General Sir Mike Jackson and the art of cover-up

So the man who commanded the British Army at the invasion of Iraq has delivered a stinging condemnation of the Bush administration.

In his widely-publicised autobiography, Soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson praises the performance of the British bigwigs, but makes scathing criticism of US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld – “intellectually bankrupt” – and Washington’s perspective on rebuilding the country post-Saddam – “nonsensical”.
I imagine Hot Press readers, sensible folk to a woman and man, will nod their heads and murmur, “Fair play.” But a couple of things confuse me.
How come General Sir Mike didn’t mention his reservations at a time when this might have made a real difference? Why didn’t he alert the government which was sending his troops into war to the doubts and fears that he felt?
Blair’s number two, current premier Gordon Brown, says he never realised the general entertained these misgivings. The Foreign Secretary of the day, the late Robin Cook, made no mention of Jackson’s hesitancy in his memoir, Point of Departure, which dealt at length with Blair’s dismissal of objections to the war. (No mention of the matter, either, in Alistair Campbell’s recent autobiography, but that can be discounted, Campbell being an accomplished liar.)
Is this credible? That the Chief of the General Staff had serious concerns about the likely results of the invasion but chose not to share these with his political chiefs? After all, he’d let it be known publicly at the time that he was anxious about the legality of the war, to the extent that he took legal counsel before pronouncing himself satisfied that the action was “legitimate under international law.”  
“Having had some part to play in putting Slobodan Milosevic into a cell in The Hague,” he writes, “I had no wish to become his neighbour.”
So why didn’t he also share his worries about US intentions?
An explanation is suggested by Jackson’s role in the Bloody Sunday murders.
On January 30th 1972, Jackson was second-in-command of the First Paras and present in the Bogside when the paras killed or wounded 28 unarmed civilians. In 2003, he told the Saville Inquiry that he accepted that some, maybe all, of the victims had been unarmed and innocent, but that he couldn’t remember them being shot: he had no recall of seeing or hearing a weapon being discharged or a body falling, despite being within 50 yards of at least six of the killings and easy earshot of a sustained barrage of rifle fire.
He eventually conceded that, immediately after the massacre, he had compiled an account of the events which exonerated the paratroopers: he authored the cover-up. He agreed that he must have been instructed to do this by some senior figure “in London,” although for the life of him he couldn’t recall whom.
Would this not suggest that General Sir Mike, even at the age of 26, had been noted in high circles as a man who could be relied on for micro-management of mass murder, while concealing the role of the political elite?
There’s no mystery in his failure to reveal the extent of Blair’s knowledge of senior officers’ worries regarding the war.
Of course he told Blair of his qualms at the time. But to reveal that now would be to acknowledge the Blair clique's murderous duplicity. So he’s doing for Blair what he did for Edward Heath 35 years ago – covering up. It’s what’s expected of loyal army officers. It’s why he rose rapidly through the ranks to reach the very pinnacle of command.

I have always been suspicious of those yarns about somebody het up about something and picking up a bible which falls open at a page containing an apt and meaningful passage. But I emerged from a meeting with a number of Palestinians a while back, pondering the impossibility of their situation, corralled into tiny Bantustans by racist settlers who had grabbed their land and routinely humiliated and killed them at will, all the while enjoying the support of the most powerful interests on earth, when I turned for relief, or at least for distraction, to the book I was reading at the time, Daniel Kehlmann’s fine novel Measuring The World. The tucked corner of the leaf opened onto page 172, and a passage describing an encounter in Mexico between the explorer Alexander von Humboldt and a workman showing him the ruins of an Aztec temple.
“Twenty thousand people were sacrificed when the temple was dedicated. One after the other: heart out, head off. The rows of waiting victims had stretched all the way to the boundaries of the city.
“My good man, said Humboldt, don’t talk nonsense!
“The worker looked at him, insulted.
“Twenty thousands in one place, in one day, was unthinkable. The world would never tolerate it. What was more, the world order would not support it. If such a thing ever happened, the universe would come to an end.
“The universe, said the worker, didn’t give a shit.”

On September 1st, the village of Drumsurn, five miles from Limavady, was “transformed” (Irish News) for nuptial nonsense involving Micky Taggart (goes berserk if he hears himself called “Micky”) and an innocent woman. Taggart and his equally appealing brother, Johnnie, began as house-builders around Derry in the 1980s. By last year, they had accumulated property across these islands and in continental Europe and the US worth more than £500 million.
The enormous tent was filled with revellers for two days. Day one was for proper wedding guests (music supplied by Lionel Richie and Van Morrison), day two was for locals (eh, Bap Kennedy and Cara Dillon).  
I’d spent Friday of the same weekend in the Small Claims Court in Derry representing residents of Pine Trees, an estate built by the Taggarts on the outskirts of the city a few years back. Although the residents owned their homes, a management services company handled the cutting of the grass verges. The three directors of the company were the Taggart boys and their solicitor.
Five years ago, the residents were paying £50 a year each for the grass-cutting service. The grassy area has since diminished, due to land being vested for a new road. But the company has upped the charge to £110 a year. When some residents withheld payment in protest, the Taggarts issued writs against them. Which is how come I spent Friday morning in the court.
We came out ahead on points, although the game isn’t over.
“You’d think,” said Mairead Mulrooney as we emerged, “that fellas that rich wouldn’t have that sort of attitude.”
No, I agreed, you would not. Although what I was really thinking was that it’s because they have that sort of attitude that they’re that sort of rich.