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Hello Colin. Glenn here. Saw your post: > >Anyone who has followed the public statements of US or British officials >on Iraq will see that a small set of misleading statements are repeated... > >As these statements are likely to continue to recur it therefore seems >sensible to assemble a response to them. An idea... see if you think it might be useful/ workable... Mil and I were discussing the problem of endless FCO repetition of things which have already been pointed out to them are false (eg their North/South line). We were thinking about the idea of keeping a detailed record of every lie made by a government minister and responding. For example, re: North/South Andrea quoted UNICEF to Hain on Radio 5; he just ignored the point and repeated the standard deceit. But in addition to this it seems that as well as coming up with a good response, something else is needed. What may be good is if we can get details about WHO has pointed out FCO rubbish to them, and WHEN, and use this in letters to the editor, radio interviews etc. What I mean is, if everyone on the Casi list, or elsewhere, who has a record of letters they have sent to the FCO can give a date on when they told the FCO that, for example, UNICEF say "the difference in mortality rates between the North and South cannot be attributed to the different ways that OFF is run" then we have a record of them being specifically informed, hopefully many times, on a specific point, and can use this to highlight the continuing deceit. What I envisage is Casi, Vitw or whoever to be able to say in letters or interviews something like: "The minister has constantly repeated this line that he knows to be false. Not only do the official documents refute it, but 500 people have written to the FCO to point out the error. The letters are available on a website [whatever address] and the fact that they have been ignored shows that the FCO is being deliberately deceitful every time it repeats this line." If we can come up with a database of letters sent on several areas (eg north/south, 'stockpiling', diversion of goods etc etc) then I think this could be a useful tool. Instead of just pointing out the facts, we can say, with dates, names and numbers to back it up "the FCO has been told repeatedly of its error but still tells the public lies about what is killing Iraqi children." Do you think this is worth while? It'll take some compiling and sorting, and require lots of people to sort through their 'sent items' and copy their old letters and send them somewhere central - but there must be plenty out there - old / recent Voices standard letters for a start. If all the groups in the NCM could try to get their members to contribute I think we could have quite a large archive relatively quickly, and then use it as a reference source in publicity material. At the bottom of all this is a growing sense I have that we don't need better arguments, just new ways of airing the old ones. Maybe this will embarrass the FCO into abandoning some of its more ridiculous arguments, maybe not. Haven't thought this through completely. Be grateful for your comments. Cheers Glenn. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi