BBC post Hutton

Good to see that the BBC hasn't been cowed by the Hutton report and is continuing to remind us of the illegality of the war in Iraq, and the hundred thousand people who died there. This was the headline today on the BBC website:

Soldier wins VC for Iraq bravery
A soldier is awarded the first Victoria Cross for 23 years for two acts of heroism in Iraq.
Citation: 'Unquestioned valour'

It stresses how brave the soldiers were. Hmm.

One of the next items on the BBC website was this:

Dutchman in Iraq genocide charges

Halabja was one of the worst atrocities of Saddam's regime
Prosecutors in the Netherlands have formally charged a Dutch businessman with complicity in genocide for selling chemicals to Iraq's former regime.

Hmm, yes BBC, its all the fault of the Dutch businessmen.

Of course the vast majority of the arms were provided by Britain and America, but as the BBC well knows it just "won't do" to admit to your own countries crimes.

As Paul Foot makes clear here:

From 1985, the ECGD [a branch of the British government] guaranteed the sale of defence equipment to Iraq to the tune of at least £25m a year. .... In 1988, when the war ended, the guarantee for Iraq was quadrupled--to £100m

So the British government had been selling arms to Iraq throughout the 1980's, and then at the time of the Al Halabja disaster (which the BBC and British government are calling genocide), we actually increased the military aid fourfold.

Why aren't the BBC drawing attention to the British Governments major role in what they accept is genoicde. Surely this is of major importance?