24 NOVEMBER
WALL STREET’S WORRIES AND THE WEATHER CITED AS REASONS FOR THE IRAQ WAR
Chatham House – CC BY 2.0 – via Wikimedia.
[ 24 November 2006 ]
On 24 November 2006, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who had been Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations in the run up to the Iraq war, explained to a conference at Churchill College Cambridge, that Britain had no choice but to invade the country in 2003. Labour politician Tony Benn recalled in his diary that he was surprised at some of the pretexts given. These included the claim that ‘Wall Street was worried about the uncertainty’ and that the ‘weather was getting very hot.’ Benn reflected that this ‘wasn’t exactly a good reason for war,’ one which by the time of Sir Jeremy’s talk had already claimed at least 650,000 lives.1
FOOTNOTE
- Ruth Winstone (editor), Tony Benn, More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007,” Arrow Books, London, 2006, p. 342 and Sarah Boseley, ‘655,000 Iraqis Killed Since Invasion,’ The Guardian, 11 October 2006 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/11/iraq.iraq
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