The World Bank’s former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.

“The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank. “The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”

Lin, now a professor at Peking University and a leading adviser to the Chinese government, said expanding the basket of major reserve currencies — the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and pound sterling — will not address the consequences of a financial crisis.

Internationalizing the Chinese currency is not the answer, either, he said.

Lin urged the international community, especially the US and European Union, to play a leading role in currency and infrastructure initiatives. To boost the global economy, he proposed the launch of a “global infrastructure initiative” to remove development bottlenecks in poor and developing countries, a measure he said would also offer opportunities for advanced economies.

“China can only play a supporting role in realizing the plans,” Lin said. “The urgent thing is for the US and Europe to endorse these plans. And I think the G20 is an ideal platform to discuss the ideas,” he said, referring to the group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies.

The concept of a global “super currency” tied to a basket of currencies has been periodically discussed by world leaders as well as endorsed by 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz. A super currency could also be tied to a single currency, but the interconnectedness of world financial markets and concerns about the volatility that can occur as a result of the system being tied to one currency have made this idea less popular…

Arguments in favor of a global currency resurfaced during October’s US budget impasse, which forced the government to shut down.

“It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” a Xinhua News Agency commentary said on Oct 14. The piece argued that creating a new international reserve currency to replace reliance on the greenback, would prevent government gridlock in Washington from affecting the rest of the world.

In March 2009, China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, called for the creation of a new “super-sovereign reserve currency” to replace the dollar. In a paper published on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou said an international reserve currency “disconnected from individual nations” and “able to remain stable in the long run” would benefit the global financial system more than current reliance on the dollar.

On that note, David Bloom, global head of FX research at HSBC, said US monetary policy change “will bring fluctuations for emerging countries’ currencies and lead to financial instability”.

Chen Wenling, chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a government think-tank, said, “A supranational currency may be a new direction for development of the global financial system. It also requires different countries to cooperate in coordinating macroeconomic policies…”

The militants of Vilayat Dagestan who assumed responsibility for the attacks in Volgograd and confirmed their involvement in them demanded that the Russians rebel against Putin, otherwise they would face new attacks, reported the Voice of America. Earlier the terrorists published a video of training terrorist attacks, including the assembly of bombs and the faces of those who did it.

The Russian protests in 2012 were “supported” by Doku Umarov who declared a moratorium on attacks against the citizens of the Russian Federation after the beginning of rallies on Bolotnaya Square. Then some of the protesters were angered by Umarov’s statement, calling him “an FSB agent,” but after the U.S. included him on the list of the most wanted criminals in the world this “theory” has quickly faded.

Well-known opposition journalists, “curators” and human rights activists recently found themselves at the epicenter of a scandal demanding an immediate (!) release from prison of Boris Stomakhin who wrote that he warmly welcomed the explosions in Volgograd and congratulated its organizers on the success. Among those demanding the immediate release of Stomakhin are defenders Gerber, Alekseeva, Kovalev and Ponomarev, Shiropaev, “journalist” Babchenko, producer Verzilov, publicist Podrabinek, ex- member of CSR Bukovsky, Verbitsky, publicist Vituhnovskaya, Yakunin, Gannushkina, head of the Sakharov Center Samodurov, curator of the War Group Plutser-Sarno, etc.

In addition, many users of social networks and the media (in the context of the statements of Vilayat Dagestan about their intent to disrupt the Sochi 2014) recalled the spokesperson of Saudi Arabia at a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Then the head of the Saudi “state security” Prince Bandar said that he guaranteed the protection of the Winter Olympics. He said that Chechen groups that threatened the security of the Olympics were controlled by them, and would not do anything without consulting them. In return, he demanded that the Russian Federation agrees with the invasion of Syria. Naturally, the long-standing partners of the U.S. were categorically refused. Read more…..

On December 21, 2013, The Washington Post published a story entitled, “Covert action Colombia,” about the intimate and critical role of the CIA and the NSA in helping to assassinate “at least two dozen” leaders of the Colombian FARC guerillas from “the early 2000s” to and through the present time.   The author of the story, Dana Priest, claims that the story is based on “interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials.”

While The Washington Post story reads like an advertisement for the CIA and NSA, there are some truths buried in the piece which are worthy of consideration.   The most illuminating statement is that while the CIA and NSA, allegedly in the interest of fighting drug trafficking and terrorism, have assisted the Colombian government in hunting down and murdering Marxist FARC guerillas with U.S.-made smart bombs, “for the most part, they left the violent paramilitary groups alone.”

This is an important point, for as the piece itself acknowledges, the paramilitaries are indeed “violent,” and, with the help of the U.S.-backed Colombian military, have been engaged in a decades-long campaign of terror against the civilian population.    And consequently, the U.S. officially designated the predecessor of the current paramilitaries – that is, the AUC — as a terrorist organization.    Meanwhile, it is well-accepted that both the Colombian paramilitaries and their military allies are major drug traffickers in their own right.

In short, the U.S. is aligning with known terrorists and drug dealers in Colombia in the name of fighting terrorism and drugs.   While this may seem preposterous, there is indeed a logic to it.

First of all, the U.S. is all for terrorism in Colombia.   Indeed, paramilitary terror in Colombia, and in Latin America in general, is the brain child of the U.S. and a part and parcel of the “National Security” doctrine initiated by President Kennedy in 1962.   As Noam Chomsky has explained on numerous occasions, this doctrine, and the death squads that went with it, was initiated in response to both the Cuban Revolution of 1959 as well as the doctrine of Liberation Theology and its “preferential treatment for the poor” which arose in response to Vatican II.  [1]

The result of the implementation of the “National Security” doctrine was massive repression of popular, democratic forces, and the murder, disappearance, imprisonment and torture of those struggling for social justice, such as trade unionists, peasant organizers and priests advocating for the poor.   As to the latter group, at least 80 Catholic priests have been murdered in Colombia since 1984.

As Chomsky again notes, “[i]t is not seriously in question, as John Coatsworth writes in the recently published Cambridge University History of the Cold War, that from 1960 to ‘the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims, and executions of nonviolent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites.’ Among the executed were many religious martyrs, and there were mass slaughters as well, consistently supported or initiated by Washington.”

Thus, there is a seamlessness to the decades-long policy of the U.S. in siding with right-wing death squads which inflict terror against the Colombian population – terror which includes the mass displacement of millions of peasants, with Colombia now having the largest internally displaced population in the world at over 5 million; forced disappearances, with Colombia now far exceeding the former Latin American leader, Argentina under the military junta, with over 50,000 disappeared persons; and the “false positive” scandal in which over 3,000 innocent young men were lured to their deaths by the Colombian military which killed them and then falsely passed them off as guerillas in order to justify continued backing by the United States.

Similarly, the U.S. is not against drug trafficking per se, but rather, is only concerned with making sure that its friends – both military and corporate — benefit from the trade.   First of all, as noted above, it is well-established that the U.S.-backed Colombian military and its paramilitary allies are some of the chief drug traffickers in Colombia.   And again, the U.S. has left their trafficking alone because it is content for these forces to profit from the trade.

As The Guardian recently explained, the entire Western banking system is propped up by billions of dollars of Colombian drug monies. [1]   Therefore, it is not in the U.S. interests to too effectively combat drugs.   And, sure enough, it has utterly failed to do so despite the over $9 billion it has spent on the ostensible “war on drugs” in Colombia and the greater Andean region.   Rather, in what is well-known as the “balloon effect,” all that the U.S. has managed to do is force the drug trade out of parts of Colombia and south to places like Peru, and north to Mexico where over 60,000 innocents have now been killed in the ostensible “war on drugs.”

Of course, The Washington Post story on the CIA/NSA program to assassinate FARC leaders, and its accompanying charts which purport to show a decrease in overall drug trafficking, at least from Colombia, fails to point any of this out.   As noted above, The Washington Post story reads like an advertisement for the CIA and NSA and their secret “black ops” programs which are funded by Congress, but which the U.S. public knows little to nothing about.  And, the U.S. government would largely like to keep it that way.   In this case, I suspect that the CIA and NSA cooperated with The Washington Post story in order to justify future “black ops” funding as well as to impact the ongoing peace talks which are now taking place in Havana, Cuba between the Colombian government and the FARC.

On this latter issue, it is my belief that at least sectors of the U.S. government want to scuttle the ongoing peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC – as the U.S. has done so often before.  [3]  In this case, The Washington Post story seems designed to bolster the sectors in Colombia that already oppose the peace process – namely, former President Alvaro Uribe, his political allies and the right-wing paramilitaries which the U.S. has intentionally left alone – by painting the false impression that the civil war in Colombia is militarily winnable.

As we enter the 50^th year of the conflict, it is now evident to any rational person that this not a winnable war for either side, and that a negotiated settlement is the only hope for peace in Colombia and for the civilians caught in the middle of the war.   It is critical that those in the U.S. interested in peace join at this pivotal moment with those brave souls in Colombia who are risking their very lives – indeed, 29 members of the pro-peace Marcha Patriotica have been murdered in the past year and a half — to promote a political solution to the half century old conflict in that country.  [4]

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Notes. 

[1]  See, https://www.bostonreview.net/noam-chomsky-responsibility-of-intellectuals-redux

[2]  See, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/02/western-banks-colombian-cocaine-trade

[3]   See,  http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/04/economist-explains-why-colombia-produces-less-cocaine,

[4] See, Killing Peace: Colombia’s Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention (2002), by Garry Leech.

[5]  To hear some of the brave Colombian voices of peace and their suggestions for how the U.S. can constructively support the peace process, go to http://www.wola.org/video/livestream_perspectives_on_colombia_s_peace_process_and_opportunities_for_us_engagement

Terrorism came into being as soon as humanity appeared, but the US special services turned it into a threat of global scale. The end of the 1970s can be considered as the starting point. Back then the Central Intelligence Agency launched a training program for «Islamic brigades» to entangle the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic into the war in Afghanistan. In 1998 Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, «According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahedeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention». That was the time Osama bin Laden was recruited.

According to Shamseddin Yusef, one of Chechen leaders, the former Foreign Secretary in Dudaev’s government, bin Laden visited Chechnya in 1992 holding a US passport. He said it was later when bin Laden fell out with the United States government. No surprise the family of George Bush has rubbed shoulders with the «terrorist N 1». The US supported Afghan mujahedeen to embroil all the Muslim countries into the war against the USSR. In 1982-1992 citizens of approximately 40 Muslim states fought in Afghanistan. In March 1985 US President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, which authorized stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahedeen and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies – a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987,… as well as a ‘ceaseless stream’ of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. According to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-Aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the «Afghan Arabs» had been imparted «with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA». 

As «the foreign legion of the West» Al Qaeda militants were involved in the war in Yugoslavia. In 1997 the US Senate Republican Policy Committee made no bones about it accusing the Clinton administration for «helping to turn Bosnia into an Islamic militants base».

The «Bosnian pattern» described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo with the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahedeen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the KLA in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort. Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6. Washington who provided support for the international terrorist networks diplomatic recognition. It was nobody else but Madeleine Albright who forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into playing a central role in the failed «peace negotiations» at Rambouillet in early 1999.

9/11 – no reason to refuse support for terrorists

The war on terror declared by the United States on September 11 only made international terrorist groups stronger and even made them come to power in some countries. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria became victims of US anti-terror fight. In particular, the United States arms Sunni groups to allegedly fight Al Qaeda. American officers who take part in these «bridges building» program say many of Sunnis had been close to the Mesopotamia’s branch of Al Qaeda. (8) According to John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the United States has paid more than $150 million to companies in Afghanistan that are accused of helping to finance terrorist attacks on American soldiers and facilities. Independent journalist and historian Doug Wissing has published the book called Funding the enemy: How US taxpayers bankroll the Taliban. According to him, « Security firms commonly contract with Afghan insurgents to protect U.S.-funded development projects. The notoriously wasteful 64-mile-long Khost-Gardez road project is expected to cost taxpayers $176 million. Over $43 million went to a security firm, which then hired an insurgent leader who was on the U.S. JPEL «kill or capture» list. They paid the jihadi $160,000 a month to provide security against himself». But these are separate cases. There are much more interesting ways the US employs to allow terrorists take the reins of power. In his Islam and the Arab Awakening Tariq Ramadan adduces examples of professional training received by Arab youth in special facilities at the expense of US budget. As far back as 2007 such training facilities appeared in the Caucasus and Serbia. Actually the unrest in all the countries affected was spurred by Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Yahoo и Gmail e-mails and posts to spark a «flash-mob» effect. The headquarters of the above mentioned companies are located in the Unites States. As a result, in all cases radicals Islamists have come to power. Today Al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliated armed group, formally listed as a terrorist organization by US State Department, is a United States leading partner in Syria. No surprise the White House policy evoked protest among US military making Congress bombarded with e-mail protests «Obama, I will not deploy to fight for your al-Qaida rebels in Syria»… Read more…..

 

Last week, I explained how economists and policymakers destroyed our economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits from jobs offshoring and financial deregulation. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/01/25/economists-policymakers-murdered-economy-paul-craig-roberts/

That same week Business Week published an article, “Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It,” by Charles Kenny. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-23/manufacturing-jobs-may-not-be-cure-for-unemployment-inequality Kenny expresses the view of establishment economists, such as Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers who wants to know “What’s with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are factories really so awesome?”

“Not really,” Kenny says. Citing Eric Fisher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Kenny reports that wages rise most rapidly in those states that most quickly abandon manufacturing. Kenny cites Gary Hufbauer, once an academic colleague of mine now at the Peterson Institute, who claims that the 2009 tariffs applied to Chinese tire imports cost US consumers $1 billion in higher prices and 3,731 lost retail jobs. Note the precision of the jobs loss, right down to the last 31.

In support of the argument that Americans are better off without manufacturing jobs, Kenny cites MIT and Harvard academic economists to the effect that there is no evidence that manufacturing tends to cluster, thus disputing the view that there are economies from manufacturers tending to congregate in the same areas where they benefit from an experienced work force and established supply chains.

Perhaps the MIT and Harvard economists did their study after US manufacturing centers became shells of their former selves and Detroit lost 25% of its population, Gary Indiana lost 22% of its population, Flint Michigan lost 18% of its population, Cleveland lost 17% of its population, and St Louis lost 20% of its population. If the economists’ studies were done after manufacturing had departed, they would not find manufacturing concentrated in locations where it formerly flourished. MIT and Harvard economists might find this an idea too large to comprehend.

Kenny’s answer to the displaced manufacturing workers is–you guessed it–jobs training. He cites MIT economist David Autor who thinks the problem is the federal government only spends $1 on retraining for every $400 that it spends on supporting displaced workers.

These arguments are so absurd as to be mindless. Let’s examine them. What jobs are the displaced manufacturing workers to be trained for? Why, service jobs, of course. Kenny actually thinks that “service industries–hotels, hospitals, media, and accounting–have taken up the slack.” (I don’t know where he gets media and accounting from; scant sign of such jobs are found in the payroll jobs reports.) Moreover, service jobs have certainly not taken up the slack as the rising rate of long-term unemployment and declining labor force participation rate prove. Read more…..

War upon People; war on men working, women caring and children at play.

Syria: U.S. Resumes Arms Delivery To Al-Qaeda, Furthers Destruction

The past U.S. policy of providing arms to the Syrian insurgency failed to achieve any of its purported objectives. Neither did it result in a success of the insurgency in its attempt to overthrow the Syrian government, nor did help to keep the various Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria at bay. Instead the weapons provide to the “moderate” insurgents fell into the hands of the Al-Qaeda affiliates while the “moderate” insurgency fell apart. In effect the U.S. provided the logistics to those it claimed to have fought over the last twelve years.

As usual the U.S. response to a failed policy is to do more of the same.

The U.S. congress has voted to further arm “moderate” insurgents in Syria:

Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to “moderate” Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials.The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets.

Earlier U.S. weapon deliveries have fallen into the hand of Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra:

Senior Free Syrian Army and Jordanian sources, along with video evidence, have confirmed that European-made anti-tank missiles were obtained, and in some cases sold, to the hard-line Nusra Front after being supplied to vetted Free Syrian Army battalions across the Jordanian border.

The vetted FSA in the south is little more than a public relations front for al-Nusra:

“They offer their services and cooperate with us, they are better armed than we are, they have suicide bombers and know how to make car bombs,” an FSA fighter explained.
…
“The FSA and Al Nusra join together for operations but they have an agreement to let the FSA lead for public reasons, because they don’t want to frighten Jordan or the West,” said an activist who works with opposition groups in Deraa.”Operations that were really carried out by Al Nusra are publicly presented by the FSA as their own,” he said.

A leading FSA commander involved in operations in Deraa said Al Nusra had strengthened FSA units and played a decisive role in key rebel victories in the south.

“The face of Al Nusra cannot be to the front. It must be behind the FSA, for the sake of Jordan and the international community,” he said.

The U.S. as also resumed “non-lethal” aid to insurgents in the north:

The United States has restarted deliveries of nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition, officials said Monday, more than a month after Al-Qaeda-linked militants seized warehouses and prompted a sudden cutoff of Western supplies to the rebels.The communications equipment and other items are being funneled for now only to non-armed opposition groups, said the U.S. officials.
…
The U.S. officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity, said the aid was being sent through Turkey into Syria, with the coordination of the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Council, …

When the jihadists raided those warehouses with “non-lethal” aid provided by the United States they looted this stuff:

[A senior FSA Supreme Military Council official] said that the Islamic Front raided a total of ten warehouses belonging to the Western-backed umbrella group and seized a significant arsenal of weaponry, including 2,000 AK-47 rifles, 1,000 assorted arms—including M79 Osa rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades, and 14.5mm heavy machine guns—in addition to more than 200 tons of ammunition. At least 100 FSA military vehicles were also taken in the attack.

The resumption of arms supplies to the Syrian insurgency will not lead to any different outcome than earlier deliveries of such supplies. This then again proves that the real purpose of the U.S. instigated war on Syria and of the efforts to extend it is still this:

Destruction of the infrastructure, economy and social fabric of Syria is their and their supporters aim.

The economy has been debilitated by the offshoring of middle class jobs for the benefit of corporate profits and by the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing in order to support a few oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. Not only does QE distort bond and stock markets, it threatens the value of the dollar and has resulted in manipulation of the gold price. See http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/01/17/hows-whys-gold-price-manipulation/

When US corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy in terms of less employment, less economic growth, reduced state, local and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of social services.

When policymakers permitted banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. Authorities have provided no honest report on the condition of the banks. It remains to be seen if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the US dollar. It would have been far cheaper to let the banks fail and be reorganized.

US policymakers and their echo chamber in the economics profession have let the country down badly. They claimed that there was a “New Economy” to take the place of the “old economy” jobs that were moved offshore. As I have pointed out for a decade, US jobs statistics show no sign of the promised “New Economy.”

The same policymakers and economists who told us that “markets are self-regulating” and that the financial sector could safely be deregulated also confused jobs offshoring with free trade. Hyped “studies” were put together designed to prove that jobs offshoring was good for the US economy. It is difficult to fathom how such destructive errors could consistently be made by policymakers and economists for more than a decade. Were these mistakes or cover for a narrow and selfish agenda?

In June, 2009 happy talk appeared about “the recovery,” now 4.5 years old. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, “the recovery” is entirely the artifact of the understated measure of inflation used to deflate nominal GDP. By under-measuring inflation, the government can show low, but positive, rates of real GDP growth. No other indicator supports the claim of economic recovery.

John Williams writes that consumer inflation, if properly measured, is running around 9%, far above the 2% figure that is the Fed’s target and more in line with what consumers are actually experiencing. We have just had a 6.5% annual increase in the cost of a postage stamp. Read more…..

From Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize speech, December 2005;
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

US Special Forces counterinsurgency manual analysis

[T]he psychological effectiveness of the CSDF concept starts by reversing the insurgent strategy of making the government the repressor. It forces the insurgents to cross a critical threshold-that of attacking and killing the very class of people they are supposed to be liberating.

— US Special Forces doctrine obtained by Wikileaks

Read more…..

Evidence from mandarins suggests that Tony Blair’s entourage deceived the Cabinet on Iraq

Twiggy Garcia was working in a restaurant in Shoreditch, east London, last week when he learnt that Tony Blair was in the building.

Lord Mandelson recently described Chilcot as “what could be a very difficult minefield” for the Labour Party. Blair allies have been briefing friendly journalists that he is “deeply concerned” about the report, though this may be expectation management to make the actual criticism look better by comparison.

Nobody close to the inquiry will talk directly about its findings – which are, in any case, subject to change as part of the “Maxwellisation” process, where witnesses are privately sent previews of any criticisms made about them and invited to comment. But sources pointed towards certain passages of evidence, often under-reported at the time they were given, as carrying particular weight with at least some of the five-strong inquiry panel.

On January 13, 2010, the day after one star witness, Mr Blair’s spin man, Alastair Campbell, appeared before Chilcot, the inquiry heard from the Cabinet Secretary at the time of the invasion, Andrew Turnbull. Lord Turnbull gave evidence again, as did his predecessor, Lord Wilson, on January 25 2011, a few days after Mr Blair had made his second appearance.

Both times, the TV circus for Mr Campbell and Mr Blair had folded its tents and the ex-mandarins’ sessions were barely covered in the Press.

But they were devastating. Lord Turnbull said that he and the Cabinet had essentially been deceived, “brought into the story … a long way behind” what had already been agreed by what he described as Mr Blair’s “entourage”. The Cabinet never saw any papers at all, he said. Lord Wilson, who left six months before the war, testified that at his final meeting with the Prime Minister he had told Mr Blair that he had a worrying “gleam in his eye” over military action.

Lord Turnbull added that had Lord Wilson known the full picture – that a note had already been sent to President George W Bush promising, in his words, that “you can count on us whatever”, Lord Wilson “would not have described it [just] as a gleam”. Read more…..