Bambie & Bubya

Oh well. It all seems to be going really well in Iraq then? 300 killed by US forces the day before yesterday, Al Jazeera shut-down, Lydia England’s defence argued that ‘it was all just a bit of fun’ and now, Ahmed Chalabi - once touted by his American supporters at the Pentagon as a future president of Iraq has been issued with an arrest warrant.

This was the guy - you’ll remember - who was the source of the US’s info on WMD (see our ongoing update, right). Now Ahmed and his nephew Salem Chalebi, the head of the Saddam tribunal are persona non grata, with Salem facing murder charges.

Baghdad-born Salem Chalabi, 41, a US-trained lawyer, is at present on what is described as a private visit to London. He denies any connection to the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry. The Foreign Office today confirmed that Salem Chalabi would not be extradited to Iraq, which restored the death penalty at the weekend.

Exciting stuff.

But will this become a point of difference between London and Washington? Iraq has been a sort of running sore for Blair, who’s been frustrated by the fact that his two whitewashes haven’t washed him clean of the bloody mess.

The question now is - at what point will Bambie and the New Labour Babes part company? We’ve seen over the years the Labour Party to be full of spineless half-wits who’ve allowed themselves to be taken-over by a cadre of right-wing zealots. But maybe the Bush-Blair post-Iraq regime will be too much for them to stomach, and remember its Bush in November, then Blair next year. If Blair is the last man standing of the Coalition of the Willing his drawers will be well and truly round his ankles.

Will the Bush poodle’s liberal façade be tested as people start getting fried / hung / shot as the whole thing descends into further madness? At what point does Labour sit up and realise that the whole thing’s been a complete fuck-up?

Watch this space. In fact don’t, watch this space instead: Unofficial New Labour
or this Blairwatch space,
or indeed this Clearing House space here...