Muslims blast British anti-terror strategy

LONDON (AFP) - Muslim police in Britain have attacked the governments anti-terrorism strategy for triggering an upsurge in Islamophobia and deepening divisions in communities.
The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) warned that the Prevent programme, which aims to combat violent extremism, was stigmatising Muslims by focusing on so-called Islamist extremism.
The group said the real threat came from the growing far-right movement.
The hatred towards Muslims has grown to a level that defies all logic and is an affront to British values, said the association in a written submission to a parliamentary commission examining the anti-terror initiative.
The climate is such that Muslims are subject to daily abuse in a manner that would be ridiculed by Britain, were this to occur anywhere else.
There may be a connection in the rise of Islamophobia and our Prevent programme as it feeds on the stereotypes that the media and some rightwing parties promote, the group said.
These stereotypes were that all Muslims are evil and non-trustworthy, added the officers. Community cohesion may have suffered as a result of the strategy, said the association, which has more than 2,000 members and was founded in July 2007.
They also highlighted the growth of rightwing movements as a threat that needed greater attention.
The impact and growth of the far-right and its ability to carry out terror acts cannot and should not be underestimated, said the association.
Meanwhile, British former foreign secretary said on Thursday that Britain wanted to avoid the 2003 war in Iraq, adding that backing the conflict was the most difficult decision I have ever faced in my life. Jack Straw, the first serving Cabinet minister to give evidence to a public inquiry into the US-led conflict, insisted however that ministers made the best judgements possible in the run-up to the invasion.
Straw, who is currently justice secretary in Prime Minister Gordon Browns government, gave evidence a week before former premier Tony Blair makes his long-awaited appearance on January 29.
Blair will be grilled on the reasons for the conflict, amid doubts about the intelligence on Iraqs weapons of mass destruction (WMD) used to justify the invasion and Blairs professed desire to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
In his evidence, Straw insisted that so-called regime change was not Britains aim and said he made clear at the time that any use of force to depose Saddam under this objective would have been improper and unlawful.
In a 25-page memorandum submitted to the inquiry ahead of his verbal evidence, he accepted that from early 2002 there was no secret whatever that US military action against Iraq backed by Britain was a possibility.
But he wrote: Our foreign policy objective was the disarmament of Iraq and its compliance with (UN Security Council resolution) 1441, not military action against Iraq, nor regime change.
I had never wanted war. But the strategy we had adopted to secure Iraqs disarmament was diplomacy backed by the threat of force.
Reluctantly but firmly, I came to the view that to enforce Iraqs disarmament obligations, we had no option but to proceed with military action if Saddam Hussein did not respond to a final ultimatum.
Saddam could have complied with the weapons inspections regime provided for under resolution 1441, which was passed in November 2002, in which case, Straw told the inquiry: That would have been the end of it from our point of view. The WMD were never found in Iraq, and witnesses to the inquiry have admitted the intelligence pointing to them was patchy.
Straw admitted the government had made an error in a September 2002 intelligence dossier on Iraq, which claimed Saddam had WMD which could be launched within 45 minutes.
Plainly that reference should have been much more precise because it only ever referred in the intelligence to battlefield weapons. That was an error and it is an error that has haunted us ever since, he said.
However, he insisted that the document was never designed as a case for war but was aimed at alerting British lawmakers to the threat Iraq posed, adding that the intelligence it contained was not the only reason for concern.
He had formed a judgment about Iraq based on its previous aggressive behaviour towards its neighbours, its use of chemical weapons on its own people and previous attempts to conceal WMD.
On a personal note, Straw wrote in his memorandum that backing military action was the most difficult decision I have ever faced in my life.
I made my choice, he wrote. I have never backed away from it, and I do not intend to do so, and fully accept the responsibilities which flow from that.
I believed at the time, and I still believe, that we made the best judgements we could have done in the circumstances.