The Iraq Inquiry - Chilcott's Circus Clowns Come to Town

[Jan Klimkowski]

Hmmmm - is the British establishment about to unroll a limited hangout, blaming it all on Tony "I'm a pretty straight sort of guy" Blair?

Chilcot to 'heavily criticise' Tony Blair over Iraq war

Official inquiry into Iraq war expected to focus on former prime minister's failure to consult the cabinet fully in run-up to invasion

Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 July 2011 12.12 BST

Tony Blair is likely to be criticised heavily by the official inquiry into the Iraq war, which is expected to focus on his failure to consult the cabinet fully in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

The Mail on Sunday reports today that Sir John Chilcot, the former permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Office who is chairing the inquiry, has identified a series of concerns. These include:

failing to keep cabinet ministers fully informed of Blair's plans in the run-up to the invasion in March 2003. The committee is understood to have been impressed by the criticism voiced by Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, that Blair ran a sofa government.

failing to make proper preparations for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

failing to present intelligence in a proper way. In his inquiry into the use of intelligence, published in July 2004, Butler said the usual MI6 caveats were stripped out of the famous Downing Street arms dossier of September 2002.

failing to be open with ministers about understandings Blair reached with George Bush in the year running up to the invasion.

Blair today hit out at the Mail on Sunday. A source close to the former prime minister said: "This is a deliberate attempt to pre-judge a report that hasn't even been written yet."

Angus Robertson, the SNP's leader at Westminster, said: "The tapestry of deceit woven by Tony Blair over the past decade has finally unravelled. Despite his best attempts to fudge the issue when he was called to give evidence, the Chilcot inquiry have recognised the former prime minister's central role in leading the UK into worst foreign policy disaster in recent history.

"While no inquiry will ever bring back those lost in Iraq, this comprehensive review by Sir John Chilcot will at least provide some explanation of the decisions which led to the disastrous invasion."

There has been speculation at senior levels of Whitehall that Chilcot and the members of his inquiry are planning to criticise Blair when they publish their report in the autumn. Some members of the inquiry, including the former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Rod Lyne, put Blair under pressure in his two appearances before them.

Members of the inquiry have said in private to former colleagues in Whitehall that the best way to gauge the inquiry's findings is to identify areas that have been raised repeatedly by Chilcot and his team. Three key areas which fall into this category are the lack of proper cabinet consultation, the use of intelligence, and the failure to make preparations for the post-war reconstruction.

It is expected that the inquiry will take a dim view of the Downing Street dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, published on 24 September 2002. This included the notorious claim that Iraq could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes.

In launching the report, Blair told an emergency session of the Commons: "His [Saddam Hussein's] weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down; it is up and running now."

Blair later stated he was wrong to have been so categorical about Iraq's WMD programme.

The inquiry is likely to criticise Alastair Campbell, Blair's former director of communications, who was instrumental in drawing up the dossier.

Campbell has always maintained that Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was in charge of the dossier.

But Major General Michael Laurie told the inquiry in a letter in May that the dossier was designed to "make the case for war".

Campbell wrote back to the inquiry to say: "Witnesses who were directly involved in the drafting of the dossier have made clear to several inquiries that at no time did I put anyone in the intelligence community under pressure, or say to them or anyone else that the then prime minister's purpose in publishing the dossier was to make the case for war."

The inquiry is also expected to focus on Blair's assurances to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. Blair rejects criticism that he told the former president in a meeting at his Texas ranch in April 2002 that he would support an invasion as long as the US agreed to try to secure agreement from the United Nations.

In addition, the inquiry will address the failure to make adequate preparations for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Major General Tim Cross, who was attached to the US post-war Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, told the inquiry of a meeting he had with Blair on 18 March 2003, two days before the invasion.

In written evidence, he said: "I told him that there was no clarity on what was going to be needed after the military phase of the operation, nor who would provide it. Although I was confident that we would secure a military victory, I offered my view that we should not begin that campaign until we had a much more coherent postwar plan."

Cross told the inquiry in person in December 2009: "He nodded and didn't say anything particular. I didn't expect him to look me in the eye and say, 'This is terrible, we are going to pull the whole thing off.' I was just one of a number of people briefing him."