THE UK National Security Committee met midday yesterday to put the final touches to the UK contribution to a massive cruise missile strike that the US is about to hurl at Syria.
THE UK National Security Committee met midday yesterday to put the final touches to the UK contribution to a massive cruise missile strike that the US is about to hurl at Syria.
Present at the meeting were the leading military, intelligence, diplomatic and political chiefs of British imperialism headed by the Prime Minister.
The UK was to put, yesterday evening, a resolution to a meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, in a bid to receive the blessing of the UN for the attack.
If passed, the motion would give the US-UK-and France the right to attack Syria at once.
If, as expected, it was vetoed by Russia and China, the British parliament will be told that the UK tried its best to get the support of the Security Council, but that the action still has to go ahead.
The real intent of the motion is to help the Labour leaders stiffen their ranks into voting for the US-UK military adventure, which all MPs know is enormously unpopular in the UK.
A YouGov poll showed yesterday that only around 10% of those polled were in favour of an invasion of Syria with 50% opposed to the proposed air assault, and just 20% in favour.
Cameron hopes to use the vetoing of his UN resolution as a tool to get Labour’s Miliband and Balls to tell its MPs they must vote in favour of the action.
The Labour vote could be decisive since a large number of Tories are queasy about the action since they have business interests in the Midde East.
Israel, which has bombed Syria at least five times in the last three months, has also openly entered the fight with a declaration that it would strike Syria with everything that it had if it felt that it was under threat of a Syrian attack.
The UN Secretary General has asked for his team to be given ‘time to do its job’ and insisted that it is making progress. Already environmental and biological samples have been collected, and victims and witnesses have been interviewed in the Muadamiya area, west of the city on Monday
The inspectors have headed east to the Ghouta area.
At the moment, the UN experts have until the start of next week to conclude their work. But they are only able to look at whether chemical weapons were used, not at who deployed them.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government has accused the US and the UK of supplying the ‘rebels’ with the chemical material that it has found that poisoned its soldiers.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday that US intervention would be a ‘disaster’ for the region.
‘The region is like a gunpowder store and the future cannot be predicted,’ Khamenei said.
Former head of the British Army General Lord Dannatt and ex-First Sea Lord Lord West have opposed a foreign military intervention in Syria, describing it as a wrong approach.
Lord Dannatt warned of unintended consequences in the case of military intervention in the Arab country under the pretext of the alleged chemical attack that took place near the capital Damascus.
‘Now, if the international community was of one voice on this and the UN Security Council was of one voice … that would be a different issue because the case then would be compelling and undoubtedly legal,’ Dannatt said.
He also added that British Prime Minister David Cameron should convince the UK public before any decisions are made over the issue.
Lord West also urged diplomacy before military action, saying he was ‘very wary’ of a possible intervention.
Moreover, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the chairman of the United Nations Association in the UK and a former ambassador to the UN, warned against a potential military offensive against Syria.
