Iraq inquiry to hear evidence in private
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Independent Minds
The Prime Minister today announced his inquiry into the Iraq war would be held in private - to the dismay of campaigners.
And its findings will not be published until next summer, after the date of the next General Election - an announcement met by jeers from Opposition MPs.
The Conservative leader David Cameron said there was a danger that by delaying the start of the inquiry and prolonging the term of its deliberations, people would think the inquiry had been "fixed" because it would not report until after the next general election.
Gordon Brown said the probe would be conducted by non-politicians, led by ex-Whitehall mandarin Sir John Chilcot.
It would cover the period from September 2001, in the run-up to war, until July this year when the last UK soldier will come home, Mr Brown told MPs in a Commons statement.
The Premier told MPs that, with the last UK combat mission over in Iraq, "now is the right time to ensure we have a proper process in place to learn the lessons".
He said the investigation would be an "independent privy councillor committee of inquiry" and stressed: "The inquiry will be fully independent of Government. The scope of the inquiry is unprecedented. It covers an eight-year period.
"The committee will have access to the fullest range of information, including secret information. Their investigation can range across all documents, all papers and all material. No British documents and no British witness will be beyond the scope of the inquiry."
Mr Brown said the inquiry was expected to report some time after July next year.
He said that although the inquiry would not take evidence in public, its report would be published with only the "the most sensitive information" held back.
"The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned. The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability."
Mr Cameron said he was "far from convinced the Prime Minister has got it right". He said: "The whole point of having an inquiry is that it has got to be able to make clear recommendations, go wherever the evidence needs, to establish the full truth and to make sure the right lessons are learned. And it has got to do so in a way which builds public confidence."
The membership of the inquiry "looks quite limited", the terms of reference are "restrictive", the investigation was not specifically charged with making recommendations and "none of it will be held in public".
By not reporting until after the next election, the public will conclude that it was "fixed to make sure the Government avoids having to face up to any inconvenient conclusions".
Mr Cameron set out a series of detailed concerns about the nature and scope of the inquiry.
He said: "This inquiry should have started earlier. How can anyone argue that an inquiry starting six months ago would somehow have undermined British troops?
"Indeed the argument that you can't have an inquiry while troops are still in Iraq has been blown away by the Prime Minister saying today that some troops will be staying there even as the inquiry gets under way."
He called for Mr Brown to look at the possibility of publishing an interim report early next year.
There "has to be a question" about the military experience of the inquiry panel and Mr Cameron called for senior politicians to be involved to consider the political judgments that were made.
He told Mr Brown: "The inquiry needs to be and needs to be seen to be truly independent and not just an establishment stitch-up."
The Conservative leader also questioned why the inquiry would not be allowed to single out people for blame.
"Shouldn't the inquiry have the ability to apportion blame? If mistakes were made, we need to know who made them and why they were made."
He also questioned whether the inquiry would be allowed access to US and Iraqi documents and witnesses.
Mr Cameron called for greater transparency, asking: "Shouldn't there be some proper public sessions?
"Isn't that what many will want and many will expect and part of the building of public confidence that is absolutely necessary?"
Mr Brown last week made a Commons statement about constitutional reform with greater accountability as a key plank of his strategy.
Mr Cameron said: "What happened to that, it hasn't even lasted a week?"
The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "I am staggered that the Prime Minister is seeking to compound the error, fatal to so many of Britain's sons and daughters, by covering up the path that led to it."
Mr Brown said the country could be "supremely proud" of the work done by British troops in Iraq and insisted all the objectives of the mission had been or were being met.
"Thanks to our efforts and those of our allies, over six difficult years, a young democracy had replaced a vicious 30-year dictatorship."
The military mission ended on April 30 and as of today there were fewer than 500 British troops in Iraq, with more returning home each week.
A small number of British Navy personnel, no more than 100, will remain in Iraq for long term training at the Iraqi Government's request.
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Comments
I'd suggest this latest effort could be held over a couple of days in simeone's club where all the dramatis personae can agree some implausible set of excuses, write up a suitably exculpatory set of conclusions and then go off for a weekend's golf.
Cynical? Moi?
As for: "The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability.", words fail me. Their time will come...
Toolan
I think, were there any justice in the world, Blair, Bush and many, many others would be incarcerated for a good long time for their parts in this disgraceful business. But there isn't, is there?
Everything about this will be wrong, and the findings will exonerate those that decieved the nation.
After the inquiries we've had already, this has got two coats of white-wash on it before it starts.
Shame on you Brown!
Blair and his gang took our country into an illegal invasion, and murdered, maimed and exiled millions in order to ingratiate themselves with Bush and the other criminals in the USA who also started it for personal gain. Blair has been richly rewarded for his treachery.
Brown is also culpable, as are most members of the government and the opposition (they knew what was going on but went with it), and they will continue the whitewashing process as long as he can.
The whole evil bunch of them should face trial, the evidence is clear; they are certainly unfit for any public office or indeed any place in civilised society.
What more do we need to know?
There. and I am only charging 62 pence for that.
I think the only answer is to emigrate and take my taxes to another country that gives a dam about the tax payer it serves.
This needs to be in public! I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that this political elite, (on both sides), just don't have any connection with the public they're meant to represent. The troubling point is, I just knew Brown was going to do this. His incompetence is just beyond belief. For a supposedly intelligent man, he is foolish, (stupid?), beyond belief.
It follows precedent set when the main opposition was last in power.
Of course to set up in any other format would be to admit that this conflict was of a different nature, which it was, as then we were the lead protagonist on our side whilst the Iraq war was led by the USA to which we were just one of the allies, used for PR but not part of the key decision process.
We have no template for such an enquiry.
Tony Blair lied about the WMD and took us into a illegal war. He was ordered to do it by his controller George Bush who in turn was ordered to do it by the people who had most to gain financially. All the members of the UK government were told to keep quiet. David Kelly was murdered because he knew too much. Tony Blair was rewarded with loads of money. All the time this was going on Brown was hiding under the table biting his nails. End of story.
NuLabours part in the conspiracy to cover up Dr Kellys murder by the CIA or MI5/6 will not be mentioned.
NuLabours part in the destruction of our law enforcement agencies, justice system, national health service, education system, the raid on pension funds, one million and one stealth tax increases, its complacency in the mass immigration and financing of millions of illegal immigrants, its failure of OAP's and the contempt it showed to the surviving war heroes in Normandy will not be considered relevant.
Whatever political commentators write in our national newspapers in the weeks preceding the next general election. Whatever NuLabours pre election manifesto claims. The electorate need only remind themselves of one simple fact. One simple overwhelming fact.
IT'S ALL LIES.
Unless Brown truly has retreated so far into the No 10 bunker that he's lost all touch with reality, almost certainly not, But, given the habitual arrogance of this government, will he care what those few millions think? Probably not ... he and his cabal will probably be gambling that too few people to matter will take the Iraq issue into account when they decide for whom they will vote next time - if they still think it's worth voting at all.
In any case, a full and transparent public inquiry would risk the reputations of too many people in high places. And those people would rather face whatever the public reaction turns out to be - a reaction in any case that will probably be less than it deserves to be - then to see the lid really taken off the process that led us to war in Iraq. With a private enquiry, no one will be on oath, no one can be compelled to testify, the public won't hear the testimony, and it can all be sanitized before publication.
And you can bet that the finding will be that all those in senior positions acted "in good faith", to use that wrung-out phrase, and are absolved of serious criticism. I'm sure that there are many other Huttons who'd happily do the job of chairing and bring in the required bland and anodyne verdict, now that the original one's in retirement. If any are to be thrown to the wolves in an attempt to deflect public ire, it'll be people lower down in the pecking order, or perhaps a sideshow scapegoat, the role that the governors and director-general of the BBC fulfilled so nicely last time round.
One of the privileges of power and status, in the UK as in so many other places and despite all the trumpeting about "our great democracy", is that people have a "teflon coating"; you can get away with things that, at their more mundane level, would destroy the careers and reputations of ordinary folk.
Be nice to see a teflon-coated democracy rather than a teflon-coated elite. But, human nature being what it is, in our system that seems to be the stuff of dreams .... !
After all how could somebody manage to gauge the public mood so badly time after time after time? Nobody could be that incompetent - it's time to come clean Mr Brown, who are you really working for?
Personally, I find this a greater scandal than the current expenses affair. To a septuagenarian, born and raised in a mining village, a labour voter throughout my life to date, the Blair and Brown governments number among the most dishonest I have known. This can only convince anyone with half a brain or more, that this is being done now and in this manner to save Brown, Bair and Straw's
reputations. Well, sorry boys, you are too late!
Either way Brown and the B-lair crowd are on there way OUT, but the truth will prevail, for the sake of our troops.
With hope that parents who lost their love one's and/or badly wounded will read this and we all get together and kick the hell Brown/Blair and Nu Labs
http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2
Plus ca change.
Oh, incidentally, those members of the armed forces who have died WERE doing their duty, the illegality of the war does not marginalise or diminish that fact.
A National Government would give us greater scope for impartiality in these matters http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/2564