The Gary Null Blog

Charles Anthony Lynton Blair, QC., is set to reappear before the Chilcot Inquiry into the assault on Iraq, on Friday 21st January, with an inside source reported commenting: "There is a feeling ... he wilfully misrepresented the facts." Goodness, surely not. Personally, one scene encapsulates the invasion - before it even began. I checked in to a small family hotel, on the corniche, in Mosul, northern Iraq. Mosul is in hauntingly beautiful, ancient, Nineveh province, of which Masefield wrote: "Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, rowing home to haven, in sunny Palestine, with a cargo of ivory, and apes and peacocks, sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet white wine." The wine came from Mosul grapes. The romance is undimmed, from the spine tinglingly beautiful remains left by the Assyrian Kings (721 BC-626 BC) to the great flocks of birds, who blacken the sky at dawn and dusk, their song rising and falling, filling the senses. I climbed the steep steps to the entrance and anticipated the beams and the "Welcome, welcome, welcome home ..." The lobby was deserted.