Iraq, according to current political legend, is world menace number one. The rogue state. Its fall from grace is, of course, relatively recent and there is little point in wasting valuable space in cataloguing the errors committed in the name of Saddam Hussain  Enough to say that he launched a destructive attack on his large and powerful neighbour Iran, at the instigation of the USA, that he attacked his diminutive neighbour Kuwait and threatened one of America's oil lifelines, that he attacked with bombs and chemical weapons racial and religious elements within the Iraq that Britain created in 1921 against the advice of many of its own senior officials, that he is a threat to the stability of neighbours and the West. All true enough –  well, up to a point.

But what a parody of history to suggest that it is the full story!

Who dropped the first and only atomic weapons that have so far scarred the face of the earth? Just in case history is about to be turned upside down by the Bush-Blair conspiracy, it was of course the United States.

Who underwrote the theft of Taiwan from its parent country China? America.

Who overthrew the democratically-elected Mossadeg in Iran in 1953? The Anglo-American oil alliance.

Who attacked Cuba and paid the penalty at the Bay of Pigs? No need to name that aggressor.

Who launched an unprovoked war in Vietnam, laid waste a large part of south-east Asia, made the first chemical attacks on civilian populations, rained incendiary bombs on unarmed towns and cities, and brought untold misery to an innocent people. The USA.

Who overthrew the democratically-elected Arbenz regime in Guatemala and was responsible for 40 years of misery and over 200,000 deaths at the hands of right-wing death squads? The USA. 

Who flew the first spy planes over sovereign territories in the name of the Cold War, and time after time brought east and west to the brink of catastrophe. Sorry, it has to be repeated if only because Britain's Prime Minister denies the truth of the matter. It was of course the USA.

Who organised the coup that gave rise to the Iraq dictator Kassem's assassination in 1963? According to British Cabinet papers, the USA.

Who is the world's biggest polluter of the earth's atmosphere, while refusing to sign up to the protocols agreed by the rest of the world in order to cut down gas emissions and reduce global warming? The USA.

Who refuses to sign up to international human rights agreements while keeping international prisoners in cages and putting to death an endless procession of its own prisoners in the sordid ritual of the electric chair? And who refused to sign up to the Charter of the International Criminal Court in 1998, on the grounds that it could not permit the prosecution of one of its own citizens. The USA.

Who encourages and finances Israel in its theft of Palestinian lands and abets that country in its contempt for the United Nations and Security Council resolutions? The USA, of course.

Now its President is unleashing yet another unprovoked and unjustified war on a smaller country. Two self-proclaimed Christian politicians are determined to prosecute that continuing war whatever its merits, whatever the strength of world opposition.  The time cannot be far away when Messrs Bush and Blair will be made to confront the errors not of Saddam Hussain but of their own unholy alliance. HVF Winstone