When Britain armed Iraq’s genocidal war against the Kurds

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 31 October 2023 Conservative and Labour governments supported Baghdad’s brutal attack on the Kurds 60 years ago, knowing it may have constituted genocide, declassified files show. In October 1963, the British government approved the export to Iraq of high explosive demolition slabs, on the understanding that these “will probably be […]

Britain always seeks a profit in wars

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 5 October 2023 The Ukraine conflict is but the most recent case where UK policy-makers and weapons manufacturers seek commercial opportunities from devastating wars – often by arming both sides. When my colleagues Phil Miller and Matt Kennard visited the world’s largest arms fair in London last month, they found weapons manufacturers […]

How BP’s interests drive UK support for wars, coups and dictators

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 19 July 2023 The Foreign Office is largely captured by global climate polluter BP.  From Iran to Azerbaijan, Iraq to Nigeria, Russia to Venezuela, the UK prioritises the corporation’s profits over a decent foreign policy. Declassified recently revealed that BP has pumped Iraqi oil worth £15bn since the UK and US militaries invaded […]

Blair misled parliament over 1998 Iraq bombing, files show

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 17 April 2023 Declassified documents from 1998, when the UK and US bombed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, show Tony Blair was consistently informed military action was unlawful without UN authorisation. But he told parliament Britain had “the proper legal authority”. Tony Blair and his closest advisers were consistently informed by British […]

Britain’s 42 coups since 1945

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 12 January 2023 The UK has planned or executed over 40 attempts to remove foreign governments in 27 countries since the end of the Second World War, involving the intelligence agencies, covert and overt military interventions and assassinations, Declassified has found. Probably the most well-known coup staged by British intelligence […]

Four failed wars must finally force the UK to adopt an ethical foreign policy

By Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 25 August 2021 Britain’s regime change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have been catastrophic. A key reason is that UK policy has no moral consistency — friends and enemies are interchangeable over time, based purely on short-term pragmatism and rarely on ethical concerns or the […]

Revealed: Dozens of UK former senior officials profit from fossil fuel corporations, rubber-stamped by Whitehall committee

By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 4 February 2021 New research finds that dozens of senior UK defence, foreign office and intelligence officials find employment with oil, gas and mining corporations once they leave public office, rubber-stamped by a Whitehall committee which pays little attention to potential conflicts of interest. Such private profiting from energy companies […]

British government ministers have been complicit in millions of deaths since 1945, so don’t be surprised that they won’t face justice over coronavirus

By Mark Curtis Declassified UK, 2 May 2020 The UK government’s failure to provide protective equipment to all health staff treating coronavirus victims prompts questions whether ministers are legally culpable for failing to prevent deaths. But UK ministers routinely act with impunity and every prime minister since 1945 has been complicit in deaths abroad. At […]

The UK will spend over £350bn on extravagant military projects while failing to ensure national health security

by Mark Curtis Declassified UK, 25 March 2020 Britain plans to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on extravagant military projects while the UK’s under-funded public health system struggles to address pandemics such as the coronavirus, new analysis shows. The British government will likely need to spend more than £200-billion over the next decade to […]

Britain’s seven covert wars: An Explainer

By Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard Declassified UK, 17 September 2019 The United Kingdom is fighting at least seven covert wars largely outside parliamentary or democratic oversight. The British government states that its policy on the covert wars it fights is “not to comment, and to dissuade others from commenting or speculating, about the operational […]