UK ministers reject Iraq terror link: “Senior cabinet minister reject claims that Britain’s support of the invasion of Iraq put the UK more at risk from terrorist attack.” (Via BBC News.)
They most probably also deny all the other conclusions from the latest Chatham report on terrorism and the UK:
- the UK government’s position as ‘pillion passenger’ to the United States’ war on terror
- Islamic terrorist activity was not given appropriate priority until the late 1990s
- the UK is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the US, deploying troops in the campaigns against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq
That leaves us to wonder whether said UK “senior” ministers are senior enough to embrace the report’s recommendations to “move away from the rigid forensic approach to professional post-terror attack responses”, i.e. to place more emphasis “on
building and using community resources in responding to terrorism, rather than
focusing on technical and professional approaches that leave communities excluded” and not to allow that “terrorism and the shadow of fear it casts can be used all too easily to obscure repressive government measures”, particularly during elections.
(1) cannot be which be may not