UK physics is set back by decades.

More than 13,000 people have signed the petition.

There’s also a Facebook group

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The answers to the very difficult ChessCafé quiz have been published.

[The above link is only temporary: a PDF of the questions and answers is also available, as well as details of previous quizzes.]

I had hoped to follow the annual Corus chess tournament, but found that PGN Viewer, the Java software used by the tournament’s website to display the games, doesn’t work with the Mac version of Opera 9.24.

I simply couldn’t resist the pun in the title of this post.

These are hard times for Microsoft.

The European Commission is to investigate separate complaints from ECIS and Opera.

The European Commission has decided to initiate two formal antitrust investigations against Microsoft Corp concerning two separate categories of alleged infringements of EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82). The first case where proceedings have been opened is in the field of interoperability in relation to a complaint by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS). The second area where proceedings have been opened is in the field of tying of separate software products following inter alia a complaint by Opera.

BECTA is discouraging British schools and colleges from using Vista or Office 2007. Their ‘key recommendations’ are:

• Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended and mixed Windows-based operating environments should be avoided. However, Vista should be considered where new institution-wide ICT provision is being planned.
• No widespread deployment of Office 2007 should take place until schools and colleges are sure that they have in place mechanisms to deal with interoperability and potential digital divide issues set out in the report.
• To ensure widest compatibility of files between different applications, users of Office 2007 should not save in Microsoft’s new Office format (OOXML).
• Due to limitations in Microsoft’s implementation of the Open Document Format (ODF) international standard, users should in the short term continue to save files in the more widely adopted .doc, .xls and .ppt formats.
• Pupils, teachers and parents should also be made aware of the wide range of free-to-use products currently available and on how to use and access them.
• The ICT industry should be facilitating easier access to ‘free-to-use’ office productivity software.