Who’ll be the judge of Brown’s Iraq war inquiry?
Gordon Brown will announce an inquiry into the Iraq war this week. My sources tell me that this will not be chaired by a judge, senior or retired. It will be chaired instead by a historian.
The hot tip in Whitehall is that it is likely to be the respected Churchill and Holocaust scholar Sir Martin Gilbert.
There are enormous risks to reputations – not least that of Tony Blair as he strives to become president of Europe (a real prospect). Securing that post for Mr Blair is said to be one of Lord Mandelson’s many responsibilities.
The government wants the build-up and political decisions that led Britain to war to be the focus of the inquiry. With judges such as former lord chief justice Lord Bingham having declared the war “a serious violation of international law and the rule of law”, there was never any expectation that the government would risk a judicial inquiry with the power of subpoena. And it may believe it has a safe pair of hands in Sir Martin Gilbert.
But Gilbert’s passion rests in contemporaneous documents. He will want the release of the mass of email traffic, the extraordinary secret service stuff that intersected with the dodgy dossier and the rest. He’s likely to insist on getting them. A historian can’t do much without the paperwork.
Critics argue that if the inquiry is chaired by a layman like Sir Martin Gilbert, then as with the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the make-up of the panel that sits with him will be critical. Many have felt that Macpherson would never have arrived at the concept of “institutional racism” in the police without the input of those who sat with him.
Another chapter in these “interesting times”.
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Whoever chairs the commission, it must have the right to insist on witnesses attending and must have members known to be sceptical about the legality of the war or those of us who believe it was illegal will have no faith in its conclusions.
If someone who has doubts tells me that having seen the evidence (s)he believes it was justified, then I’ll accept it, otherwide I’m already expecting a whitewash.
As for Tony Blair as president of Europe – you might as well make Fred Goodwin head of the Bank of England,
jon I havent even read your blog. I’ve been waiting for you to post so I can be first. I am so angry about the Kinnocks and their pensions ETC.. See front page of Sunday Times. These are meant to be Labour people! She’s even taking her teachers ‘ pension AAAAAAAAARGH. I can’t take any more of it.Do something about it. Pass the kitchen knife.
O.K. Elaine, cool down and put the murdoch comic in the compost bin and buy a proper newspaper! As we say up north we wouldn’t nail any of the murdoch press to the back of the nettie door.
Oh jeez Elaine I agree ! – and Tony Blair president of Europe – IS there no justice in this world? how long can we sustain rewarding FAILURE?
All the signs are that this is less about the Iraq war and more about Brown’s attempt to hang on to power. There is little chance of all the relevant information being made available to a historian, no matter how “reliable”. I also assume it will report after the next election.
The campaign to get Blair into the presidency is important. Is the deal that he will then not rock the boat as the election approaches? If not pacified, he could destroy Brown. Is it not telling that securing the job for Blair is Mandelson’s task and not that of any voters?
This is just another electioneering “policy” to save Brown.
“This is just another electioneering “policy” to save Brown”
Oh yes! I am sick of the lot of them – Conservative, Labour,whatever – makes no odds. All their posturing and political pas-de-deux is an insult to my intelligence. To my mind there is no politician who isn’t motivated by anything other than personal prestige – proud men
dress’d in a little brief authority most ignorant of what they are most assured.
Looks like another stage managed event heading our way.
Yes, it is to be held in private. I cant see how this could help Brown as we can all see it will be a whitewash. What a waste of time and money. We all know the war was illegal, that Blair pressured those responsible to produce the lies about WMD so any report which does not spell this out will not be accepted. Robin Cook knew the truth about the WMD lie and said so in his resignation speech. He then suddenly died – that’s another story. Bringing back Mandy was Browns cry for help and it is already haunting him.
An historian is not an expert the international law and human rights law which the UK government, quite possibly broke. Perhaps this is why the PM would enlist a scholar. The panelists should be made up of judges from The Hague, so that the Blair government’s criminal behaviour during the Iraq war can finally be made plain.
Do you really think the Eurozone countries are going to accept a non-Euro President?
Who’s to say we’ll be non-Euro?
Given the saying “history is written by the victors”, its interesting that they’ve chosen an historian. The one piece of evidence I will be keeping an eye out for is the unprecedented letter that was released by the security services objecting to the way their reports were being misinterpreted to fuel the case for war.
So Tony Blair wants to be president of Europe. Given that most of Europe was against the invasion of Iraq, blame America and Britain for un-stabilizing the area and provoking the current terrorist situation. Not to mention the banking crisis. I say good luck to him.
I’m not sure who is the greater Prince of Darkness, Mandelson or Blair. Of course Blair will get the job that’s exactly the place that the antichrist will operate from so who is better suited? Since we won’t hear the results of this stage managed event till next year they’ve got plenty of time to bore us to death with their developments and none of us will bother about the outcome because we’ll be Blaired out. I used to think we were different from other countries, you know , we were righteous. Rubbish! PS Anne Widdecombe for speaker. I just love her.
Elaine I was with you all the way until your love for Widdy – was that tongue in cheek if not – ‘you cannot be serious.’ I can think of nothing worse than hearing that dreadful wobbling voice shouting ‘order’ every five minutes, please let her rest.
Blair for Euro president? Goodness me what a horrible thought.
How can he be King of Europe when he wouldnt even let us decide whether the Euro was a good enough currency for us never mind him “knowing best” about the Iraq war.
The bottom line is that the enquiry will be dragged out until after the next general election. Gordon Brown did not open his mouth when Tony Blair decided to go to war as he did not want to loose his place in line for PM. Always a man of clean, sharp principles is our illustrious leader!
This is unbelievable, but true! Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics . 29 have been accused of spouse abuse 7 have been arrested for fraud 9 have been accused of writing bad cheque’s 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses 3 have done time for assault 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges 8 have been arrested for shoplifting 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year Which organisation is this ? It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline. What a bunch of bastards we have running our country – it says it all. And just to top all that they probably have the best ‘corporate’ pension scheme in the country!!
What with the current debacle ,
Lets move from party politics and go to a co-government for 20 years.
Lets start with Pulling all the money back from the banks , and give people below a certain income a 2 year free period on there mortgages, all deeds to be held buy the bank of England, all the government would pay is the interest, it would be cheaper, and get away from the creed for greed, the banks.
Car Tax put 1 pence on fuel or the relevant amount. (save on collection)
Car Insurance, every one gets third party ½ pence on fuel. ( gives all people some safety) if you want fully comp then pay for it.
FULL Accountability, Transparency and Honesty from all government worker to include
Doctors, Police Local government , BBC to include pensions etc.
And what fanciful rag do you read, Pete, to come out with this garbage, because garbage is what I believe it is.
Quote:”This is unbelievable, but true!”Unquote….Unbelievable, YES, True it is not, it is a Tory supporters ‘doctored’ copy of an old email about the American government…..What liars and propaganda merchants the Tories are !
This is just shutting the door after the horse has bolted. The Gov gets away with ANYTHING now, simply by having an inquiry.
This was criminal behaviour; the liars should be on remand pending the outcome of a criminal investigation.
What a nightmare, Tony Blair wanting to be President of Europe ! Someone please save us from this man and what he stands for.
The only person he cares about is himself and his only achievement (unfortunately) is that he remains “Teflon Tony”. He has never been brought to account over his decisions before and during the Iraq war. Sadly, I read that we now have Lord Mandelson championing Blair’s mission to be President.
The inquiry will be a waste of time and Blair will get away with it, as he has done for the last ten years.
I can hear the “laughter” now from Downing Street with Blair, Brown and Mandelson congratulating themselves on getting away with it..again!!
Jon, Brown and the Labour Party are scum. They lecture and hector us about the way to conduct our lives yet are guilty of the most heinous crimes. The latest appointment of Sugar, the appointment of yet more Labour peers to shore up Brown and his corrupt cronies is redolent of Blair. They should just go away and leave some form of honest legacy. Impossible given the vermin who flock to their fold, whelan, cambell, blunkett, prescott, irvine, etc etc ad nauseum.
‘He’s likely to insist on getting them’. Is that insist as in Hutton feather-dustering?
Or insist as maybe a Max Hastings or Andrew Roberts might have? (they’re right-wing, I ‘m left, but a serious disposition toward truth-finding wouldn’t hurt our system.
Loved your point about the people who ‘sit with’ these appointees. We can only hope for the unexpected – that Europe has more conscience than Blair has charm.
There’s a fuss about whether Channel 4 should get 5quid of the Beeb’s licence fee; having just seen Newsnight’s ‘new Speaker debate’, maybe C4 could have a whip-round for the ailing matron,..?
So now we know. A secret inquiry by establishment figures, independent of, but beholden to, the government. Guess what? It won’t report until after the election. So Straw and the others will be ok.
The only chance for a proper inquiry is to have a non-Labour government commission it. Otherwise the thing will be a protective fudge.
How predictable was this secrecy?! British politicians just adding to the disgusting reputation of the UK government.
There are many people leaving this country (many of ‘em wealthy fat cats & good riddance to them) because of the dictatorship it’s become. The lies and secrecy stand testimony to the real politics and individual corruption.
We see pictures and stories of Iran, North Korea, Somalia and, stories of ‘terrorists’ in Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. but we see the G20 suppression & brutality, lies of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, fat-cat bankers, MPs expense corruption, hidden unemployment, recession, and ghettos of inequality ignored by the controlled media spinners.
We can expect manipulation of this ‘enquiry’. Forget all those who die in the mess of this invasion?
“We see pictures and stories of Iran…”
I just said to my hubby last night when I viewed the Ch4 footage of the people of Iran out in the streets ” Why aren’t we doing that?” We certainly cannot claim to have a democracy here in UK either and look what happened last time people took to our streets – one poor man trying to make his way home died after police brutality. Ha! We seem to have more and more in common with Iran.
M.Gilbert “wrote” the establishment view of Churchill.Dig a little deeper and you will find a different story.White wash a pig sty many,many times and it will still be a pig sty.It doesnt take Columbo to work out who wanted Dr Kelly dead.
Was Dr. Kelly’s supposed suicide, murder by the establishment or is that conspiracy theory? My grown up children seem to agree with you Patrick. I’d love to hear the facts.
I don’t suppose we’ll find out much more than we already know about Iraq, and a lot of people with a lot of blood on their hands will get away with murder, as ever. Between sanctions and the war, the government and those who supported these measures on the opposition benches have been helping to destroy Iraq and punish its innocent civilians for many years. As Colonel Tim Collins said in his famous speech – “It is a big step to take another human life.
It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.” This should apply not just to soldiers, but to those whose orders they obey.
Don’t be surprised if Brown appoints Tony Blair as judge. Then we can have a proper white-wash!
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Those who never say sorry believe they are always right. Those who are always sorry don’t know what is right.