Suez and Iraq

[John Simkin]

Several historians have pointed out that there are certain similarities between the situation in Suez and Iraq. However, new documents just released show another connection.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/egypt/story/0,,1961530,00.html

Richard Norton-Taylor

Friday December 1, 2006

The Guardian

The extent of the government law officers' fierce opposition to the invasion of Egypt and how they were ignored by the prime minister, Anthony Eden, during the Suez crisis is revealed in documents released at the National Archives today.

The hitherto secret documents also reveal that 50 years ago Whitehall officials drew up plans to cut off the flow of the Nile to Egypt, and to "bring down" the Egyptian president, Abdul Nasser, with the help of the CIA.

The government's law officers, led by Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, the attorney general, were kept in the dark about the three-nation plot whereby Israel would attack Egypt, and then Britain and France would invade the country on the spurious grounds of stopping the hostilities.

"It is just not true to say that we are entitled under the [uN] charter to take any measures open to us 'to stop the fighting'," Manningham-Buller told Eden and Selwyn Lloyd, the foreign secretary.

In an angry letter dated November 1 1956, a day after British and French bombers attacked Egyptian airfields, Manningham-Buller wrote: "Further, it is not true to say that under international law we are entitled to take any measure open to us 'to protect our interests which are threatened by hostilities'."

Instead of seeking advice from his law officers, Eden and his cabinet were comforted by the view of Lord Kilmuir, the lord chancellor, that the attack on Egypt was legal. In documents which have deep contemporary resonance in light of the continuing debate about the legality of the invasion of Iraq, Lloyd was told that the FO's legal advisers, led by Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, also took the view that the attack on Egypt was unlawful.

Fitzmaurice is reported to have said that Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, the solicitor general, and Manningham-Buller - father of Dame Eliza, the current head of MI5 - had "seriously considered" resignation.

He told the head of the FO: "The plea of vital interests is indeed the very one which the [uN] charter was intended to exclude as a basis for armed intervention in another country. On that basis, the Russians could now plead ... they were entitled to intervene by armed force to maintain a communist and pro-Russian government in the satellite countries."

The law officers told Lloyd: "We have no defence under the [uN] charter for what we have done."

Eden subsequently summoned Manningham-Buller and Hylton-Foster to Downing Street, the files released today reveal. "The prime minister made clear to [them] that the government's decision was taken on grounds of policy, not of law," recorded Norman Brook, the cabinet secretary.

Concerned that their view of the invasion being illegal might be made public and subsequently rock the government, the law officers said they hoped the matter would not arise, noted Brook. He wrote: "I am advising the prime minister to ask his colleagues to avoid in future speeches any further reference to the question of law."

Many documents on the 1956 Suez crisis, including reports to the Queen, are still withheld. However, papers released today show that the Colonial Office drew up a detailed plan about how to divert the waters of the Nile, which would lead to economic chaos in Egypt.

They also reveal that a month before the attack on Egypt, Sir Patrick Dean, an FO official, flew to Washington to discuss with the CIA "means of bringing down Colonel Nasser's regime in Egypt". They record: "The American agencies have joined with us in declaring that our joint objectives require Nasser's removal from power and that the need to remove him will remain." In the end US opposition to the invasion and its refusal to bale out the pound forced Britain to end the mission.

[Steven Phillips]

The documents concerning the law in both cases is highly revealing reguards policy towards Iraq and Egypt in the 1950`s but I think what is even more revealing about this particular mindset is the almost pathelogical lack of concern about creating widespread starvation and despair. During Suiz it was the redirecting of the Nile to achieve widespread hardship and during the present conflict with Iraq it was the Ilisu dam in Turky which would have effectivly dried up the Tigris river which so many people depend on.

The cyncism with which these policies are implemented just goes to show that we are not dealing with normal people here, we are dealing with murderous thugs who will stop at nothing to see these policies through. I am convinced the Ilisu dam project would have gone ahead if invasion wasnt on the cards.