MARCH 2004

Every now and then, the the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) Open Egroup brings its readers extracts from books which we believe deserve wider circulation. Our Muslim ummah unfortunately is not known anymore for its love of learning and study. Still, we at the ISB Open Egroup do our little bit to encourage fellow Muslims to fulfil their true potential.

Below, we have included a few extracts from Blair's Wars by John Kampfner, the talented Political Editor of the excellent weekly current affairs magazine, New Statesman.

We hope you will find it interesting and that it may alert you to the menace posed by the pro-Israel lobby. We may be appalled at the influence Zionists enjoy - but we cannot deny that they have worked hard to attain it - unlike most Muslims. It may even encourage you to go out and part with some of your money and buy the book. In addition, and more importantly, we hope it will encourage more of you to join the ISB or the umbrella UK Muslim body, the Muslim Council of Britain ( www.mcb.org.uk ) and work with your fellow Muslims for the future of Islam and the British Muslim community.

salaams,Moderators,ISB Open Egroup

[Extracts from Blair's Wars, John Kampfner, Free Press, 2003]

"The Israeli Embassy in London is assiduous in courting up-and-coming politicians. In 1993 one of those it identified was the shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair. He was invited over to Jerusalem, shown the sights, introduced to the movers and shakers and taken on a helicopter tour of the country. An aerial view provides visitors with two strong impressions: first, Israel's vulnerability, when you see that at its narrowest point it is only a few miles from the West Bank of the river Jordan to the sea; second, its military power over the Palestinians. The man who organised the trip was Gideon Meir. Two weeks after Blair returned to London, Meir organised a dinner party for him. There he met Levy, and from that moment one of modern politics' most intriguing friendships developed...As he began to remodel the party in his own image, Blair saw a pro-Israeli position as a defining symbol of New Labour. From his first party conference as leader in 1994, Blair made a point of spending time networking at the Labour Friends of Israel receptions...While he might pop his head in at other events, this one he would attend from start to finish. His message as he worked the room was: 'I'll never let Israel down. I'll never do anything to harm it.' At the same time, Levy was busily tapping in to the Jewish community for cash. They were keen to be raising money, and to be seen to be raising money, for Blair, and Blair was keen to be seen with them. It was a symbiotic relationship." (p174-176)

"In each of his meetings with Israeli ministers [the US Secretary of State Colin] Powell had the impression that they knew his negotiating position ahead of time. He suspected Sharon and his team had been on the phone to either Cheney or Rice first. Rice's job was to pass messages to and from Bush. Cheney was influenced on Israel by his veteran chief of staff 'Scooter' Libby, one of the most pro-Likud members of a pro-Likud US administration. Jack Straw, who was called by a despairing Colin Powell several times during that trip, would say of Libby: 'It's a toss up whether his is working for the Israelis or the Americans on any given day.' " (p 186-187)

"Within hours of Blix's presentation, Bush had dismissed it out of hand. He urged members of the Security Council to 'show their cards'. Blair invented a new concept, the 'unreasonable veto'...[the French President, Jacques Chirac in return] produced a telling statistic: France had wielded the veto eighteen times in the UN's history, compared to Britain's thirty-two and America's seventy-six. He could have but did not mention the fact that the last time the US used its veto was on 20 December, when it refused to back a resolution condemning the killing by the Israeli army of a British UN aid worker in Jenin and the destruction of a World Food programme warehouse in Gaza." (p 282 & 286)

British Army 'Sending
Students To Iraq'
BBC News
2-18-4

The Army is reportedly paying students £200 a day to put their degree courses on hold and fly to Iraq to work as Arabic translators and interpreters.

 

The pay includes danger money, and the students have to wear flak jackets and helmets, according to The Times.

 

The students sleep at Basra's British military compound, in rooms with six to eight bunks, and wake at 0600 GMT for a full Army breakfast, the paper reports.

 

And they take crash courses in military jargon, Iraqi dialects and behaviour.

 

Each recruit is assessed at Westminster University.

 

The Army's Defence School of Languages in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, is employing Iraqis to help prepare the undergraduates.

 

Commanding Officer Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Rabbitt told the newspaper: "This is to make sure they know the difference between a tank and a fish tank, and what it means when you talk about armoured cars.

 

"Some people think an armoured car is what the Pope is driven around in."

 

Once in Iraq, the students interpret for Iraqis on Basra's streets and translate newspapers and documents.

 

'Gap year'

 

Laura Culley, 21, of Weymouth, Dorset, said she and her female friend were approached by recruiters from Kellog, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of US multinational Halliburton, a civilian contractor working for the Ministry of Defence, at Exeter University's Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies.

 

Her father, Andrew, a police officer, said: "She has always been extremely independent-minded and has effectively taken a gap year to work for the military in Iraq.

 

"They are obviously quite desperate for Arabic speakers over there," he added.

 

"Her language skills are increasing enormously."

 

© BBC MMIV

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3498307.stm Rense.com

Medical evidence does not support suicide by Kelly

Thursday February 12, 2004
The Guardian

Since three of us wrote our letter to the Guardian on January 27, questioning whether Dr Kelly's death was suicide, we have received professional support for our view from vascular surgeon Martin Birnstingl, pathologist Dr Peter Fletcher, and consultant in public health Dr Andrew Rouse. We all agree that it is highly improbable that the primary cause of Dr Kelly's death was haemorrhage from transection of a single ulnar artery, as stated by Brian Hutton in his report.

On February 10, Dr Rouse wrote to the BMJ explaining that he and his colleague, Yaser Adi, had spent 100 hours preparing a report, Hutton, Kelly and the Missing Epidemiology. They concluded that "the identified evidence does not support the view that wrist-slash deaths are common (or indeed possible)". While Professor Chris Milroy, in a letter to the BMJ, responded, "unlikely does not make it impossible", Dr Rouse replied: "Before most of us will be prepared to accept wristslashing ... as a satisfactory and credible explanation for a death, we will also require evidence that such aetiologies are likely; not merely 'possible'. "

Our criticism of the Hutton report is that its verdict of "suicide" is an inappropriate finding. To bleed to death from a transected artery goes against classical medical teaching, which is that a transected artery retracts, narrows, clots and stops bleeding within minutes. Even if a person continues to bleed, the body compensates for the loss of blood through vasoconstriction (closing down of non-essential arteries). This allows a partially exsanguinated individual to live for many hours, even days.

Professor Milroy expands on the finding of Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist at the Hutton inquiry - that haemorrhage was the main cause of death (possibly finding it inadequate) - and falls back on the toxicology: "The toxicology showed a significant overdose of co-proxamol. The standard text, Baselt, records deaths with concentrations at 1 mg/l, the concentration found in Kelly." But Dr Allan, the toxicogist in the case, considered this nowhere near toxic. Each of the two components was a third of what is normally considered a fatal level. Professor Milroy then talks of "ischaemic heart disease". But Dr Hunt is explicit that Dr Kelly did not suffer a heart attack. Thus, one must assume that no changes attributable to myocardial ischaemia were actually found at autopsy.

We believe the verdict given is in contradiction to medical teaching; is at variance with documented cases of wrist-slash suicides; and does not align itself with the evidence presented at the inquiry. We call for the reopening of the inquest by the coroner, where a jury may be called and evidence taken on oath.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4856799-103683,00.html

Andrew Rouse
Public health consultant
Searle Sennett
Specialist in anaesthesiology
David Halpin
Specialist in trauma
Stephen Frost
Specialist in radiology
Dr Peter Fletcher
Specialist in pathology
Martin Birnstingl
Specialist in vascular surgery

 ******************

Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology
Yaser Adi MPH,
Systematic Reviewer
Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham, UK, B15 2TT,
Rouse, A
8 February 2004

Twelve months ago Professor Milroy identified several important issues relating to "expert advice" and the legal system (1). For instance, a learning point from the Sally Clark case appears to be the need for the courts to hear the views of not just the traditional clinicians and forensic pathologists, but "non traditional" experts - in this case the statisticians. We believe that the publication of the Hutton report reinforces this point.

We all now know that the forensic pathology advice presented in Hutton's inquiry was compatible with the view that Dr Kelly died because of a self inflicted wrist injury. However had Lord Hutton asked for expert epidemiological advice he would probably have been told:

Suicide associated with wrist slashing is extremely rare - so rare that the Office of National Statistics does not report wrist slashing as a specific cause of death; it groups such deaths with other uncommon suicide methods such as belly and abdomen stabbings and throat cuttings. (see attached table). This table shows that fewer than five, 55-60 year old men use cutting and piercing instruments to commit suicide annually.

This statistical evidence, combined with the fact that even after searching the medical literature (2) and speaking to medical and surgical colleagues we have not been able to document that wrist slashing can lead to successful suicide, suggests that for all practical purposes wrist slashing suicide does not exist in Britain.

Suicide and self inflicted injury by cutting and piercing instruments amongst males (England & Wales)

Year_______50-54_____55-59_____60-64_____65-69

1991_________2_________4_________9_________8

1992_________5_________6_________4_________1

1993_________7_________4_________6_________4

1994_________2_________3_________3_________6

1995_________6_________5_________3_________5

1996_________6_________4_________4_________5

1997_________8_________4_________3_________1

1998_________7_________7_________2_________8

1999_________5_________4_________5_________3

2000_________9_________3_________2_________4

10 yr total 57________44________41________45

Av/per year 5.7_______4.4_______4.1_______4.5

Data extracted from: Twentieth Century Mortality,

The Office of National Statistics (OPCS), London 2003.

How can we reconcile such conflicting opinion? The easiest way would be to discredit the epidemiological advice on the basis that it is based on inaccurate or unrepresentative OPCS statistics. This could easily be done.

Would readers send us details of any 55-65 year old males, without a psychiatric history, who have committed suicide by slashing their wrist, during the last 10 years. If we fail to establish that the epidemiological evidence supports the credibility of wrist slashing suicide, we and many others will find it hard to accept that Dr Kelly died by slashing his own wrist.

(1) http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7384/294 (2) Ovid Medline online searched 1966 to 2003.

PS: The epidemiological advice reported here was sent to the Secretariat of the Hutton enquiry on September 3rd, 2003.

Competing interests: None declared

Send response to journal:
Re: Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology : Email Yaser Adi MPH, et al.

Adi and Rouse discuss the issue of the use of epidemiology and the question of self-inflicted injury. I can assure them that a man between 55 and 65 can incise his wrists and bring about his death. So can a 54 year old and a 66 year old. The problem with use of statistics in any single case is that unlikely does not make it impossible. Furthermore the toxicology showed a significant overdose of co-proxamol. The standard text Baselt records deaths with concentrations at 1.0 mg/l, the concentration found in Kelly. He also had significant ischaemic heart disease identified at autopsy. The combination of these findings is more than enough to account for the death of the unfortunate Mr Kelly. The role of the Forensic Pathologist is to assimilate all the appropriate evidence, and can consider toxicological data in the overall context. Conspiracy theories are entertaining but the reality is that whether it is the death of JFK, Diana, Princess of Wales or many of the other celebrity cases, an objective analysis does not support the conspiracy theories, which remain as fantasy only

Competing interests: None declared

Christopher M Milroy,
Professor of Forensic Pathology, University of Sheffield
The Medico-Legal Centre, Watery Street, Sheffield, S3 7ES

Send response to journal:
Re: Re: Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology ; Email Christopher M Milroy

We like Professor Milroy, do not like conspiracy theories. However, when we undertook our epidemiological review of wrist slash deaths we were aware that many were regurgitating the conventional wisdom that, "Bleeding to death from wrist slash injuries is well neigh impossible". We therefore sought to find evidence to substantiate or refute that "wisdom". Having spent about one hundred hours looking for data on this topic we prepared the report "Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology". We concluded that the identified evidence does not support the view that wrist slash deaths are common (or indeed possible).

We are therefore pleased to note that Prof Milroy's documents the possibility of such deaths. However, before most of us will be prepared to accept wrist slashing (or any other aetiologicy) as a satisfactory and credible explanation for a death we will also require evidence that such aetiologies are likely; not merely "possible". Our report merely notes that we have not been able to find such documentation.

We believe that this likeliness criterion is all-important. After all, as Prof Milroy has noted with reference to Sally Clark, one can explain away three child deaths in a family as possible murder. However unless evidence has previously been published which documents and substantiates the prior occurrence of such murders, categorising such deaths as murder is unconvincing. Similarly, we are all prepared to accept that the odd person has fallen out of an aeroplane and survived. However few of us, upon after stumbling upon a lone person on Salisbury plane, would comfortably accept his explanation - although possible - that he got there by falling from the sky.

Until recently we would have been happy to downgrade our reliance on epidemiological or other data and accept expert assurance on the cause of death. However bearing in mind the Meadows expert testimony debacle, and the poor explanations for every other aspect of Dr Kelly's death we believe that the time is right for interested professionals to publish:

"A case series describing 55-65 year old males, without a psychiatric history, who have committed suicide by slashing their wrist, during the last 10 years"

If we cannot provide hard evidence that slash wrist suicides have occurred with some frequency - as professionals - we will only have ourselves to blame if another conspiracy theory sets hold. We are more than prepared to revise our view that wrist slash death is unlikely and will do so when evidence is published. Specifically, we would like to see case series data published by a reputable author in a peer-reviewed journal such as the BMJ.

Competing interests: None declared

Andrew Rouse,
Consultant
Birmingham, B16 9PA,
Yaser Adi

Send response to journal:
Re: Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology : Email Andrew Rouse, et al.
 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/326/7384/294#49696

Kelly was Murdered' Says UK Intelligence Insider( Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer )

by Simon Aronowitz© February 2004
Editor - ThoughtCrimeNews.com

Monday 23rd

Shocking new details about the death of Dr David Kelly emerged today exclusively on the Alex Jones radio show.Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer who was a guest on the show, revealed that sources within MI5 and MI6 are `furious' that Kelly was murdered.

Shrimpton spoke in depth about the details of Kelly's murder on 17th July 2003, information which has been withheld by the British press.

With apparent backing from the organisations whose members he claims to speak for, Shrimpton presented their view that Dr Kelly had been murdered by a team of assassins and the charade of an apparent suicide was then played out to cover this up.

Speaking with impeccable credentials, including contributions to the Journal for International Security Affairs and having previously given a closed-doors confidential briefing the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Shrimpton exploded the much-reported myth that Dr Kelly had taken his own life. 

He spoke of the probable method of Kelly's death, the group which most likely carried out the assassination, who arranged it and finally where the responsibility lies. Additionally, he explained the political context and motive for Kelly's murder.

David Kelly went missing on 17th July 2003 and was found dead on 18th July. In the previous days, Kelly had testified before Parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee that he was not the source of a BBC story which had accused the Government of making false claims about Iraq's WMD. When Kelly's body was found, the British press quickly reported it as a suicide, though several analysts had their doubts.

On Jones' show, Shrimpton explained how he had learned that David Kelly was the BBC's source before the BBC disclosed this fact. He went on to explain that his source from within the intelligence community knew David Kelly personally, and did not believe that he had committed suicide. After making their own enquiries, says Shrimpton, this source determined that Dr Kelly had not committed suicide, but rather had been assassinated.

Officially, Kelly's body was said to have been found in a copse, in a wood, but the forensic tents were set up in the adjacent field, suggesting, says  Shrimpton, that the body was found in the field. This has not been explained to his satisfaction.

The incision in Kelly's wrist was probably to conceal the injection of both Dextroprypoxythene, the active ingredient in Co-Proxamol, and Succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant, rather than as evidence of his bleeding to death, as highlighted by a group of six doctors in letters published in the British press. Shrimpton further agreed with the doctors by pointing out that Kelly only had one Co-Proxamol tablet in his body and that this was not sufficient to kill him.

According to Shrimpton, Kelly was murdered because he had been talking to the press and there was a fear of what else he might discuss with journalists. Furthermore, Kelly was due to return to Iraq and may have learned fresh information on that trip which Whitehall could not afford to trust him with. 

Shrimpton's appearance on Jones' show gave him the first public opportunity to bring forward his information, since the story has been effectively censored by the British Press, who according to Shrimpton are concerned about losing the pro-Euro Tony Blair as Prime Minister were they to publish details of Kelly's assassination. Blair's departure, he says, could threaten Britain's proposed adoption of the Euro as the national currency.

Whilst this story begins to circulate in the USA, the coverage in the UK may well remain nil, whilst maneuvering behind the scenes attempts to pre-empt Shrimpton's accusation of government-sanctioned murder of one of its own operatives.

Only with public support, and a belief that this information should be widely known, can this information be brought into the wide open and covered by the mainstream media.