Both Helen Clark and Phil Goff have denied the US embassy's claim that they traded blood for butter over Iraq, calling it "ridiculous" and "preposterous". Which is what you'd expect them to say. But if they want to prove it, then they have an obvious avenue to do so: request and release all the advice they received on the issue, unredacted, so we can see that they are telling the truth. Anything less, and we can only conclude that they have something to hide.
(This is the problem with secrecy: by its nature, it invites suspicion. Only total transparency allows us to see that our politicians are in fact doing what they have said they will do, rather than betraying us behind our backs).
Meanwhile, if Clark and Goff are telling the truth, and the dairy trade had nothing to do with their decision, we also have to ask why "senior MoD officials" thought that it did. Are they that far out of the loop, or is the culture within the MoD really that toxic?
