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

[David Guyatt]

Imagine that. Bliar's letter to Georgie-porgie backing his Iraq war goes missing.

But I love this statement from Cameron on the inquiry by Privy Councillors which shows just how much of a joke it really is.

But Mr Cameron has now effectively told Sir Jeremy to reach a compromise under which a sensible' proportion of the correspondence is released.

Someone quickly define "sensible" please!

"I'm with you whatever" you decide the definition is... ::laughingdog::

Now America loses Blair's 'I'll back Iraq war' letter to Bush: Mystery of missing note that told US President, 'whatever you do, I'm with you'

• Tony Blair has so far refused to release letters written to George W Bush
  
• The archive contains 25 personal letters and 130 official records concerning Iraq
  
• The refusal has led to a delay in Sir John Chilcot's report on the decision to go to war
  
  

By GLEN OWEN, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
PUBLISHED: 23:26, 17 May 2014 | UPDATED: 02:29, 18 May 2014

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Tony Blair, pictured, has refused to release 25 personal letters written to former US President George W Bush

A personal letter written by Tony Blair to George Bush backing his plan to wage war on Iraq has reportedly gone missing' from the official Presidential library as pressure grows on the former Prime Minister to sanction the release of the private notes he wrote to Mr Bush.

The letter, which is said to begin with the words: You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you', was last night described by a senior figure involved in the diplomatic negotiations at the time as absolutely critical' to the public's understanding of the war because it reveals the extent to which Mr Blair gave Mr Bush a blank cheque'.

Mr Blair's refusal to authorise the publication of 25 personal letters and 130 official records of conversations with Mr Bush has led to a long delay in the publication of Sir John Chilcot's official report into the war. Sir John held his last public hearings in 2011.

On Friday, David Cameron made public his frustration, saying the report should be published by the end of the year.

Mr Blair, backed by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood a key member of his inner circle during the build-up to the 2003 conflict has argued that the sensitive documents should remain classified.

But Mr Cameron has now effectively told Sir Jeremy to reach a compromise under which a sensible' proportion of the correspondence is released.

The development comes as lawyers for the American government are deciding whether to release any of the documentation under US freedom of information laws. Since January nine years after the conclusion of Bush's first term in office the letters have technically been available to researchers who ask for them, if they are cleared by a vetting committee of lawyers.

More...

• David Cameron wades into Chilcot row: I want to see the report by the end of the year
  
• NORMAN LAMONT: If anyone should be in the dock over Iraq, it's not British soldiers but Tony Blair
  
• Blair-Bush letters ARE delaying Iraq report, says Chilcot: Head of inquiry admits records of conversations is an issue
  
• Britain has tried to block release of US 'torture files' that could prove Blair Government was complicit in ill-treatment of terror suspects, it is claimed
  

But the lawyers have indicated to researchers based in the UK that the only correspondence they have not been able to find is the I'm with you' letter, sent by Mr Blair in July 2002, nine months before the outbreak of war.

The letter, which was hand-delivered by Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning to US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, has been referred to indirectly in political memoirs covering the period.

When Mr Blair was questioned by the Chilcot Inquiry in 2011, he denied the specific wording of I'm with you whatever' but admitted he thought it would have been profoundly wrong' not to honour commitments he had previously given to the US President.

Mr Blair's critics suspect he has been hoping to delay the Chilcot report which is likely to prove personally damning as well as awkward for the Labour Party until after next year's General Election.

Sources say the letters were pretty much one way' with Bush failing to respond in a similarly personal manner'.




+2

A letter written by Tony Blair, left, to George W Bush, right, has gone missing from the Library of Congress

Last night, a British-based source involved in the effort to obtain the release of the letters told The Mail on Sunday: The lawyers are taking months to evaluate the letters and decide whether to release them.

However, they claim not to have been able to locate the with you whatever'' letter.'

One senior figure involved in the 2002 negotiations between London and Washington told this newspaper: There is absolutely no point in having this inquiry if the letters are kept secret. They are completely pivotal to our understanding.

And the I'll be with you'' letter is the most critical of all it gave the green light.'

Mr Blair's office did not respond to requests for comment.

[Magda Hassan]

If only they took care of their criminal leaders and ex leaders as well as they take care of their correspondence....

[Peter Presland]

Imagine that. Bliar's letter to Georgie-porgie backing his Iraq war goes missing.

But I love this statement from Cameron on the inquiry by Privy Councillors which shows just how much of a joke it really is.

But Mr Cameron has now effectively told Sir Jeremy to reach a compromise under which a sensible' proportion of the correspondence is released.

Someone quickly define "sensible" please!
"I'm with you whatever" you decide the definition is... ::laughingdog::

Together with the trivial proportion of the population who vest these things with critical importance, I confess to a certain schadenfreude at the squirmings of those charged with publicly protecting Bush-Blair and thus the cabal(s) that own(s) them - clownish acolytes on well-worn Faustian paths to hell via 'successful political careers' eh? - and oblivious to the contempt in which they are held by those with their eyes open. Cameron really is an exemplar too - sickeningly absurd in his faux-earnest moralizing , with Haig, Clegg, Osborne, Gove and a few others tripping merrily in his wake.

The truly depressing thing for me though, is that most haven't the time or attention-span to give a toss.

I therefore propose a new anthem - a variation on that old Queen Classic - "We are the Sheeple - my friend; and we'll wear our blindfolds to the end" - or something like that.

[Magda Hassan]

The Chilcot row highlights Blair's Iraq legacy: accusations of manipulation, secrets and lies

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It may not be remembered, amid the latest charges of whitewash levelled at Chilcot, that the original plan was to hold the inquiry into the Iraq war in secret. That, it was claimed at the time, was the deal that Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, had done with Tony Blair.

It was the military who fired the first major salvo against this: speaking to The Independent, General Sir Mike Jackson, who was the head of the British Army at the time of the Iraq invasion, stressed that any evidence, apart from the most security sensitive, should not be given in private. He himself would have no problem giving his testimony in public and indeed, he added, there was no reason why witnesses should not be under oath.
Sir Mike was backed in his call by Major General Julian Thompson, the Commandant General Royal Marines and Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former head of Defence Intelligence and deputy chairman of the Join Intelligence Committee and senior officers who had served in Iraq, such as Major General Tim Cross.
Sir John recalled the advice which has been sought from him by members of the Defence Intelligence service unhappy at the "sexing up" of intelligence carried out by Downing Street in the "dodgy dossier" on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Gordon Brown caved in as criticism mounted at the attempt at secrecy, to the chagrin, we were told, of Mr Blair. The opposition had made repeated calls for transparency, with William Hague and Nick Clegg among the most vocal.
However, now that Sir John Chilcot appears to have capitulated to demands from the Cabinet Office over the correspondence between Mr Blair and George W Bush, we have yet to hear much from the Foreign Secretary or Deputy Prime Minister, part of whose job is to oversee the Cabinet Office. Mr Clegg has called for the report to be published soon, with its shabby compromise of publishing just the "gist" of the letters, rather than the full content.
Tony Blair has been busy saying that this is nothing to do with him, but entirely a matter between Chilcot and the Cabinet Office. He is as keen as the next man, he says, to have the report published. This is disingenuous, as Sir John Major has pointed out, Mr Blair can at any time give the Cabinet Office permission for his correspondence to be released.
General Jackson was the head of the British Army at the time of the Iraq invasion (Justin Sutcliffe)

The Americans, it has been said, would object to the publication of presidential communications. It is in the interest of Mr Blair and his supporters to promote this, but it is not up to Washington to decide on what this British inquiry should or should not reveal.
There is also the inference that the correspondence shows how Mr Bush had dragged a hesitant Mr Blair into the venture. In reality, the British were anything but bashful over this affair they were more than ready to propagate bogus "intelligence" on WMDs. A lot of it came from Ahmed Chalabi, a conman and exiled Iraqi politician, who was based in London at the time. The "dodgy dossier", let us not forget, was the project of Downing Street, not the White House.
Once the dossier was produced, any questioning of it was met with fierce "rapid rebuttal". When it appeared, in September 2002, I was among a small group of British journalists in Baghdad who arranged with the Iraqi regime to visit some of the sites named as production centres for chemical and biological weapons.
We chose the sites ourselves, picking those that, according to the dossier, were the most prolific for producing WMD agents; we gave the Iraqi authorities notice of two hours before the trip began.
We reported that we had seen nothing suspicious, but stressing the caveat that we were not scientists or weapons experts, and ours was, thus, a superficial impression. But that was enough for Downing Street officials to declare we were "naive dupes" and our newspapers were irresponsible for printing Saddam's propaganda. We now know of course, through the work of UN inspectors and the Iraq Survey Group, that those sites were not being used for chemical or biological weapons production.
Later, I sat through every day of the inquiry by Lord Hutton. His report was disappointing possibly because he was constrained by the terms of reference, which restricted his inquiry into the death of the scientist Dr David Kelly.
In spite of this, the inquiry's brilliant counsel, James Dingemans QC, laid bare how the dossier was manufactured at the behest of No 10.
The review of the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction by Lord Butler of Brockwell, with Sir John Chilcot one of his team, took place in camera.
It shed some more light without having the dramatic impact of what unfolded during Hutton. We were told later, by a senior politician, that had we asked the former Cabinet Secretary at the press conference following the publication of his report whether Mr Blair should resign as Prime Minister, he would have responded "yes". But, we did not know and no one asked.
Will the Chilcot report, when it does eventually come out, have any truly explosive revelations?
We wait to find out if that is the case, although that is probably unlikely; most of the subterfuge behind the invasion has been exposed on both sides of the Atlantic.
What the latest controversy does do, however, is yet again highlight the recurring theme which is Mr Blair's Iraq legacy accusations of manipulation, secrets and lies.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comm...75091.html

[David Guyatt]

Shortly after Blair eft office, the BBC aired a drama that centred on behind the scenes moves to makes Blair stand trial for war crimes at the Hague. Pity it hasn't happened.

Meanwhile, it is interesting that it was all the military men who stepped forward to make Chilcott public. Mmmm.

[Magda Hassan]

Shortly after Blair eft office, the BBC aired a drama that centred on behind the scenes moves to makes Blair stand trial for war crimes at the Hague. Pity it hasn't happened.

I think I saw that when it screened on TV here a few years ago. I haven't seen it since and I didn't get to see all of it but it did look riveting. I remember a scene of the Bliar character talking to himself in the mirror justifying it all to himself.

Meanwhile, it is interesting that it was all the military men who stepped forward to make Chilcott public. Mmmm.

Yes, indeed. Not everyone appreciates being used as a political pawn in a game of life and death.

[David Guyatt]

The cynic might argue that delaying the report until the run up to the election is not gong to hurt Cameron and the Conservative Party, but it might well hurt the inconsequential Ed Milliband and the Labour Tory Party.

Whatever happens, Blair won't come out of it at all well, but he will still remain one of the protected ones. He could've ended up in front of a war crimes trial at the Hague (in my dreams anyway).

As I suggested in the thread caption, it was always going to be a circus performance and it has turned out to be just that.

Chilcot report into 2003 Iraq conflict delayed further

Due to have been published three years ago, the Chilcot report now threatens to haunt UK politics ahead of the 2015 election

• Richard Norton-Taylor
  

• The Guardian, Thursday 26 June 2014 19.11 BST
  
• Jump to comments (259)
  

The Chilcot inquiry was set up in 2009 and has cost over £9m so far and it will unlikely be published until next year. Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

The Chilcot inquiry, which is expected to contain damning criticism of the way Tony Blair and his close advisers led Britain into war against Iraq, is unlikely to be published until next year, the Guardian has learned.
A further delay in the report on the 2003 invasion, due to have been published three years ago, could mean the issue will continue to haunt British politics in the runup to next year's general election.
That is likely to be even more the case if there is no end in sight to the present crisis in Iraq which threatens to perpetuate deep divisions and violence in the oil-rich country.
Whitehall sources suggest the latest delay in the long-awaited report is the result of continuing disputes over criticisms the Chilcot panel plan to make of Blair and other ministers and advisers involved in the decision to invade Iraq.
Chilcot announced last month that after years of heated disputes with successive cabinet secretaries, and discussions with Washington, he had agreed to a settlement whereby summaries, and "the gist", of more than a hundred records of conversations between Blair and George Bush in the runup to the invasion, and of records of 200 cabinet discussions, would be published, but not the documents themselves.
Chilcot has described the content of the documents as "vital to the public understanding of the inquiry's conclusions".
In a letter to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, last month, Chilcot said "detailed consideration" of the information he has requested had begun, adding "it is not yet clear how long that will take".
In a reference to the procedure taken from the inquiry into Robert Maxwell's business dealings, whereby those the inquiry intends to criticise will be shown drafts of the relevant passages, Chilcot told Heywood that "once agreement has been reached, the next phase of the Maxwellisation process can begin".
Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, said: "How painfully ironic that Britain used force in 2003 when it was manifestly illegal, but will likely and rightly not do so now in response to a request from the government of Iraq, when it would rather more arguably be lawful."
Sands, a close follower of Chilcot and earlier inquiries into the invasion of Iraq, added: "The situation in Iraq today is terrible and tragic, but it's a futile exercise to speculate as to the exact connection with decisions taken in 2003 … It would be more sensible to reflect on what might be learnt from the mistakes of the past."
He continued: "Who exactly is responsible for the delay [in the Chilcot report] is unclear, but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that political considerations might have come into play."
Sands described the delay as "rather disgraceful", and said publication of the report should now be delayed until after the election, to avoid it being used as a political tool.
David Cameron said last month he wanted the report by the end of the year. The Scottish National party has said it should be published before September's referendum on Scottish independence.
The Chilcot inquiry was set up in 2009 and has cost over £9m so far.

[David Guyatt]

He (Chilcott) "wants the inquiry to publish the maximum possible without destroying our relationship with the US" --- nudge, nudge, wink, wink...

Chilcot inquiry: Blair and Straw to get warning letters ahead of publication of report into 2003 invasion of Iraq



Anyone criticised in public inquiries is entitled to see and challenge extracts related to them


MARK LEFTLY


Sunday 20 July 2014

Sir John Chilcot, chair of the public inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is poised to send formal letters to those whose conduct he criticises in his final report.

The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, are among those expected to be sent what are known as "Salmon" or "Maxwellisation" letters in the coming weeks. Anyone criticised in public inquiries is entitled to see and challenge extracts related to them before publication. The letters are named after Lord Salmon, who held a public ethics inquiry in the 1970s, and the late newspaper baron Robert Maxwell, who challenged the way criticisms of his dealings were handled in a public report.
The long-running inquiry is examining the period from summer 2001 to the end of July 2009, taking in the run-up to the Iraq war, the conflict and its aftermath. The final report has been delayed, latterly as Sir John negotiated with Sir Jeremy Heywood, the country's most senior civil servant, as to what he could publish.
The limits on what can be published led to criticism that the inquiry could end up being a "whitewash" of a war that divided the nation and tarnished Mr Blair's 10-year premiership. However, Sir John and the Cabinet Office now appear to be close to agreement, as the Salmon letters could not be sent out until the "quotes and gists" have been finalised.
In a select committee hearing last week, Sir Jeremy said that he wanted the inquiry to publish "the maximum possible without destroying our relationship with the US [and] without revealing secrets that don't need to be revealed".

[Magda Hassan]

He (Chilcott) "wants the inquiry to publish the maximum possible without destroying our relationship with the US" --- nudge, nudge, wink, wink...

He wants to publish just enough to make not seem like a complete whitewash. Whoops too late for that!

[Peter Lemkin]

Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq War Sends Shockwaves through Whitehall

By FRANCIS ELLIOTT AND MICHAEL SAVAGE / The Times December 19th, 2014

• 
  

FRANCIS ELLIOTT AND MICHAEL SAVAGE
THE TIMES, DECEMBER 18, 2014

DRAFTS of the official inquiry into the Iraq war have sent shockwaves through the British bureaucracy, with key players fighting to tone down or even delete the criticism.

Extracts from the much-*delayed report by John Chilcot, which in some cases run to hundreds of pages, have been sent in recent weeks to those criticised for their conduct, to give them a chance to respond before the *report is published.
"The lawyers are getting called in all over the shop," one source said. "It's much more punchy than people thought it was going to be."
There is said to be particular consternation among former military personnel who were involved in the planning and operation of the Iraq invasion in March 2003.
A minister admitted that lawyers had become heavily involved in the final stages of the official inquiry, set up in 2009.
"The inquiry does have to consult those whom it will criticise and allow them to provide a defence," Lord Wallace of Saltaire, a government whip, said.
He acknowledged that the wrangling could delay final publication until after the general election in May. "We are all *anxious that if it is not published by the end of February, it would be inappropriate to publish it during the campaign," he said.
Lord Wallace said the final timing was dependent on those criticised in the report and "I am afraid to say … on their lawyers".
One of those who is expected to be criticised said that it was Sir John who was to blame for the delay. In a progress report on its findings two years ago, the inquiry head said one of the academics on the panel, Martin Gilbert, had suffered a serious illness. The historian, who had a stroke, did not return to the inquiry subsequently.
A lengthy dispute with the US over the publication of communications between Tony Blair and George W. Bush was finally resolved only after an agreement brokered by Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary.
It is not yet clear how much material will be made public, but Lord Wallace said the Chilcot report would publish "notes from more than 200 cabinet meetings … including some extracts from cabinet minutes".
David Cameron said in May he hoped the report would be published this year.
The Times
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wor...7159888110