PROTESTERS GATHERED in Parliament Square, Westminster, yesterday as British prime minister Gordon Brown confirmed that a new independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be conducted in private.
The inquiry – covering the period from September 2001, in the run-up to the war, to July this year, when the last British troops will leave Iraq – will be headed by Sir John Chilcot, the former permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Office.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as some Labour MPs, have repeatedly demanded an inquiry into the war, and the decision-making processes in the build-up to then prime minister Tony Blair’s decision to commit British forces.
However, they were not appeased by yesterday’s long-awaited announcement, nor by Mr Brown’s assurance that the “independent privy council committee of inquiry” would be fully independent of the government and, in publishing its final report, would withhold only “the most sensitive information”.
Stop The War Coalition campaigner Lindsey German branded the latest inquiry “another whitewash”. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg focused on the proposed secret hearings and Mr Brown’s assertion that the inquiry committee’s purpose should be to identify “lessons learned” rather than to “apportion blame”.
Mr Clegg said: “I am staggered that the prime minister is seeking to compound the error, fatal to so many of Britain’s sons and daughters, by covering up the path that led to it.”
The Lib Dem leader insisted that “the government must not be able to close the book on this war as it opened it – in secret”, arguing: “To rebuild public trust, this inquiry must be held in public.”
Conservative leader David Cameron, meanwhile, suggested there was a danger the public would think the inquiry “fixed” because the committee would not report until after the general election, so enabling the Labour government to avoid “having to face up to any inconvenient conclusions” reached.
Mr Brown told MPs that, with the British mission in Iraq now over, this was “the right time to ensure we have a proper process in place to learn the lessons”. The inquiry would be “fully independent of government”, with its scope covering an eight-year period “unprecedented”. The prime minister said: “The committee will have access to the fullest range of information, including secret information. Their investigation can range across all documents, all papers and all material. No British documents, and no British witness, will be beyond the scope of the inquiry.”
The inquiry was expected to report after July of next year – that is after the last possible date for a general election. While the inquiry would not hear evidence in public, Mr Brown said its report would be published, with only “the most sensitive information” held back.