Plan B Forum

The Archbishop of Canterbury last night issued an extraordinary apology for the British bombing of Dresden during the Second World War.



In what was immediately criticised as an insult to the young men who gave their lives to defeat the Nazis, the Most Rev Justin Welby told the German people of his ‘profound feeling of regret and deep sorrow’ over the attack. His comments at a ceremony in Dresden to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombings came amid a growing row about BBC coverage of the commemoration in which Britain was described as ‘worse than the Nazis’ over the raids that killed thousands at the end of the war.

Former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth criticised the Archbishop, saying: ‘I do not hear Angela Merkel apologising for the Blitz.’ And historian Professor Anthony Glees said it was wrong to take a single incident in the war and say sorry for it. Archbishop Welby said the bombing of Dresden, which killed an estimated 25,000, ‘diminished all our humanity’. But he made no reference to the 55,573 British aircrew killed in the struggle to overthrow Hitler, nor to the German bombing of London and Coventry.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘These remarks do sound to me like an apology. For the Archbishop to make an apology for our defeat of Hitler is bizarre. I would have thought the last thing we should be doing is apologising. We should be praised for defeating Hitler. These words are an insult to the young men who gave their lives in the defeat of Germany.’ The Archbishop – whose great uncle Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal was one of the main architects of Britain’s campaign of bombing German cities – told the congregation he thought it was ‘miraculous’ that they were welcoming him given the ‘brutal and devastating’ nature of the attack.

‘Over three days in February allied bombers brought death and destruction on a scale and with a ferocity it is impossible to imagine,’ he said. ‘Much debate surrounds this most controversial raid of the allied bombing campaign. Whatever the arguments, events here 70 years ago left a deep wound and diminished all our humanity. So as a follower of Jesus I stand here among you with a profound feeling of regret and deep sorrow.’

we should recall that Bush II lied about WMD

Hans Blix (who caught the N. Koreans making nukes after Reagan and Bush I missed it) had been looking for WMD for months and months and said they were not there.

How much, if any, is left of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programmes? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed. Another matter - and one of great significance - is that many proscribed weapons and items are not accounted for. To take an example, a document, which Iraq provided, suggested to us that some 1,000 tonnes of chemical agent were "unaccounted for". One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded. If they exist, they should be presented for destruction. If they do not exist, credible evidence to that effect should be presented.

Friday 23 May 2003 10.39 EDT

The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said he was starting to suspect Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction in advance of the war on Iraq, a German newspaper reported today.

"I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am beginning to suspect there possibly were none," Mr Blix told the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel.

If that were the case, he said, Iraq's evasive behaviour in recent years could be due to Saddam Hussein's fixation with Iraqi honour and a wish to dictate the conditions under which people could enter the country.

"For that reason, he said 'no' in many situations and gave the impression he was hiding something," he said.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Careful you must be, oh wes one... swampy back there it is