Tuesday could be the blackest day of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's career. It is the day that the commission looking into the Dutch government's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq releases its findings.
Rumours surrounding Dutch military involvement in the invasion of Iraq, and Mr Balkenende's steadfast refusal to allow an inquiry until it was forced upon him, have led to an atmosphere of tense anticipation. Amazingly - at the time that this went to press - the commission has not leaked any of its findings. Neither government ministers nor members of parliament will be allowed to see a draft copy of the report.
The entire country will learn of the commission's conclusions at exactly the same time: 10am on Tuesday, 12 January.
The Dutch inquiry, called the Davids Commission after its chairman Willibrord Davids, comes in the wake of more than a dozen such investigations in other countries.
So what has the Davids Commission been investigating, and why does it matter?
Run-up
To answer that properly, we have to quickly review what happened back in 2002 and 2003. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the United States was looking for allies to commit troops to the operation.
Brand-new Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende, almost unheard of one year earlier, was leading a caretaker government when the decision was made to limit Dutch involvement in the Iraq invasion to providing political support.
Questions
The main questions facing the Davids Commission, which the Dutch opposition has been asking since just after the invasion itself, are as follows:
Was the decision to support the war in keeping with international law? Was there any Dutch military support for the invasion, contrary to what the government told parliament?
These questions take on an added interest due to Mr Balkenende's intransigence (during no less than fifteen debates in parliament). This inevitably raises questions as to what the prime minister is concerned about.
Allard de Rooi from Transparency About Iraq doesn't think it's very complicated:
"Balkenende has a lot to lose. He was one of the engines behind the Dutch support for the war. He is personally involved."
Most observers, including De Rooi, do not think the Davids Commission will satisfy the opposition parties in parliament. He says a parliamentary inquiry is sure to follow, with the prospect of Mr Balkenende being called to testify in public under oath.
Who knew what when?
The Davids Commission is said to be doing a very thorough job, even if they cannot question witnesses under oath. Besides exposing the prime minister's position, another possible embarrassment is whether or not the Dutch intelligence agencies did their homework, as the prime minister claims. Did Dutch intelligence verify US claims that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?
An even bigger potential problem for the prime minister is the question of military involvement. The Dutch military was involved in various joint operations in the region, and a number of journalists have unsuccessfully tried to prove whether or not any of those soldiers participated in the invasion of Iraq.
Defence specialist Ko Colijn says Dutch military involvement is difficult to prove in any case, in part because Dutch forces were involved in three other operations in the region at the time. If the Netherlands had wanted to provide military support, it would have been relatively easy to cover up:
"So there's a sort of game that seems to have been played with changing abbreviations, OIF, OEF, Active Endeavour and so on. It's hard to disentangle this."
If the commission does prove that Dutch forces were actively involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the government would be forced to step down.
Inquiries abroad
Many in the United Kingdom will be following events in The Hague closely this coming Tuesday. The Davids Commission was granted access to British secret documents, and there are concerns that the Dutch will pre-empt the Chilcot Commission, Britain's own Iraq invasion inquiry, due to present its findings in a year's time.
That inquiry, the fifth the British have conducted into various aspects of the Iraq war, is by far the broadest, covering events from 2001 up until 2009. Both the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former PM Tony Blair will testify.
The United States has not conducted such a far-reaching inquiry. But three major inquiries have looked into intelligence gathering and the planning of the invasion. In addition, Congressional committees have held dozens of other hearings. Former President George W Bush has never had to testify in a hearing about Iraq.
Both Australia and Denmark supplied troops for the original invasion, and both countries have conducted inquiries. The defeat of Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar at the polls halted Spanish momentum to investigate support for the war.
The German parliament also conducted an inquiry into allegations that German intelligence helped the US locate bombing targets in Iraq.
Could be the first
Notwithstanding the plethora of inquiries in various countries, no formal investigation of the invasion of Iraq has forced any political resignations. That could all change come Tuesday.
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Regardless of the positions of many countries in the world of the former Iraqi regime and its leader, the facts and the evidence did not conclusively prove anything of the allegations were based upon to wage war in 2003, especially from the major powers such as the Altdpalammerikip, Britain and others that launched the war based on intelligence reports, unconfirmed and Massadrarakip (opposition) in the hunt for power only.
"baited breath" would be more telling... reeking of allurement and deceit.
Yes, Aziz, it could be: The Labour Party waits for Dutch PM's response with 'baited breath', and the Dutch people wait for the grand finale with 'bated breath'.
If the true does not come on and we allow the USA to take any unilateral decision to kill or destroy any country, then we will be at the mercy of the next messianic guru to take control of the most powerful army in the planet.
What is the UN for?
Should we tremble every four years? (may the next one going to be a white supremacist?)
Is there a coalition ready to confront this superpower or are we living at their mercy?
WONDER WHAT THE REPORT WILL BE...
A soldier's view of the 'War' in Iraq:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8&feature=player_embedded#
Bated breath or Baited breath, dear Editor? This is what I found on net:[Q] From Steve Gearhart: Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ‘I am waiting with baited breath for your answer’?
[A] The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance that it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.
It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it means “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe.
Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock says to Antonio: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this ...”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.
For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image; Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured it in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.
[I’m indebted to Rainer Thonnes for telling me about this little ditty, which appears in an anthology called Catscript, edited by Marie Angel. However, it was first published in 1933 in a limited edition of Geoffrey Taylor’s poems entitled A Dash of Garlic.]
Dear Jasmin, thank you for writing in. I suggest we stick to "bate" and leave the bait to cats and mice.
Dear Theo, thanks for the positive response. I appreciate your sense of humour..;)....to leave the bait to cats and mice.
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