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

[Magda Hassan]

Blair did not believe cabinet was "a safe space" in which to debate going to war. That was one of the reasons why the then prime minister preferred informal meetings with no record taken.

Only if it is a hostile place to push for an illegal war. Cabinet is the perfect place to debate going to war. Not to do so is dictatorial.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Blair did not believe cabinet was "a safe space" in which to debate going to war. That was one of the reasons why the then prime minister preferred informal meetings with no record taken.

Only if it is a hostile place to push for an illegal war. Cabinet is the perfect place to debate going to war. Not to do so is dictatorial.

Fixed the quote:

Blair believed George Bush's nuclear bunker was a "safe space" in which to offer the blood of British troops for an illegal war of aggression.

[Jan Klimkowski]

So, Bush and Blair and Rumsfeld and Cheney and all the rest of the war criminals lied.

Or to use the ridiculous, cop-out, phraseology of today's MSM reports, they "misled themselves".

West 'ignored evidence from senior Iraqis' that WMDs did not exist


Andy McSmith The Independent

Monday 18 March 2013


Two senior Iraqi politicians told Western intelligence that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the 2003 invasion but their warnings were ignored and then not reported to the subsequent Butler inquiry, according to a major new investigation.

Vital intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago was based on "fabrication" and "wishful thinking", the BBC Panorama documentary claims. While information from highly placed Iraqis was dismissed as unimportant if it indicated that Hussein did not have WMD, tip offs from low-ranking Iraqis were eagerly lapped up if they reinforced what George W Bush and Tony Blair wanted to hear, it is claimed.

Lord Butler, who conducted the 2004 inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war, told the programme-makers that he later discovered a previously overlooked report which revealed that an MI6 officer had a meeting in Jordan with one of Iraq's most senior intelligence officers, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti. Habbush told MI6 that there were no WMD left in Iraq.

"We discovered that it was part of the paperwork we got after the event," Lord Butler told Panorama's Peter Taylor. "This was something which I think our review did miss. But when we asked about it, we were told that it wasn't a very significant fact, because SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) discounted it as something designed by Saddam to mislead."

Several months before the war, the CIA's Paris station made contact through an intermediary with Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri. Bill Murray, head of the CIA in Paris, reported to CIA headquarters that Iraq held "virtually nothing" in the way of WMD. That information was also passed to British intelligence.

"They were not happy," Murray told Panorama. "They just didn't believe it. There was a consistent effort to find intelligence that supported pre-conceived positions."

Lord Butler's inquiry was not told that the CIA had been in indirect contact with the Foreign Minister. "If SIS was aware of it, we should have been informed," Lord Butler said.

Yet the CIA and MI6 were prepared to believe sources like the informant Curveball, whose real name was Rafed al Janabi, a chemical engineer who fled from Iraq to Germany in 1999, and claimed that the seed factory in which he had worked was producing chemical and biological agents for mobile laboratories. By the start of 2001, German intelligence officers had realised that at least part of his story was made up and stopped relying on him. MI6 also assessed that he was a "fabricator".

But his claims were repeated as fact when the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, addressed the United Nations on the eve of war. Interviewed by Panorama, Rafed al Janabi admitted that he had made the story up.

The programme also traced the origin of Mr Blair's notorious claim that Iraq had "chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes". The warning was originally conveyed in the mid-1990s to Iraqi exiles in Jordan, who were planning a coup, but were warned that if it came to a firefight between supporters and opponents of Hussein, the government was ready to attack any defecting unit with chemical weapons within 45 minutes. This report reached MI6, third hand.

The head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, knew that the 45-minute warning applied only to weapons that could be used on a battlefield, but that caveat was not included in the MI6 dossier, and he reportedly did not tell Mr Blair. Lord Butler told Panorama: "It was interpreted as referring to missiles you could fire at Cyprus, and that did make it sensational. That misunderstanding was due to a sloppy bit of use of intelligence."

MI6 and CIA were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD

BBC's Panorama reveals fresh evidence that agencies dismissed intelligence from Iraqi foreign minister and spy chief


Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 March 2013 06.00 GMT
Jump to comments (715)

Tony Blair's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are challenged again in Monday's Panorama. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was "active", "growing" and "up and running".

A special BBC Panorama programme tonight will reveal how British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries.

It describes how Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, told the CIA's station chief in Paris at the time, Bill Murray, through an intermediary that Iraq had "virtually nothing" in terms of WMD.

Sabri said in a statement that the Panorama story was "totally fabricated".

However, Panorama confirms that three months before the war an MI6 officer met Iraq's head of intelligence, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti, who also said that Saddam had no active WMD. The meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, took place days before the British government published its now widely discredited Iraqi weapons dossier in September 2002.

Lord Butler, the former cabinet secretary who led an inquiry into the use of intelligence in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, tells the programme that he was not told about Sabri's comments, and that he should have been.

Butler says of the use of intelligence: "There were ways in which people were misled or misled themselves at all stages."

When it was suggested to him that the body that probably felt most misled of all was the British public, Butler replied: "Yes, I think they're, they're, they got every reason think that."

The programme shows how the then chief of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, responded to information from Iraqi sources later acknowledged to be unreliable.

One unidentified MI6 officer has told the Chilcot inquiry that at one stage information was "being torn off the teleprinter and rushed across to Number 10".

Another said it was "wishful thinking… [that] promised the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow".

The programme says that MI6 stood by claims that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger, though these were dismissed by other intelligence agencies, including the French.

It also shows how claims by Iraqis were treated seriously by elements in MI6 and the CIA even after they were exposed as fabricated including claims, notably about alleged mobile biological warfare containers, made by Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, a German source codenamed Curveball. He admitted to the Guardian in 2011 that all the information he gave to the west was fabricated.

Panorama says it asked for an interview with Blair but he said he was "too busy".

The Spies Who Fooled the World, BBC Panorama Special, BBC1, Monday, 18 March, 10.35pm

[Malcolm Pryce]

'Misled themselves' indeed. What nonsense. Imagine how far you would get with an excuse like that before an income tax inspector. Note, too, how the title of the Panorama programme 'The Spies who fooled the world' perpetuates the myth that Blair and Co. were well-intentioned victims of some cruel hoax. Even now they can't tell it straight.

[Jan Klimkowski]

'Misled themselves' indeed. What nonsense. Imagine how far you would get with an excuse like that before an income tax inspector. Note, too, how the title of the Panorama programme 'The Spies who fooled the world' perpetuates the myth that Blair and Co. were well-intentioned victims of some cruel hoax. Even now they can't tell it straight.

Yup - found the precise quote I heard on t' wireless this morning...

Lord Butler, who after the war, conducted the first government inquiry into WMD intelligence, says Mr Blair and the intelligence community "misled themselves".

Lord Butler and Sir Mike agree Mr Blair did not lie, because they say he genuinely believed Saddam Hussein had WMD.

Any one fancy trying that in court?

And they wonder why the public have absolutely no faith or confidence in the political system.

[Magda Hassan]

I don't seem to remember any of this at the Iraq Inquiry. Now that it is safely over with comes the limited hangout. War Crimes by any other name. And a pathetic piece of gushing 'Boy's Own' war porn passing as journalism. Should be in Michael Palin's 'Ripping Yarns'.

Revealed:The SAS secret mission to kill in Iraq BEFORE MPs voted to invade

• The SAS were already fighting in Iraq on the eve of the Commons vote
  
• Soldiers were there to prevent a chemical weapons attack on Israel
  
  

By MARK NICOL
PUBLISHED: 22:05 GMT, 23 February 2013 | UPDATED: 23:59 GMT, 23 February 2013

The SAS were involved in fierce fighting inside Iraq the day before the crucial Commons vote in 2003 that approved military action against Saddam Hussein's regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
As the tenth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War approaches, we have uncovered a trove of documents about the secret mission, including accounts of senior Special Forces personnel.
Told here for the first time, this is the story of Operation Row, one of the most controversial missions in SAS history.
To preserve the anonymity of surviving SAS soldiers, their names have been changed.

At a classified location in the Arabian Gulf, a thunder of rotor blades shatters the silence of the desert night.

Squads of heavily armed Special Air Service soldiers, their faces shrouded by scarves, sprint through a sandstorm whipped up by the waiting fleet of helicopters.
Their boots clatter against the metal tailgates as the hand-picked men from the SAS's D Squadron scramble inside the six Chinook CH-47 transporters and strap themselves into seats that fold down from the helicopters' walls.
Seconds remain before the launch of their top-secret mission. Late on the night of March 17, 2003, and 24 hours before MPs are due to vote on the Iraq War, these soldiers are under orders to infiltrate the country and deliver a stunning blow to Saddam Hussein's most elite troops.
The SAS's destination is Al Qa'im, a town where, according to intelligence reports, Saddam Hussein's forces are poised to fire chemical weapons towards Israel.

The SAS's mission is to prevent an attack on the Jewish state.

British special forces in Baghdad after the mission

An SAS officer describes the plans for Op Row: D Squadron would be flying in 6x CH-47s in 3x waves, 120kms over the border. We were then to head from the LZ [Landing Zone] to Al Qa'im, a township of 100,000 people, 2x Regts of the fearsomely proud Republican Guards and a Marine battalion.


It was a location where missiles had been fired at Israel in the past and a site of strategic importance for WMD material. D Sqn comprised 60 men.'

Inside one of the Chinooks, radio specialist Captain Jim Watkins breathes in air thick with aviation fuel fumes. He can still taste the port he downed moments before running aboard.

More...

• I could have stopped us going to war in Iraq. This is why I didn't: Jack Straw tells how he wrestled with the most agonising decision of his life - and STILL believes he got it right
  
• Fury of the families as Blair admits his Iraq War 'regrets'
  

In spite of this toast, the officer remains anxious. He is missing his girlfriend, whom he hasn't seen or spoken to since Christmas. Watkins and his SAS colleagues have spent the previous three months confined in secret bases in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Parliament might not have approved the mission but Watkins and his comrades have written their death letters' to be read by their loved ones in case the operation goes tragically wrong. Watkins later wrote in his diary: The reality of what we were about to do suddenly struck home and a number of emotions began to run through my mind.
Fear, anxiety and also nervousness on how I would perform but most of all I was consumed with excitement. While realising what lay ahead, it was incredibly difficult to write my last words.


The war officially begins: President Bush announced the war had begun in March 2003 as Baghdad is bombed

I tried to write a message that both consoled my girlfriend and family, while adding a bit of humour and character to try to lighten the mood.'
Deafened by the roar of turbo-shaft engines, Watkins checks his Diemaco rifle and personal equipment, tightening straps for the thousandth time. Then he feels a terrific thrust as the Chinook climbs powerfully into the night sky.
Below, the steel-fenced confines of Al Jafr airbase in southern Jordan disappear into the darkness. Relieved the mission is finally under way, Watkins sends a radio message back to the SAS's HQ. Instantly he feels a smack around his head.
Shut the **** up!' screams Sergeant Joe Smith.

Confronted by this battle-hardened veteran, Watkins's seniority counts for little. Chastened, the captain lowers the volume on his headphones.
Back at Al Jafr, a second wave of six Chinooks takes off. On board are more soldiers from the SAS's D Squadron and their Land Rovers, nicknamed Pinkies'. These open-top vehicles are armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and Stinger missiles.

Shortly afterwards, the third wave of Chinooks follow the same flightpath. On the night of March 17 to 18, the passage into enemy airspace is smoothed by raids conducted by US Little Bird helicopters lightweight, single-seater aircraft with a distinctive spherical cockpit.


Secret documents: Accounts of SAS soldiers now reveal they were in Iraq fighting before the war had begun

As an SAS officer wrote: It got darker and the Little Birds came back to refuel and rearm with [gun] barrels glowing white-hot. I knew that there was no turning back, Allied forces were now committed.'
The Chinooks land in Iraq's western desert and Watkins disembarks. Shivering with cold, Watkins and his colleagues dig themselves into defensive positions. To his horror, Watkins sees a set of headlights approaching the SAS's positions.
Urgently, the officer cocks his rifle and dives into the dust, his heart pounding. Fortunately, the cars pass without slowing down. Afterwards, while his more seasoned colleagues allowed themselves some shut-eye, Watkins remains too nervous to sleep.

Attorney General at the time: Lord Goldsmith agreed that Resolution 1441 gave the legal authority for the conflict

He spends March 18 waiting for another batch of 60 soldiers, men selected from the SAS's B Squadron, to arrive at the same location having driven from Al Jafr in Land Rovers. Back in Britain, Cabinet Ministers are now digesting Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's judgment that military action against Iraq is legal on the basis of Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with United Nations resolutions.
On the evening of March 18, Tony Blair tells MPs that British troops can either turn back or hold firm to the course we have set'. That evening the House of Commons passes a Government motion endorsing military action by 412 votes to 149.
That night, the soldiers of B Squadron complete their journey. In the early hours of March 19, Watkins and his colleagues approach Al Qa'im and probe the defences of the town's water-treatment plant a likely base for chemical weapons.

But the soldiers are spotted and the night sky lights up with Iraqi firepower. The SAS have driven into a hornet's nest of enemy activity. In the ensuing battle, enemy rounds shatter the barrel of an SAS sniper's Barrett .50 calibre rifle, sending shrapnel through his legs. Showing remarkable bravery, the sniper fights on.
The resistance from the Republican Guards is so intense that a Pinkie crew are forced to abandon their vehicle. Enemy rounds pepper the sand at their feet as they run for cover. With highly sensitive communications equipment and heavy weapons aboard the Pinkie, the Officer Commanding (OC) B Squadron decides to deny' (destroy) the Land Rover by rocket fire.

The town of Al Qa-im where the battle took place: US marines conduct a house-to-house search looking for insurgents in the town near the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2005

A direct hit is achieved but Watkins fears not all the radio kit has been damaged so he suggests that the OC withdraw his soldiers from the water treatment plant to a safe lying-up position where he can reprogramme the squadron's radios.
With his soldiers winning the firefight against the Repub-lican Guards, the OC is understandably reluctant to retreat. Eventually he agrees.
Joint operations by B and D Squadrons resume the following day, March 19, which is known as Air Day' because it is when the Allied aerial bombardment of Iraq begins.
At 9.34pm on March 19, the US-led coalition launches its assault on Baghdad. At 10.16pm (US Eastern Standard Time), President Bush outlines the purpose of invading Iraq: To free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.'

The documents now obtained by The Mail on Sunday establish that the SAS launched Op Row two days before Air Day'.
Toppling Saddam Hussein: Tony Blair addressing British troops in Basra in 2003

On their second night in Iraq, SAS personnel witnessed the shock and awe' of the air strikes. An officer wrote: The next night the air raids started and we sat in the desert watching what was a pretty impressive fireworks display.
16 Troop [part of D Sqn] had been up to the Syrian border to assess a barracks area and had performed a stand-off attack. 17 and 19 Troops [also part of D Sqn] had been to the MSR [Main Supply Route] to set up an ambush.

The day after the air raids we moved to the MSR west of the built-up area and set up a road block. In fact, we did this three days running. This seemed to aggravate the local militia.
We then ascertained through interpreters that a convoy consisting of about 20x Technicals [4x4s converted into weapons platforms] had been sent out to search for us.'
During a skirmish, SAS officer Captain James Stenner and Sergeant Smith find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. Yet they continue their assault, putting to good use the rocket launchers bolted aboard their Pinkies.
So high are the regiment's expectations when it comes to bravery that it is widely accepted that it is harder for SAS personnel to win medals than it is for soldiers in regular units. But such is Stenner and Smith's gallantry, they both receive the Military Cross. Tragically, Stenner, 30, the son of a celebrated former SAS soldier, is later killed in a road accident in Baghdad.

At the Hutton Inquiry: Downing Street's former communications chief Alastair Campbell faced claims he 'sexed up' a report making the case for war in Iraq

SAS attempts to reach the water treatment plant continue from March 20 but they meet stiff Iraqi resistance.
An officer wrote: It was a very cold and windy night and the squadron was held up outside a Bedouin village while the lead element tried to find a path through.
Suddenly a huge missile flew 300ft above us and disappeared into the distance before exploding. As first light broke, a considerable enemy position was seen on top of a hill. The OC called in air support and an aircraft dropped its payload (2,500lb in total).'
After six weeks in the western desert, D Squadron redeployed to Baghdad.
From May 2003 to May 2009 when the SAS finally left Iraq the regiment fought a much-praised counter-insurgency operation against enemies such as Qaeda-Iraq (AQ-I).
US Commander General David Petraeus said of the SAS: They have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and, I think, exceptional savvy.
I can't say enough about how impressive they are in thinking on their feet.'

'THIS SHOWS BLAIR WAS DETERMINED TO INVADE', SAYS TOP LIB DEM

Veteran MP Sir Menzies Campbell last night condemned Tony Blair over the early deployment of British Special Forces into Iraq.

Sir Menzies said the launch of the SAS mission before the parliamentary vote was proof Blair had already decided to back President Bush's invasion plan.

Sir Menzies, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman in March 2003, said: The public perception was that the debate and the vote on the 18th was necessary to give legitimacy to the Labour Government's policy, led by Blair, to support military action against Saddam Hussein.

But if Special Forces were already deployed then that simply underlines the fact that Tony Blair was determined to go with President Bush in all and every circumstances.

It was generally thought that Blair had made one of the best speeches heard in the House of Commons for many years, but had MPs been aware of the use of the SAS there might have been many more Labour rebels.'

Sir Menzies was among 149 MPs, including all 53 Liberal Democrat members, who voted against military action. But his opposition to the SAS entering Iraq before the Commons had voted was dismissed last night by a former commander of British troops.

Colonel Richard Kemp of the Royal Anglian Regiment, who worked in Iraq as an observer for the Cabinet Office from 2003 to 2005, said it was often necessary for Special Forces to deploy without parliamentary authority.

He said: By March 17 the Attorney General had decided that military action was legal, so the SAS weren't doing anything wrong. The deployment of such Special Forces units has to be looked at differently to the regular Army.
'It would have been irresponsible of the Government to have pushed forward the big brigades of the British Army without the SAS having gone ahead and conducted preliminary missions such as Operation Row.'




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[David Guyatt]

No mention in the foregoing I see, that it was the US and Europe (i.e., NATO) that sold Saddam all the components to build his CBW arsenal in the first place.

Likewise, no mention that he unleashed some of these via Scud attacks on Coalition troops on the ground in Saudi prior to the invasion of Iraq. No mention either, that he almost certainly did fire Scuds containing bio-weapons on Tel Aviv, but that these were sufficiently backward in their technology that they proved not to be a danger.

It remains a Limited Hangout all the way as far as I can see.

[Magda Hassan]

One of the indefatigable doctors pushing for a real coroner's inquest in to the death of Dr Kelly.

The Chilcot Inquiry. The British Government's Role in the War on Iraq. Margaret Aldred and the Judicial Coverup

By Dr. C. Stephen Frost
Global Research, June 09, 2013
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-chilcot-inquiry-margaret-aldred-and-the-judicial-coverup/5338291


Introductory Note
The Chilcot Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot was launched in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with the mandate to inquire into role of British government in the Iraq War.
There have been five inquiries in the United Kingdom into the Iraq War: the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the Hutton Inquiry, the Butler Inquiry and the Chilcot Inquiry (the Iraq Inquiry). Not a single word of evidence at any of those inquiries has been heard under oath. Sir John Chilcot, presently chairing the Chilcot Inquiry, has the unique distinction of sitting on two of those inquiries: the Butler Inquiry and the Chilcot Inquiry. Does this not constitute a conflict of interests?
The person running the Chilcot Inquiry on behalf of Chilcot is one Margaret Aldred, an unelected civil servant, who, in my opinion and in the opinion of others, is not fit to be running any inquiry (she infamously ordered Carne Ross before he gave evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry not to mention Dr David Kelly and outlined the consequences if he did so), and certainly not the Chilcot Inquiry (because of an overwhelming conflict of interests, and other reasons, as carefully outlined below).
Margaret Aldred is fatally tainted by a huge conflict of interests
Stephen Frost

---

Elfyn Llwyd MP outlines in a Westminster Hall debate why Margaret Aldred should not be running the Chilcot Inquiry:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?gid=2011-01-25b.52.1
Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Plaid Cymru)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Williams, ably chairing this debate as always.
One of the vital prerequisites of a Government-initiated inquiry is that it should be utterly independent and devoid of any conflicts of interest that might undermine its credibility and the veracity of its conclusions and findings. I shall detail why I have grave misgivings about the independence of the Chilcot inquiry, and why I believe that the inquiry process may be flawed and even compromised from the beginning. I realise that those are grave allegations, but I do not make them lightly.
Before I detail the problems as I see them, I should mention that about three years ago, some documents were dispatched to my office from an unknown source, bearing a note saying that they were top secret. Some were British in origin; others may well have been from other intelligence sources. They showed that in 2001-02, active discussions were taking place on how to move in against Saddam Hussein using overwhelming military force. The term "regime change" appeared. The documents proved beyond doubt that the UK Government were on course for war even then.
The documents must have been copies of authentic documents, as two senior officers from the Metropolitan police visited me and questioned me and my colleague Adam Price about them. At the time of that visit, the documents were not physically in our possession. I decided to leave them where they were and not disclose them to anyone. I could not tell the police officers who had leaked them, as I simply did not know, and neither did Adam Price.
When the Chilcot inquiry was set up, I decided that I should surrender the documents to the inquiry. I took them to the inquiry's office in Victoria street and handed them to Mrs Margaret Aldred, the secretary of the inquiry. I said that I had evidence that might be of assistance to the inquiry and asked Mrs Aldred if the inquiry would write to confirm whether I would be called to give evidence. I told her that I had no intention of politicking if I were called. The response was an icy stare and the words "I should jolly well hope not."
Months went by. I wrote on two or three occasions asking for a response, but no response was forthcoming until last autumn, some nine months later. I concluded that either the secretariat was not very orderly and professional or my letters had not been passed on to the chair of the inquiry, who eventually responded. I had been discreet. As a Member of Parliament for 19 years, I thought that I should have had the courtesy of a reply one way or the other within weeks rather than months.
I began to think that something might be amiss in the secretariat, and I made various inquiries about the process of appointing the secretary. I knew that the appointment fell under the civil service code, whose key values are openness, honesty, integrity and accuracy. Recent legislation has placed those values on a statutory basis. I then tabled some parliamentary questions, and I shall refer to two of them.
On 1 December , I asked

"(1) what skills and experience were identified as being required for the role of Secretary to the Iraq Inquiry; how many candidates were identified as having such skills and experience; and on what basis the successful candidate was selected;
(2) what steps were taken in the process of appointment of the Secretary to the Iraq Inquiry (a) to identify potential conflicts of interest and (b) to ensure that any such conflicts did not affect the independence of the inquiry."

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, Hurd)'" href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/?m=40511" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mr. Hurd, responded:

"The Cabinet Secretary decided to nominate the Secretary to the Iraq Inquiry and agreed the appointment with the Chairman of the Inquiry. Both the Cabinet Secretary and the Chairman of the Inquiry agreed that the Secretary to the Inquiry should be a senior individual in the civil service ideally with previous involvement in Iraq issues."

The Chairman of the Inquiry has told the Cabinet Secretary that, in agreeing to the appointment, he was aware of the candidate's role in the Foreign and Defence Policy (formerly the Defence and Overseas Policy) Secretariat in the Cabinet Office from November 2004, and, given the professional standards of the senior civil service, saw no potential conflict of interest with her appointment as Secretary to the Inquiry that would, in his view, affect the independence of the Inquiry."-[Hansard, 1 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 882W.]
It was, therefore, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, who put Mrs Margaret Aldred's name forward for appointment as the secretary to the inquiry, and it was accepted, nem. con., by its chair, Sir John Chilcot.
On 3 September 2009 , Dr Chris Lamb, who has been very concerned about this issue, wrote a freedom of information request to the Cabinet Office asking for the precise details of the manner of the appointment. On 2 September 2010 -one whole year later-a letter, signed off by Sue Gray of the propriety and ethics team of the Cabinet Office, was sent in response. It stated:

"The Cabinet Secretary himself decided to nominate Margaret Aldred, and agreed the appointment with Sir John Chilcot, shortly after Sir John himself had accepted his role as Inquiry Chair. Both the Cabinet Secretary and the Inquiry Chair felt that the Secretary needed to be a senior individual with the right experience and skills for the task. Her previous involvement in Iraq issues was balanced against that criteria, and the view taken was that it would be possible to manage any potential conflicts of interest. Margaret Aldred was assured of that position by the Cabinet Secretary from the outset. She took up the appointment full time on 1 September last year."

The appointment did not follow the procedures outlined in the civil service code-it appears that no other candidate was considered by Sir Gus O'Donnell, and the process could not be described in any way as open and transparent. I will repeat what I believe to be the letter's key phrase:

"Her previous involvement in Iraq issues was balanced against other criteria, and the view was taken that it would be possible to manage any potential conflicts of interest."

Unsurprisingly, Dr Lamb was totally unsatisfied with the answer. He made a complaint to the Information Commissioner, and it was dealt with by Jonathan Slee, a senior case officer, who concluded in a letter dated 26 October 2010 that there were two possible scenarios. The first was that the Cabinet Office had no recorded information

"concerning the discussions in question. That is to say, such discussions took place orally (as opposed to in writing) and no written record of them was ever created. If this was the case presumably the narrative description of these discussions/deliberations which is included in the internal review was based purely on individuals' recollection of them."

On the second scenario, he wrote:

"Alternatively, the Cabinet Office did hold recorded information evidencing the nature of these discussions. The most obvious format for such recorded information would presumably be letters/emails exchanged between the Cabinet Secretary and Inquiry Chairman regarding Margaret Aldred, although such recorded information could obviously extend to meeting notes/memos/records of telephone conversations."

The letter goes on to discuss another individual before noting:

"If this is the case, I suggested to the Cabinet Office that such recorded information was presumably used as the basis to provide the narrative description of the discussions which was included in the internal review. However, for the reasons set out above I suggested that Cabinet Office would not have not fulfilled your request simply by describing the content of these recorded discussions. Rather the request would only be fulfilled by provision of the recorded information about the discussions themselves."

The pre-penultimate paragraph of the letter concludes:

"However, I appreciate that the manner in which the Cabinet Office has handled this request will no doubt have proved frustrating. I therefore intend to formally write to the Cabinet Office in order to highlight its errors in terms of handling this request, notably the failure to correctly determine whether it held information falling within the scope of the request when issuing its refusal notice; the very significant delay in conducting an internal review; and the fact that the content of the internal review was somewhat ambiguous in inferring that Cabinet Office did hold some recorded information."

Despite the best efforts of a very experienced researcher using the Freedom of Information Act 2000, it appears that there is no paper trail relating to the appointment or that, if there is, the Cabinet Office resolutely refuses to disclose it, for whatever reason.
We are left with the appointment of the deputy head of the Cabinet Office's foreign and defence policy secretariat, Margaret Aldred, as secretary to the inquiry that is inquiring into actions taken by her department during her tenure as its deputy head. So integral was she in policy development that she gave evidence to the Select Committee on Defence in June 1994 about whether weaponised biological agents were present. She was part and parcel of all the planning for Gulf war I. She regularly chaired the Iraq senior officials group, which co-ordinated Iraq policy across the Government.
The appointment process was unusual and unacceptable, and the irony will not be lost on the public. The process resurrected one of the worst features of sofa government, which was so criticised by the Butler inquiry, of which Sir John Chilcot was, sadly, a member. The inquiry secretary, who has a key role, is a Cabinet Office insider and was appointed because of her extensive previous involvement in Iraq policy. There is therefore a glaring conflict of interest. Some might say her position is untenable because the inquiry is looking into the period when she was active in Iraq policy, as I said.
The very same Cabinet Office has most to answer for over Iraq. The Cabinet Office, and Mrs Aldred's section in particular, drew up plans for regime change-an unlawful concept in international law. The Cabinet Office-the Joint Intelligence Committee and its staff-produced the discredited Iraq dossier, one of the least persuasive documents in recent political history, which is of dubious provenance and even more dubious veracity. Can the inquiry be independent, or is it a Cabinet Office subsidiary? Mrs Aldred's involvement and that of her section makes it difficult to know where the Cabinet Office ends and the inquiry begins.
Sir John Chilcot is leading an inquiry that is tasked with examining allegations that the previous Government was duplicitous towards Parliament and the public. Surely, when Sir Gus O'Donnell suggested his close colleague, so enmeshed as she was in the whole Iraq debacle, Sir John should have seen the obvious conflict of interest? Has Mrs Aldred played a part in the protocol that has limited the inquiry's scope? What steps have been taken to manage the conflict of interest? What steps could be taken to manage her glaring, obvious and painful conflict of interest?
During the period covered by the inquiry, the section of the Cabinet Office where Mrs Aldred worked was pivotal in the Government's policy towards Iraq. Margaret Aldred was deputy head of that section for four and a half of those eight years. The inquiry has not published a single document originated by the Cabinet Office. In July 2002, a briefing paper by the same part of the Cabinet Office expressed the hope

"that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject".

In September 2002, Mrs Aldred's predecessor at the Cabinet Office wrote to Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, suggesting that the Iraq dossier and qualifications in the original assessment were to be removed. That document was not disclosed to the Hutton inquiry and the Cabinet Office spent years trying to prevent its disclosure. In passing, I remind the House that it was Sir Gus O'Donnell who recently denied the Chilcot inquiry permission to publish the correspondence between President Bush and Mr Blair, despite the fact that both men were happy to refer to the correspondence in their respective autobiographies.
To conclude, Mrs Aldred routinely chaired the Iraq senior officials group; she met US officials in October 2008 to discuss Iraq; she was implicated in or knew of the rendition policy; she had the leaked document showing that she was copied in with respect to the rendition policy; and she flew to Washington for discussions with counterparts three weeks before the inquiry was announced. The following questions must in my view be answered. It may be difficult for the Minister to do so today, but clearly if he can write to me in due course that will suffice. I do not want to put him on the spot.
Is Mrs Margaret Aldred's role at the inquiry as central as her role in Iraq policy at the Cabinet Office? Did Sir Gus O'Donnell detail Mrs Aldred's involvement in Iraq policy precisely to Sir John Chilcot, and when she was appointed and the appointment was announced why was there no mention of her previous experience with Iraq policy? She is the gatekeeper to the inquiry. Does she advise on lines of inquiry? Does she liaise with the Government about evidence? We know that she liaises with the Government about the publication of information. Was she involved in the drawing up of the protocol that has stymied the process? It was published a month after she took up her role. Is she likely to draft the report?



Obviously, justice must be seen to be done. Transparency and openness are paramount. They are concepts that are signally absent from the inquiry process. I regret that one conclusion that can easily be drawn is that the inquiry process is flawed and compromised from the very beginning.

[David Guyatt]

Most inquiries launched by the British government are flawed, simply because they are authorised to quieten public concern and, therefore, are cover-ups of the réalité.

I sincerely hope there will be a breakthrough in the Dr. David Kelly assassination, but since it is almost certain that this was organized with the knowledge (and quite likely complicity) of HMG, the US and Israel, I don't hold out much hope. In fact, none.

[Magda Hassan]

Some how I can't see Dearlove getting the Assange or Snowden treatment with his leaks.

The former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, said he's going to reveal new details behind the dodgy dossier' if he disagrees with the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into UK's role in the Iraq War.Dearlove provided intelligence about Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that was allegedly exaggerated and "sexed-up" by Tony Blair's government.
The 68-year-old intelligence veteran has spent the last year writing a detailed account of events leading up to the Iraq War, which started in 2003. Initially, he intended to make his work available to historians after his death but Sir Richard told the Daily Mail that he could well change.
"What I have written (am writing) is a record of events surrounding the invasion of Iraq from my then professional perspective," he wrote in an e-mail addressed to the paper. "My intention is that this should be a resource available to scholars, but after my decease (may be sooner depending on what Chilcot publishes). I have no intention, however, of violating my vows of official secrecy by publishing any memoir."
Dearlove is expected to face criticism from the inquiry's chairman, Sir John Chilcot, over the accuracy of intelligence provided by the MI6 agents inside Iraq, which was used in the so-called "dodgy dossier."
Sources close to the ex-MI6 chief told the paper that he insists that Chilcot should recognize the role that Tony Blair and his Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell, played in inspiring media reports, suggesting that Saddam could use chemical weapons to target British troops based in Cyprus.
Dearlove is said to still be extremely aggrieved that the intelligence, which his agents stressed only referred to shorter-range battlefield munitions, were turned into a claim that put Britain on a path to war in Iraq.
Sir Richard Dearlove (Reuters / Lucy Nicholson)

He still accepts that some of MI6's information on the matter was inaccurate, unlike Blair and Campbell, who have repeatedly denied making misleading statements about WMD.
"This is Sir Richard's time-bomb. He wants to set the record straight and defend the integrity of MI6," a security source told Daily Mail.
The source stressed that Dearlove is ready to do what no other MI6 chief has ever done because "the events in question were unprecedented" and he's tired of being blamed for having "too-cozy"relationship with Blair.
"If Chilcot doesn't put the record straight, Sir Richard will strike back," he added.
Last week, Chilcot informed the UK's Prime Minister David Cameron of his intention to write personally to those individuals he intends to criticize as a result of the inquiry, with reports suggesting Tony Blair is among those on Sir John's list.
The 2003 governmental briefing document "Iraq Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation" was called the dodgy dossier' by the media after it was revealed that much of its content was plagiarized from various unattributed sources.
The Chilcot inquiry into the details of Britain's engagement in Iraq war was set up in 2009. Having already cost British taxpayers over £7 million, the inquiry's findings as to the government's refusal to release some of the official documents are still unpublished.
The war in Iraq remains a very sensitive issue for many Britons, the majority of whom according to the polls believe they were deceived by the government and the UK's involvement was not justified and damaged the country's reputation abroad. Public support has only falled over the last decade, driven by incessant reports of ongoing violence in post-war Iraq and scandals surrounding British military personnel's actions during the war.

http://rt.com/news/mi6-iraq-uk-blair-391/