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

[Magda Hassan]

Revealed: Tony Blair's battle with law chief after warning Iraq war would be illegal


By Tim Shipman
Last updated at 12:27 PM on 1st July 2010


Tony Blair’s fury at being told the Iraq War was illegal was laid bare yesterday after secret memos from his Attorney General were finally published.
In an unprecedented move, the Chilcot Inquiry into the conflict published Lord Goldsmith’s warnings to the then Prime Minister, the first time a government has ever declassified legal advice to ministers.
They detail how time and again the Attorney General told Mr Blair he risked taking the UK into an unlawful war – and the Prime Minister’s irritation and refusal to accept that fact.

Assurances: Jonathan Powell, pictured with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, told a meeting at No.10 that the UK would not support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq without U.N. support


In one damning letter to Mr Blair dated January 30, 2003 – less than two months before the invasion – Lord Goldsmith told him that UN resolution 1441, on which the government came to rely, ‘does not authorise the use of military force’.



Mr Blair scrawled in the margin of the letter: ‘I just don’t understand this.’
The same document exposes the huge irritation in Downing Street at the Attorney General’s reluctance to give the green light for an invasion.

No 10 aide Matthew Rycroft made clear that Lord Goldsmith’s missive was unwelcome.

‘[We] specifically said we did not need further advice [on] this matter,’ he wrote.
The word ‘not’ was underlined.

A series of documents, minutes and memos make clear that Lord Goldsmith came under huge pressure to change his views and was unceremoniously excluded from Cabinet discussions in the build-up to the conflict.
Lord Goldsmith warned Mr Blair as early as July 2002 that war would not be legal without the express approval of the United Nations Security Council.
In a memo to the Prime Minister, who had already asked the military to prepare war plans, he warned that Britain would not be able to justify war by claiming ‘self defence’ or a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Iraq.
Even after resolution 1441 was passed in November 2002, declaring Saddam Hussein in breach of previous UN demands that he disarm, the Attorney General maintained that a second resolution explicitly authorising war was necessary.
In October that year, as the wording of 1441 was being prepared, the Attorney General gave a stark warning to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that Mr Blair had gone too far in pledging support to President George W. Bush.

A record of their telephone call says: ‘The Attorney explained that he was concerned by reports he had received that the Prime Minister had indicated to President Bush that he would join them in acting without a second Security Council decision.’

He also told Mr Straw the government must not promise ‘the U.S. government that it can do things which the Attorney considers to be unlawful’.

Change of heart: Lord Goldsmith changed his mind about proceeding without UN support after a trip to the U.S. just a month before hostilities commenced

In a sign of the pressure he was coming under, ‘the Foreign Secretary suggested the Attorney might not wish to commit himself on paper until he had seen the Prime Minister’.
This resulted in an arm-twisting meeting that was then arranged by Mr Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell.
The Attorney General also complained that he ‘ought to be present’ when the war was being discussed.
But in the final days before the conflict, he changed his tune and declared that a case could be made that Resolution 1441 reactivated the earlier resolutions authorising force during the first Gulf War.
His final legal advice, couched with caveats, was never shown in full to the Cabinet, who only saw the same brief summary declaring the war to be legal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...legal.html

[Magda Hassan]

How Goldsmith changed advice on legality of war

For seven years, Britain has wanted to see how the legal case for invading Iraq was made. Yesterday, at a public inquiry that is going on unnoticed, official documents were released for the first time that showed the grave reservations of the Attorney General, his remarkable U-turn, and how the basis for the Iraq war was built on sand
By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

Thursday, 1 July 2010



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Documents about how the legal case for the Iraq war was formulated by the Blair government seven years ago were made public yesterday, revealing the grave doubts of the Attorney General over impending military action.
The drafts of legal advice and letters sent to the Prime Minister by Lord Goldsmith had been kept secret despite repeated calls for them to be published. Yesterday they were released by the Chilcot Inquiry into the war, after the head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, stated that the "long-standing convention" for such documents to be kept confidential had to be waived because the issue of the legality of the Iraq war had a "unique status".
It had been known that Lord Goldsmith had initially advised the government that an attack on Iraq would not be legal without a fresh United Nations resolution. However, just before the US-led invasion he presented a new set of opinions saying that a new resolution was not needed after all.


Tony Blair appeared to show his irritation with the warnings over military actions, saying in a handwritten note: "I just do not understand this." In another note, a Downing Street aide said: "We do not need further advice on this matter."
In the documents released yesterday, Lord Goldsmith repeatedly stated that an invasion without a fresh UN resolution would be illegal, and warned against using Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD (weapons of mass destruction) as a reason for attack. Two months later, in autumn 2002, Downing Street published a dossier that stressed the alleged WMD threat in an attempt to boost public support for war.
In a letter to Mr Blair on 30 July 2002, marked "Secret and Strictly personal – UK Eyes only", Lord Goldsmith stated: "In the absence of a fresh resolution by the Security Council which would at least involve a new determination of a material and flagrant breach [by Iraq] military action would be unlawful. Even if there were such a resolution, but one which did not explicitly authorise the use of force, it would remain highly debatable whether it legitimised military action – but without it the position is, in my view, clear."
In his letter, copied to the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, the Attorney General warned that any form of military assistance offered to the US, however limited, such as "the use of UK bases, the provision of logistical or other support ... would all engage the UK's responsibility under international law. We would therefore need to be satisfied in all cases as to the legality of the use of force."
Lord Goldsmith continued: "The development of WMD is not in itself sufficient to indicate such imminence. On the basis of the material which I have been shown ... there would not be any grounds for regarding an Iraqi use of WMD as imminent."
Successive inquiries into the Iraq war, by Lord Hutton, Lord Butler and now Sir John Chilcot, have heard repeated claims that Lord Goldsmith was subsequently persuaded to change his advice into the legality of military action by Mr Blair and members of his government.
In January 2003 Mr Blair met President Bush at the White House. The Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, wrote a memo paraphrasing Mr Bush's comments at the meeting as: "The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled for 10th March. This was when the bombing would begin."
In a letter to Mr Blair dated 30 January 2003, after the UN had passed another resolution on Iraq, 1441, Lord Goldsmith wrote: "In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know whether a further decision of the Security Council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq." The letter marked "secret" continued: "I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of Resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the Security Council." Lord Goldsmith concluded: "I have not copied this minute further."
The Attorney General sent a draft advice to Mr Blair dated 12 February 2003 after he had consulted US officials. He said: "It is clear that Resolution 1441 does not expressly authorise the use of force. It follows that resolution may only be relied on as providing the legal basis for military action if it has the effect of reviving the authorisation to use force contained in Resolution 678 (1990)" – when Iraq was adjudged by the UN to have flouted previous resolutions.
But the Attorney General stressed "it is clear that the [Security] Council did not intend the authorisation in Resolution 678 should revive immediately following the adoption of Resolution 1441." He continued: "The language of 1441 is not clear and the statements made on adoption of the resolution suggests there were differences of views within the Council. The safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of the further Council decision." Lord Goldsmith continued: "If action were to be taken without a further Security Council decision, particularly if the UK had tried to and failed to secure the adoption of a second resolution, I would expect the Government to be accused of acting unlawfully."
The Attorney General was told to provide clarification of his advice by the Government and the final version was delivered to Cabinet on 7 March 2003, days before the invasion. Lord Goldsmith had decided a new resolution was not needed, after all, to justify war.
* Tony Blair was named winner of the prestigious Liberty Medal last night by America's National Constitution Centre for "his steadfast commitment to conflict resolution" in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
Legal advice: What Attorney General said before the Blair-Bush summit...
30.07.02: Goldsmith's advice to the Prime Minister
"The key issue here is whether an attack is imminent. The development of WMD is not in itself sufficient to indicate such imminence. On the basis of the material which I have been shown – and I appreciate that there may be other documentation which I have not seen – there would not be any grounds for regarding an Iraqi use of WMD as imminent.
"My view therefore is that in the absence of a fresh resolution by the Security Council which would at least involve a new determination of a material and flagrant breach, military action would be unlawful. Even if there were such a resolution, but one which did not explicitly authorise the use of force, it would remain highly debatable whether it legitimised military action – but without it the position is, in my view, clear."
14.01.03: Attorney General's advice to the PM, after Resolution 1441 is passed by the UN
"It is clear that Resolution 1441 contains no express authorisation by the Security Council for the use of force.
"However, the authorisation to use force contained in Resolution 678 (1990) may revive where the Security Council has stated that there has been a breach of the ceasefire conditions imposed on Iraq by Resolution 687 (1991).
"But the revival argument will not be defensible if the Council has made it clear either that action short of the use of force should be taken to ensure compliance with the terms of the ceasefire. In conclusion therefore, my opinion is that Resolution 1441 does not revive the authorisation to use of force contained in Resolution 678 in the absence of a further decision of the Security Council."
18.10.02: Record of Attorney General's telephone conversation with the Foreign Secretary
"The Attorney explained that he was concerned by reports he had received that the Prime Minister had indicated to President Bush that he would join them in acting without a second Security Council decision if Iraq did not comply with the terms of a resolution in the terms of the latest US draft. In the Attorney's view, OP10 of the current draft would not be sufficient to authorise the use of force without a second resolution.
"The Foreign Secretary explained the political dimension. He was convinced that the strategy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the US was right politically. It was also important to obtain a decent Security Council resolution.
"The Attorney understood and endorsed the politics behind the Government's approach. It was obviously important to get Bush on side behind a second UN resolution. He was not concerned about what Ministers said externally, up to a point. The Government must, however, not fall into the trap of believing that it was in a position to take action which it could not take. Nor must HMG promise the US government that it can do things which the Attorney considers to be unlawful."
Letter to the Prime Minister – 30.01.2003 (Day before meeting with Bush in White House.)
"In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the Security Council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq.
"You should be aware that, notwithstanding the additional arguments put to me since our last discussion, I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of Resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a
further determination by the Security Council."
NB: later handwritten on top of note: "Specifically said we did not need further advice this week – Matthew 31/1." (No 10 aide, Matthew Rycroft)
... and afterwards
12.02.03: Goldsmith draft legal advice, after Blair meeting with Bush, and after Goldsmith's meetings with Jeremy Greenstock (UK ambassador to the United Nations)
"Since our meeting on 14 January I have had the benefit of discussions with the Foreign Secretary and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who have given me valuable background information on the negotiating history of Resolution 1441. In addition, I have also had the opportunity to hear the views of the US Administration from their perspective as co-sponsors of the resolution.
"Having regard to the arguments of our co-sponsors which I heard in Washington, I am prepared to accept that a reasonable case can be made that Resolution 1441 revives the authorisation to use force in Resolution 678.
"However, if action were to be taken without a further Security Council decision, particularly if the UK had tried and failed to secure the adoption of a second resolution, I would expect the Government to be accused of acting unlawfully. Therefore, if these circumstances arise, it will be important to ensure that the Government is in a position to put up a robust defence.
"I must stress that the lawfulness of military action depends not only on the existence of a legal basis, but also on the question of proportionality.
"This is not to say that action may not be taken to remove Saddam Hussein from power if it can be demonstrated that such action is a necessary and proportionate measure to secure the disarmament of Iraq. But regime change cannot be the objective of military action."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hom...15252.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

In establishment inquiry terms, even with a deck stacked to protect the powerful, this is a smoking gun. We shall see shortly whether the Chilcott Inquiry chooses to categorize it as such or not.

No more is needed.

In one damning letter to Mr Blair dated January 30, 2003 – less than two months before the invasion – Lord Goldsmith told him that UN resolution 1441, on which the government came to rely, ‘does not authorise the use of military force’.

Mr Blair scrawled in the margin of the letter: ‘I just don’t understand this.’
The same document exposes the huge irritation in Downing Street at the Attorney General’s reluctance to give the green light for an invasion.

No 10 aide Matthew Rycroft made clear that Lord Goldsmith’s missive was unwelcome.

‘[We] specifically said we did not need further advice [on] this matter,’ he wrote.
The word ‘not’ was underlined.

Blair was repeatedly told the war was illegal. He and his aides told Attorney General Goldsmith that they did not need to hear his advice.

Eventually, Goldsmith capitulated and changed his advice.

British soldiers and Iraqi men, women and children, are still dying every day as a result of moral cowardice and political ambition.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Iraq war inquiry: Blair government 'massaged' Saddam Hussein WMD threat

Former diplomat Carne Ross says exaggeration, accretion and editing of intelligence documents led to lies in threat assessment

Carne Ross said the government ‘intentionally and substantially’ exaggerated the threat from Saddam. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Tony Blair's government "intentionally and substantially" exaggerated assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction culminating in highly misleading statements about the threat that amounted to lies, the inquiry into the war in Iraq was told today

Carne Ross, a British diplomat to the UN who was responsible for Iraq in the runup to the invasion, said intelligence was "massaged" into "more robust and terrifying" statements about Saddam's supposed WMD.

In evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, which heard that the Foreign Office had objected to the release of documents that he wanted to disclose, Ross said: "This process of exaggeration was gradual and proceeded by accretion and editing from document to document, in a way that allowed those participating to convince themselves that they were not engaged in blatant dishonesty."

He added: "But this process led to highly misleading statements about the UK assessment of the Iraqi threat that were, in their totality, lies."

In an example of what he called a process of "deliberate public exaggeration", Ross said the government in March 2002 sent the parliamentary Labour party a paper that included the claim that "if Iraq's weapons programmes remained unchecked, Iraq could develop a crude nuclear device in about five years".

He said the government's real assessment was more or less the opposite: that sanctions were effectively preventing Iraq from developing a nuclear capability.

The statement to the PLP was "purely hypothetical", said Ross, "and was true in 1991 as it was in 2002; there was no evidence at either point that Iraq was close to obtaining the necessary material". A senior Foreign Office official sent a minute to an adviser to Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, warning about the discrepancy in the memo to the PLP. But, Ross told the inquiry, the official was ignored.

Ross, who resigned from the Foreign Office in 2002, said co-ordinated action to prevent exports from Iraq and target Saddam's illegal revenues could have been an alternative to military action. It was a "disgrace" that Britain did not exhaust all peaceful options before going to war, he said.

"There was no deliberate discussion of available alternatives to military action in advance of the 2003 invasion," he said. "There is no record of that discussion, no official has referred to it, no minister has talked about it, and that seems to me to be a very egregious absence in this history – that at some point a government before going to war should stop and ask itself, 'are there available alternatives?'"

The Foreign Office had also asked him to redact information relating to a proposal to seize illegal bank accounts held by Saddam in Jordan, Ross told the inquiry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/12...carne-ross

For a full transcript of his testimony, see here:

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/4753...tement.pdf

[Jan Klimkowski]

Iraq inquiry: Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat

The invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK, the former head of MI5 has said.

Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the action had radicalised "a few among a generation".

As a result, she said she was not "surprised" that UK nationals were involved in the 7/7 bombings in London.

She said she believed the intelligence on Iraq's threat was not "substantial enough" to justify the action.

Baroness Manningham-Buller said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited", and she believed that assessment had "turned out to be the right judgement".

Describing the intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat as "fragmentary", she said: "If you are going to go to war, you need to have a pretty high threshold to decide on that."

The Chilcot inquiry is continuing to hear evidence about decisions taken in the build-up to the invasion and its aftermath.

Baroness Manningham-Buller, head of the domestic intelligence service between 2002 and 2007, said the terrorist threat to the UK from al-Qaeda and other groups "pre-dated" the Iraq invasion and also the 9/11 attacks in the US.

'Terrorist impetus'

However, she said the UK's participation in the March 2003 military action "undoubtedly increased" the level of terrorist threat.

A year after the invasion, she said MI5 was "swamped" by leads about terrorist threats to the UK.

"Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam," she said, before immediately correcting herself by adding "not a whole generation, a few among a generation".

The ex-MI5 chief said she shared her concerns that the Iraq invasion would increase the UK's exposure to terrorism with the then home secretary David Blunkett, but did not "recall" discussing the matter with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

MI5 did not "foresee the degree to which British citizens would become involved" in terrorist activity after 2004, she admitted.

"What Iraq did was produce fresh impetus on people prepared to engage in terrorism," she said, adding that she could produce evidence to back this up.

"The Iraq war heightened the extremist view that the West was trying to bring down Islam. We gave Bin Laden his jihad."

Budget increase

Lady Manningham-Buller said MI5 was given a budget increase after 9/11 and again in 2002 but the agency still needed far greater resources as a result of the Iraq invasion.

"By 2003 I found it necessary to ask the prime minister for a doubling of our budget," she said. "This is unheard of, certainly unheard of today, but he and the Treasury and the chancellor accepted that, because I was able to demonstrate the scale of the problem that we were confronted by."

Baroness Manningham-Buller was part of the government's Joint Intelligence Committee before the war, which drew up the controversial dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in September 2002. The dossier stated the weapons could be activated with 45 minutes of an order to do so.

Asked about the dossier, she said she had very limited involvement in its compilation but it was clear, with hindsight, that there was an "over-reliance" on certain intelligence.

She added: "We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence into it and we refused because we did not think that it was reliable."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10693001

What did PM Blair say? Oh yeah:

"The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons."

Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 400, col. 123.
House of Commons statement on Iraq, 25 February 2003.

"If we don't act now, we can't keep those people down there forever. We can't wait forever. If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."

Prime Minister's website
Appearing in "MTV Forum - Is War the Answer?", recorded on 6 March 2003, transmitted on 11 March 2003.

"The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."

In Tony Blair's foreword to the "dodgy dossier".

The Head of MI5 knew Blair was lying.

And did nothing. Apart from asking for a budget increase. :call:

A plague on both their houses.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Chilcot inquiry: Iraq expert Carne Ross claims civil servants are withholding vital documents

Britain's 'deep state' of secretive bureaucrats is denying witnesses to the Chilcot inquiry crucial files

I testified last week to the Chilcot inquiry. My experience demonstrates an emerging and dangerous problem with the process. This is not so much a problem with Sir John Chilcot and his panel, but rather with the government bureaucracy – Britain's own "deep state" – that is covering up its mistakes and denying access to critical documents.

There is only one solution to this problem, and it requires decisive action.

After I was invited to testify, I was contacted by the Foreign Office, from which I had resigned after giving testimony to the Butler inquiry in 2004, to offer its support for my appearance. I asked for access to all the documents I had worked on as Britain's Iraq "expert" at the UN Security Council, including intelligence assessments, records of discussions with the US, and the long paper trail on the WMD dossier.

Large files were sent to me to peruse at the UK mission to the UN. However, long hours spent reviewing the files revealed that most of the key documents I had asked for were not there.

In my testimony I had planned to detail how the UK government failed to consider, let alone implement, available alternatives to military action. To support this I had asked for specific records relating to the UK's failure to deal with the so-called Syrian pipeline, through which Iraq illegally exported oil, thereby sustaining the Saddam regime. I was told that specific documents, such as the records of prime minister Tony Blair's visit to Syria, could not be found. This is simply not plausible.

I had also asked for all the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments on Iraq, some of which I helped prepare. Of dozens of these documents, only three were provided to me – 40 minutes before I was due to appear before the Chilcot panel.

Playing by the rules, I had submitted my written testimony to Chilcot before my appearance. In the hours before my appearance, invited to visit the Foreign Office to see further documents (mostly irrelevant), an official repeatedly sought to persuade me to delete references to certain documents in my testimony.

He told me that the Cabinet Office wanted the removal of a critical reference in my evidence to a memo from a senior Foreign Office official to the foreign secretary's special adviser, in which the official pointed out, with mandarin understatement, that the paper sent that week to the Parliamentary Labour Party dramatically – and inaccurately – altered the UK's assessment of Iraq's nuclear threat.

In a clear example of the exaggeration of Iraq's military capabilities, that paper claimed that if Iraq's programmes remained unchecked, it could develop a nuclear device within five years.

The official's memo pointed out that this was not, in fact, the UK assessment: the UK believed that Iraq's nuclear programme had been checked by sanctions.

The paper to the PLP was instead sent by the foreign secretary to "brief" the wider cabinet. This paper was pure overstated propaganda, filled with ludicrous statements like "one teaspoon of anthrax can kill a million people". The paper was soon made public, as part of the campaign to create public hysteria.

The official's memo about the PLP paper contained nothing secret. It relates to a public document, the PLP paper. Yet, of all the references in my testimony, this was the one that the Cabinet Office most wanted removed. I refused. Strikingly, this memo has never been mentioned to the inquiry, including by its author, who testified earlier this year. Neither has the author of the PLP paper been questioned, or the paper itself discussed.

I was repeatedly warned by inquiry staff not to mention any classified material during my testimony. The only problem is that almost every document I ever wrote or read in my work was classified. It was made clear to me, and to journalists attending the hearing, that if I mentioned specific documents the broadcast of my testimony would be cut off. Other forms of retribution (Official Secrets Act prosecution?) hung in the air. It was a form of subtle intimidation.

Meanwhile, my requests to see documents about the infamous Number 10 WMD dossier were ignored, including requests for letters I had written.

This experience and the inquiry's record so far is cause for concern. It is clear from testimonies so far that most witnesses, most of whom went along with the war at the time, are offering a very one-sided account to the panel. A story is being peddled that sanctions on Iraq were collapsing and the allied policy of containment was failing. Thus, the military alternative to deal with the Iraqi threat was more or less unavoidable.

Though there is some truth to this argument, it was not what the Foreign Office, or the government as a whole, believed at the time. The true story is there to be seen in the documents. In memos, submissions to ministers and telegrams, the official view is very clear: while there was concern at the erosion of sanctions, containment had prevented Iraq from rearmament.

When invasion was promoted by Washington, the available alternative – to squeeze Saddam financially by stopping oil exports or seizing the regime's assets, which I and some colleagues had repeatedlyadvocated, was ignored. Here the documents tell a different but equally clear and appalling story: there is not a single mention of any formal discussion, by ministers or officials, of alternatives to military action. It is hard to pinpoint a graver indictment of the government's failure.

The oral testimonies delivered to the inquiry have not given an accurate picture of what the government really thought. Unfortunately, the panel is neither equipped, nor apparently inclined, to challenge witnesses on the contradictions of their testimonies with this documentary record. This may not be the panel's fault: how can they know which pertinent documents exist?

In these circumstances, it is very worrying that the government machine is still trying to withhold key documents, and silence those of us with detailed knowledge of the policy history – and documents. I have been told too, from secondary sources, that members of the panel have been refused documents they have specifically requested.

There is a clear solution to these problems: break down the continued obstruction by the bureaucracy by releasing the documents – all of them. Only the most secret documents deserve continued protection, and there are very few of these. The vast majority of relevant documents relate to policy discussion inside the government before the war. Though profoundly embarrassing, there is little here that damages national security, except in the hysterical assessment of officials protecting their own reputation. Nick Clegg said a few weeks ago that almost all documents must now be released. He is right.


Carne Ross was the UK's Iraq expert at the UN from 1997 to 2002. He now heads Independent Diplomat, a non-profit diplomatic advisory group

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/25...carne-ross

[Magda Hassan]

Iraq intelligence not 'very substantial' says Prescott

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Lord Prescott: "I felt a little bit nervous about the conclusions...of pretty limited intelligence"

The intelligence on Iraqis weapons threat was not "very substantial", former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott has said.
He told the Iraq inquiry he was "nervous" about the intelligence being presented in 2002 - some of which he said was based on "tittle-tattle".
However, he said he did not have the knowledge to challenge the assessments.
Lord Prescott said the US regarded UK attempts to get a UN solution to the crisis as a "diversion".
Lord Prescott, deputy prime minister between 1997 and 2007, is the last senior former Labour minister to be giving evidence to the Chico inquiry into the war.
'Sympathies' The inquiry is looking at the UK's role in the build-up to the war and the handling of its aftermath, and is expected to publish its report around the end of the year.
In an interview in December, Lord Prescott expressed some doubts about the war.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

I got the feeling that it was not very substantial”

End Quote Lord Prescott Former Deputy Prime Minister
However, he told the inquiry that MPs had backed the action and that "democratic accountability had been satisfied".
While former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had a "difficult decision" to make before deciding the war was legal, he said he accepted the judgement that military action was justified on basis of existing UN disarmament resolutions.
In his opening statement, he expressed his "deepest sympathies" to the relatives of the 179 British service personnel killed in Iraq.
Lord Prescott, the final witness in the current round of public hearings, said he attended 23 out of 28 Cabinet meetings which discussed UK policy towards Iraq as well as holding a number of private meetings with Mr Blair.
Intelligence doubts Asked about the intelligence shown to ministers about Iraq in 2002, Mr Prescott said he had no reason to believe that it was not "robust".
While he had "no evidence" to suggest Joint Intelligence Committee assessments were wrong, he said he was a "little bit nervous about the conclusions based on what was pretty limited intelligence".
"When I kept reading them, I kept thinking to myself, 'is this intelligence?", he said.
Describing this intelligence as "basically what you have heard somewhere and what somebody else has told somebody", he suggested the conclusions drawn on the back of it "were a little ahead" of the evidence.
"So I got the feeling it wasn't very substantial," he said.
"I think, in 2004, by JIC to look at the recommendations they made to us were frankly wrong and built too much on a little information.
"That was my impression at the time but, you know, I just thought 'well this is the intelligence document, this is what you have'.
"It seems robust but not enough to justify to that. Certainly what they do in intelligence is a bit of tittle tattle here and a bit more information there."
However, he said he was certain that Saddam Hussein presented a real threat to regional security as he had attacked both Kuwait and Iran in recent years.
UN discussions He said the UK's "priority" was to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis and suggested it was a "real achievement" for Tony Blair to persuade the US to try and get UN support for action against Iraq.
But he said US policy towards Iraq had been one of regime change since the Clinton presidency and that the Bush administration did not want to be "diverted" from this course by diplomatic negotiations.
From conversations with former US Vice President Dick Cheney - who he described as a "hard-liner" - he said he got the impression that Iraq was "unfinished business" for the US.
He described UK-led efforts to get a second UN resolution in early 2003 specifically authorising military action as "absolutely critical".
"We did really need it," he said.
He said he had learnt an "awful lot" from the inquiry to date about government decision-making in respect to Iraq and acknowledged criticism that Mr Blair made decisions via a close-knit circle of aides as part of a "sofa government".
He also said that he was asked by Mr Blair to try and persuade former foreign secretary Robin Cook not to resign from the Cabinet over the issue.
There may be extra hearings in the autumn, when previous witnesses - including Mr Blair and his successor Gordon Brown - could be recalled to give further evidence.
Mr Brown commissioned the inquiry in June 2009.

[Malcolm Pryce]

Watching him smirk and joke about a war that killed hundreds of thousands was stomach-turning. As for describing the attorney general as "not a happy bunny", well, what can you say? Is it possible to imagine a more inappropriate use of language? Clearly a man who has no conception of what he unleashed, or the depth of our anger.

[Magda Hassan]

Yes Malcolm, stomach churning it is. However such behavior as Blairs' is pretty par for the course for a sociopath, which he is. The same can be said about the moral cowards who permitted him to get away with such outrageous criminal behaviour.

[Danny Jarman]

UK diplomat: ‘Deep state’ bureaucracy blocking Iraq inquiry

Britain's public inquiry into the country's instrumental role in the Iraq invasion is being thwarted by "deep state" bureaucrats who are intimidating witnesses and withholding documents, says a former Iraq expert for the UK government.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0725/deep-st...q-inquiry/