What was that all about?

By way of a couple of quick updates on the Iraq Inquiry...

Yesterday, on Comment is Free, I did a blog piece on Thursday's seminar, hosted by the Inquiry on the evolution of international policy up to 2003. It seemed to me that the Inquiry members must now be in no doubt that the war was about regime change, not weapons of mass destruction (wmd). I suggested that if the Inquiry could get Tony Blair to admit this early on, it could save a lot of prevaricating, dissembling and contradiction.

Just posted on Iraq Inquiry Digest is an excellent piece by Brian Jones, formerly of the Defence Intelligence Staff, giving his view on the development of policy up to 2002. He takes the view that US policy was about a lot more than wmd and increasingly (if not always) about regime change and that UK policy was mainly about keeping onside with the US. Read more here.

Secrecy at the Inquiry

It looks as if the Iraq Inquiry is going to be a lot less transparent than was promised.

This morning, on the Iraq Inquiry Digest and Comment is Free, I have analysed the protocol that the Cabinet Office has published, setting out the terms on which the government will disclose information to the Inquiry and the circumstances in which the Inquiry will be allowed to publish such information.

In both cases, the rules are a lot more restrictive than the statements made by Gordon Brown when he set up the Inquiry in June. In spite of a promise that an Inquiry by Privy Counsellors will be allowed to see absolutely everything, the government is now saying that "confidential" information will be withheld.

Similarly, although it was promised that only national security reasons would prevent the Inquiry publishing such information, the government has now given a long list of reasons, beginning with the infinitely flexible "public interest", why it might block publication. The Inquiry has to seek permission to publish and every piece of information and the government has a veto.

I've asked the Inquiry how it reconciles this with its statement that

It is the Committee’s intention to publish all the relevant evidence except where national security considerations prevent that.

In my view, the two are entirely incompatible. We'll see how long the statement remains on the Inquiry website.

Iraq Inquiry Digest goes live

A new website, of which I am the editor, officially launches today. Iraq Inquiry Digest, is a project to monitor and comment on the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. It is billed as "everything about the Chilcot Inquiry in one place" and aims both to inform and to provide a dynamic forum for comment and analysis. It seeks to provide a balance of views and opinion, to be constructive and to provide reasoned and well argued comment. We'll see how that goes...

The site has a great deal of information already, including a lot of the existing evidence and a list of the questions the Inquiry will need to address. It's backed by some well-known and well-respected people, many of whom will be contributing to it, adding new information and making new revelations between now and the start of the Inquiry's public hearings.

When will that be? Well, there should be announcement soon. But don't hold your breath.

Note the feed on the right. It's likely to update a lot more often than the Iraq dossier site!

Never ever trust Straw

As the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war gets stuck in to a mass of documents, it will have the opportunity to compare what ministers said about them while they remained secret with what they really say. On many occasions, the leaking or publication of papers has shown that ministers lied.

I've just come across what Jack Straw said when the remainder of Elizabeth Wilmshurst's resignation letter was leaked. She was the Foreign Office legal adviser who resigned when attorney general Lord Goldsmith changed his mind - allegedly for a second time - to give unequivocal legal backing for the war.

In the Commons, Straw was challenged by Tory Dominic Grieve over the new part of Wilmshurst's letter that appeared to most people to show that Goldsmith had changed his view.

The view expressed in that letter [of 7 March] has of course changed again into what is now the official line.

Straw was having none of it. In the Commons - where ministers are supposed not to lie - he said:

The hon. Gentleman then made a wholly tendentious claim based on his reading of Ms Wilmshurst's letter. He said that it showed clearly that the Attorney-General had one view on 7 March and a different view later. He asked what change of law or fact had taken place. The letter showed nothing of the kind...

Goldsmith's advice of 7 March was leaked and then published in full soon afterwards and, as everyone now knows, it was different from his later advice. In fact, the government
then published an account of how Goldsmith came to change his mind.

On 13 March the Attorney General discussed the matter with his Legal Secretary. ... As the Legal Secretary recorded at the time, the Attorney confirmed in that discussion that, after further reflection, having particular regard to the negotiating history of resolution 1441 and his discussions with Sir Jeremy Greenstock and the representatives of the US Administration, he had reached the clear conclusion that the better view was that there was a lawful basis for the use of force without a second resolution.

Straw being Straw, he would probably claim that even this does not mean that the "conclusion" that Goldsmith had "reached" was any different from what he had thought before. But that's why no-one should ever, ever trust anything that Straw says.

A challenge for Chilcot

In a new piece for Index on Censorship online, I describe how my latest freedom of information request has unearthed still more unpublished documents on the Iraq dossier, including some from the intelligence services that are outright exempt under FOI. The new Chilcot Inquiry must see the documents, take note of them and publish them, whatever their origin.

Kilfoyle on the Inquiry

The Yorkshire Post has a piece from Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle, whose book, Lies, damned lies and Iraq, is , as you might guess, "An Indepth Analysis into the Case for War and How It Was Misrepresented". Kilfoyle says of the forthcoming inquiry:

Of prime importance is the political culture within which, ultimately, all key decisions on war and peace are made. Where spin – and, at times, mendacity – is the order of the day, the truth will suffer. Without truthfulness, decisions will be hedged by other considerations, including ambition and fear.

A truly objective inquiry will point out the ease with which those in senior positions in government, in the media, and in the forces, were able to convince themselves against the evidence of the justice of this war.

Thus, the very people who should have put the brakes on the rush to an illegal and immoral war, actually facilitated its implementation.

This moral failure at the very top of our civil structures is possibly the most instructive phenomenon of all.

Watch Chilcot closely

As more details of the Iraq Inquiry are announced, Comment is Free has a strong piece from Richard Norton-Taylor aimed at strengthening its spine:

Do not underestimate the ability of ministers and officials – former and serving – and the mandarin classes to dodge questions and, if they cannot avoid pointing to mistakes, blame the system rather than individuals.

He lists some of the evidence that has come into the public domain through leaks and concludes:

Will Chilcot question the participants about the extraordinary material in these documents? Or will he succumb to Whitehall's practice of not commenting on leaks – or asking others to comment on them? Maybe I am doing Chilcot a disservice. He will have to be watched closely.

It had not occurred to me that the excuse of not commenting on leaks will get in the way. These documents should come into Chilcot's hands through official channels, indeed, he saw them during the Butler Review, which largely avoided commenting on them on the grounds that their contents were outside its remit. There is no doubt that they are within Chilcot's remit.

Sir John Chilcot - or rather the Cabinet Office - has named the secretary (ie the head of the secretariat) to his Iraq inquiry. It will be Margaret Aldred, currently Director General and Deputy Head of the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat in the Cabinet Office.

This secretariat took over from the Overseas and Defence Secretariat, which helped Tony Blair cook up the clever plan to take Britain to war in Iraq. It produced the March 2002 options paper and its deputy head in 2002 asked joint intelligence committee chairman John Scarlett to drop the caveats from the Iraq dossier.

So Aldred should know where the bodies are buried. Will this be a help or a hindrance to the inquiry.

More Iraq inquiry fallout

Today's Independent reports David Miliband admitting that the government was wrong to try to hold the Iraq inquiry behind closed doors.

Yesterday's Spectator carried a piece by John Kampfner which claimed that the attempt was part of an explicit deal agreed between Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, who in return protected Brown in his hour of need. It's a good story, but the flaw in it is that the government has been spinning for some time that the inquiry was to be in secret.

At the end of the Independent piece, Brown's spokesman also describes the story, but for different reasons:

We would certainly deny the suggestion that the Prime Minister has done any sort of deal," the spokesman said. We are not having the inquiry in secret so the whole premise of the article does seem to fall down on that basic point."

The prime minister's spokesman seems to believe that if he rewrites history to pretend that an open inquiry was always the plan, everyone else will forget that Brown inisted last week that the inquiry must take place in secret.

Who are the bad guys?

In a blog post today, the Guardian's Michael White cleverly suggests that the opposition are the bad guys in wanting a transparent Iraq inquiry, not Gordon Brown for trying to impose a secret one. White also says:

With four Iraq inquiries already undertaken, some MPs wonder what more there is to unearth, let alone anything to change many minds.

To his credit, he does try to find out, asking a variety of military and political figures. He points to a good piece in last night's Standard from former intelligence official Brian Jones. But then he says:

Less well-placed conspiracy theorists routinely assert that Blair and the "sexed-up" dossiers were part of a plot to do it anyway, though anyone watching at the time will remember that, even on the eve of war, they would have settled for Saddam Hussein and his family leaving quietly.

The idea that the suggestion that Blair would have settled for a change of regime in Iraq disproves the "conspiracy theory" that he was really seeking regime change is a bit baffling. You could of course argue that the possibility that Blair would have left the wmd in the hands of a different regime proves that they were never the issue.

Were you listening, Gordon?

I've been looking back at some of the Comment is Free pieces I've written in the last year on the subject of the Iraq inquiry. I think I've been pretty consistent: I've never held up that much hope of it getting any nearer the truth than previous inquiries, especially if it's another establishment stitch-up.

In November, I asked what is Brown afraid of?

it appears that Brown plans to buy enough time through dithering to make sure that any political fallout comes after the next election.

I remain unconvinced that a new establishment inquiry will get to the bottom of the Iraq scandal, particularly if it is largely held behind closed doors. If there is a Hutton-style inquiry with witnesses questioned publicly, that should throw up some embarrassing moments, not to mention new leads for investigative journalists. But only the Lib Dems and smaller parties really want this type of inquiry. It looks as if Labour and the Tories will agree on a closed format something like the post-Falklands Franks inquiry. After the openness of Hutton and the freedom of information act, that looks 25 years out of date.

In March I said that if the government thinks a secret inquiry into the Iraq war will restore public confidence, it's very wrong. Last month I predicted that:

a head of steam is building up to ensure that the public get the inquiry that they want, not the one that Straw, Brown and David Miliband are planning to give them.

Perhaps Gordon should have listened.

Brown's Balls up

Ed Balls has gone badly off-message, by expressing his personal view that the Iraq inquiry should be "as open as possible".

Meanwhile, in the Mirror, Kevin Maguire agrees that Brown has put himself on the wrong side of the argument:

The PM's made himself part of the cover-up when blame could have been pinned to his predecessor.

Trouble already

The Independent reports that senior military figures are already criticising the secret Iraq inquiry and pointing out that the purpose is to protect politicians, not national secrecy.

General Sir Mike Jackson, head of the Army during the Iraq invasion, said: "I would have no problem at all in giving my evidence in public." He said Mr Brown's decision that the proceedings be held in private fed "the climate of suspicion and scepticism about government", adding that the Prime Minister ought to consider requiring witnesses to give evidence on oath.

"I do not see why it could not have gone for a halfway house with sessions in public and then having private hearings when it comes to intelligence," said General Jackson.
...

Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former head of Defence Intelligence, said: "There is only one reason that the inquiry is being heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this Government. There are 179 reasons why the military want the truth to be out on what happened over Iraq."

As a former deputy chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir John was asked for advice by members of the Defence Intelligence Service unhappy at the way the "dodgy dossier" on weapons of mass destruction was being put together. "We have worrying questions about how intelligence was ramped up to suit Tony Blair and his cronies and their reasoning for invasion," he said. "There is no reason why intelligence officials alone should have to carry the can for this. If there is anything particularly secret – and God knows there is precious little left secret over Iraq – then that can be heard in camera."

There is more trouble ahead with the Tories planning a Commons vote on the issue next week.

Storing up trouble

I've just posted a piece for Index on Censorship online, arguing that Brown's secret Iraq inquiry could be storing up trouble. If the details leak, as they probably will, Brown risks being seen as the Michael Martin of the Iraq cover-up. The man who tried to stop the truth coming out.

Own goal

This morning's papers are all pretty critical of Gordon Brown's decision to hold an establishment stitch-up of an Iraq inquiry.

The Guardian rightly points out that we already know much of what went on:

The chief point of a new probe, then, cannot be to get at things that have necessarily lain under wraps until now. No, the real reason an inquiry is needed is to draw together what we already know, and in its light to try to grasp how such a monstrous blunder could have been made.

While the Mail goes for the jugular:

So the Iraq War is to end as it began - under a blanket of secrecy and deceit, spun to keep the public in the dark about how Britain came to be ensnared in this bloody and shameful disaster.

The Mirror says:

To hold the inquiry into the Iraq war in secret is another spectacular own goal by the Prime Minister.

Can't argue with any of that.

Brown's fake non-announcement opens the door

It's now looking very unlikely - I could still be proved wrong - that Gordon Brown will announce his long-promised Iraq inquiry this week. It looks as if reports that such an announcement was imminent were another bit of baseless spin, gobbled up by a gullible press. On the bright side, there is still time to make sure the inquiry is not a stitch-up.

The story began on Saturday night with the Sunday Telegraph's Patrick Hennessy claiming that Brown was "poised" to announce details of the inquiry:

He could make the announcement within days as part of his “fightback” plan aimed at reasserting his political authority and appeasing his critics on Labour’s backbenches.

It seems the context, that Blair was keen to throw Labour MPs a bone as he fought for survival, was more accurate than the substantive story, although the claim that Brown "could" make the announcement "within days" was sufficiently hedged - and meaningless - not to be proved wrong.

Yesterday Downing Street told me that no announcement was imminent and that the matter was in the hands of the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, as other outlets had reported. This suggests that the process of setting up the inquiry is still at an early stage.

On balance, this is good news it suggests that Brown may not simply announce an inquiry on his terms, i.e. long, secret, and focusing on the post-invasion debacle rather than the pre-war deception, and may consult opposition parties and others on what it should look like.

One group that is very keen to have an input is the all party public administration select committee (PASC), which held a seminar yesterday to ask exactly this question. At the meeting, held under the Chatham House rule, were many of the great and the good, including, as the PASC press release coyly put it "chairs of previous inquiries" and... me.

After the meeting, the PASC's chairman, Labour MP Tony Wright said:

“The Iraq inquiry is a fundamental opportunity to explore issues about which there has been significant public disquiet for some time. The point that emerged most strongly from our seminar was the following: only if the inquiry is conducted in a manner which is legitimate and credible—and is seen to be so—will the public be assured that it is not a whitewash. In my own view, this will require a process of engagement on the inquiry’s purpose and conduct, and Parliament’s agreement to the form of inquiry that is proposed.”

Quite right.

Spin in overdrive

With Gordon Brown's future still said to be on the line, the spinners on both sides have gone into overdrive. The Telegraph reported on Saturday that Brown would throw Labour MPs the bone of an Iraq Inquiry - on his terms of course.

But today's Telegraph article on Labour MPs' last chance to tell Brown to go is so full of spin it's hard to know where to start. Peter Mandelson says directly that replacing Brown "would mean irresistible pressure to hold a general election". Whether he will say the same if Brown does go is another matter.

The Telegraph falls into the classic trap of reporting what someone "believes" when it is clearly spin:

Some of Mr Brown's allies believe he has survived the worst of the current crisis and that the rebels are now retreating.

But Brown's opponents are just as guilty of manipulating the media:

A group of MPs had been planning to circulate a letter to backbenchers asking them to support an email-based call on Mr Brown to resign.

In the event, the letter has not been widely distributed. One person involved in the plot said it had still "served its purpose" after being extensively reported in the media.

Instead, the rebels have done most of their canvassing via the telephone.

So the "hotmail plot" was created for media purposes.

Inquiry forgotten?

With British "combat operations" in Iraq officially over, only the Telegraph and the Mail really highlight the fact that Gordon Brown's promised inquiry could start now.

In the Telegraph, LibDem Ed Davey complains that the government has not yet begun talks with opposition parties on the form and scope of the inquiry.

The Mail's Correlli Barnett says:

It is time, at last, for the truth.

The war is over - what next?

The BBC is now reporting that:

British combat operations in Iraq will come to an end on Thursday lunchtime with a handover to American forces.

It says that the move is a month ahead of schedule. The Guardian reports that

Britain's combat role – including patrolling the city of Basra – was originally due to end on 31 July but was brought forward.
...
The bulk of the 4,000 or so UK troops will have returned home by 31 May, leaving a residual number to clear up and pack whatever equipment the army wants to bring home or send to Afghanistan.

That leaves an awful lot of time to fill if the government is going to avoid announcing an Iraq inquiry before the end of July.

What does imminent mean?

The BBC says that "The end of the UK's military presence in Iraq is imminent after six years." What does this mean - and what does it mean for the promised inquiry?

The interesting thing about the BBC article is that it doesn't specify what it means by imminent. It says:

Defence officials say plans for the withdrawal of British forces in Iraq are well advanced.

It's clear - from other articles - that the troops are today being taken off combat duties and that it's a question of getting them home, but how long can that take? The point is of course that they surely must be home well before the end of July - three months away - and almost certainly before parliament rises earlier that month. In that case, the government will have to set up the inquiry it has promised.

So what is the cause of the vagueness? Is it operational - or to help the government out of a tricky political issue? The BBC has previously said that the troops will be out by the end of May but that may have been a slip of the keyboard. The Times today says that "all British troops" will have left by the end of June. Apart from that, the media coverage is sticking to the increasingly implausible line that it could take until the end of July.

I suppose we will find out soon enough.