UK Iraq inquiry delay ‘incomprehensible’

The long-awaited report of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war will not be published until after the general election in May because of continuing delays in the process.

Six years after the inquiry was created, panel chairman Sir John Chilcot will today set out his reasons why its findings still cannot be made public in an exchange of letters with former British prime minister David Cameron.

British government sources indicated Mr Cameron will tell Mr Chilcot he would have liked the report to have been published already and certainly released before the election.

But Mr Cameron, who spoke in the Commons earlier this month of his “immense frustration” at the delays, will also make clear that as it is an independent inquiry it is for Mr Chilcot to decide when he is ready to publish.

In a letter last night to the inquiry chairman, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said the public would find the latest delay “incomprehensible” and called on Mr Chilcot to set out “a much clearer and more defined timetable” with strict deadlines and a firm date for publication.

He claimed that the public would assume that the report is being “sexed down” by key individuals expected to face criticism.

“Neither administrative processes nor a constant back and forth between the inquiry and witnesses criticised should frustrate an independent report so important to the country’s future from being published as soon as possible,” he wrote.

“If the findings are not published with a sense of immediacy, there is a real danger the public will assume the report is being ‘sexed down’ by individuals rebutting criticisms put to them by the inquiry, whether that is the case or not.

“The inquiry into Iraq will both resolve the issues of the past and set the tone for future British foreign policy. We cannot wait any longer for these lessons to be learned.”

The inquiry was established by then prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009 and took public evidence from its last witness in 2011.

It became increasingly clear that the report was unlikely to be made public before the election after ministers said in October that it would have to be released before the end of February if it was not to impinge upon the electoral process.

Publication has been held up by wrangling over the release of confidential messages between Tony Blair and former US president George Bush and the so-called “Maxwellisation” process by which people who are criticised in the report are given the chance to respond.

Mr Chilcot finally accepted an agreement whereby he would publish the “gist” of the communications between Mr Blair and Mr Bush after British cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood blocked the publication of the full exchanges.

However, the protracted dispute — and the need to declassify thousands of official papers — further delayed the start of the Maxwellisation process, putting back the eventual publication date.

The disclosure that it will not happen before polling day came as MPs prepared to stage a Commons debate next week on the hold-ups.

Senior Tory backbencher David Davis, who was the driving force behind the staging of the debate, said it was “incomprehensible” that it would have to wait until the next parliament.

"Frankly this is not good enough. It is more than five years since it started," he told The Guardian.

“We need to know why. This is not simply some formality. This is for the whole country to understand why we made a terrible mistake in Iraq. Simply putting it off is not good enough.

“Why has this taken so long? What is going on that is preventing this? The report was created in the first place by a Labour government in order to get an understanding of what went wrong. I can think of no reason why this should be deferred.”

Critics have pointed the finger at Mr Blair, who is widely expected to be criticised in the report for seeking to slow down the process — a claim the former prime minister has strongly rejected.

Mr Heywood will be questioned by MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee next week and the cross-party group may also write to Mr Chilcot about the delay.

Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think we deserve an explanation, he (Mr Chilcot) is going to give an explanation in writing. That may give rise to correspondence between my committee and him. We haven't done that so far.

“We have got the cabinet secretary coming in front of my committee next Tuesday, he may be able to shed some light on this.”

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve told the BBC: “What I don’t understand is when did the process of consulting the people who might be criticised in this report actually commence? Because I would have expected it to be possible to have done that in the course of the autumn and to have published this report before Christmas.”

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tim Farron told Today: "We understand that witnesses involved in the inquiry, very well known names of course ... are pushing the thing back and forth, presumably seeking to — dare I say — water down the strength of the criticism against them."

He added: “This is not about digging up ancient history. This is about learning the lessons from something that affects all of us today.

“There are the parents of people whose lives were lost in Iraq, our servicemen and women, there are soldiers today and indeed people across the country who want answers to why we went into an illegal war in Iraq, the consequences of which are felt today.

“Britain’s standing in the world and our insecurity today is in no small part fed by the fact that Britain and America engaged in an illegal war in Iraq that threatened the security of every Western citizen.”

SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie said he was “deeply frustrated and incredibly disappointed” by the delay.

He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland that the Inquiry was established "to provide the answers to the public, the millions who protested against the war" about the cause of the conflict.

The nationalist MP said: “It stopped taking public evidence four years ago and to have this interminable delay and them this bombshell three and a half months before the election that it won’t be published is extraordinarily disappointing.

“Years and years and years have gone by and this is at the point where frankly it’s unacceptable.”

Mr Hosie insisted the report should have been made public before the election, so voters could “make a judgment” on those who supported the Iraq war and those who had opposed the conflict — as the SNP did.

“To have it pulled apparently such a short time before the election it really is a scandal,” he said.

“The public opposition to that war was such, and the demand for answers was so intense, that there is almost a duty of government for Chilcot to publish as quickly as is humanly possible.

“To have an announcement now, three and a half months before the election, that it won’t be is very very troubling indeed.”

PA