Chilcot Iraq Enquiry.

[weltweit]

Starts taking evidence today.
Initially takes evidence on pre war period.

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

 

[Barking_Mad]

Listened to Radio 5 for a bit in the car whilst driving (phone-in). Sounded like the pre-war speil with the same lies being repeated as fact over and over without challenging them. Load of shite.

Anyhow, nobody is going to be convicted of war crimes, so there's no point in it, is there?

 

[bemused]

Waste of money.

 

[weltweit]

Apolitical - not a court of law, no one is on trial, cannot determine guilt or innocence, but final report will not shy of criticising individuals where necessary.

 

[Dan U]

it's going to be a complete whitewash.

i am struggling to get angry at it i think it's that much of a foregone conclusion

 

[elbows]

I dont expect it to be a complete whitewash, a partial one no doubt, but along the way some details will emerge that may be interesting.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Apolitical - not a court of law, no one is on trial, cannot determine guilt or innocence, but final report will not shy of criticising individuals where necessary.

Well, it is political. No getting around that. And somehow I think there may be a touch of shying - even given that the people conducting it are the establishment anyway.

We might get a few "ooh that was harsh" moments where they say things that everybody already knew anyway.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

It needn't be a whitewash. The Butler Enq. actually wasn't. He just couched the truth politely and no one took him up on what was presented to push towards the war crimes trials that are the only conclusion approaching acceptable.

I expect this will be similar - more evidence that Blair, Straw and others should be at The Hague but no actual realisation of it. A nation of cowards, which is why the banks and politicians get away with rippiing us off left, right and centre.

 

[elbows]

I expect this will be similar - more evidence that Blair, Straw and others should be at The Hague but no actual realisation of it. A nation of cowards, which is why the banks and politicians get away with rippiing us off left, right and centre.

Insert Madonna quote about 'wanting to be like Gandhi or John Lennon but dont want to be killed' here.

 

[little_legs]

Waste of money.

Ditto. I would prefer if they'd spend the money that will be inquiry will cost to build a couple of new schools in remote areas in Iraq.

 

[Badgers]

Ideally....

Blair found guilty
He runs off to the USA to try and escape prosecution
British troops are pulled out of Afghanistan in defiance of the USA
Blair's British citizenship is revoked
The Belgravia Squatters move into his Connaught Square house
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is closed down
Oddly the Middle East advise the world they no longer require an envoy
Blair sleeps on George Bush's couch and George walks in on him getting his tops and fingers off Jenna Bush with Cheney wanking in the corner one morning
The world laughs

Not justice per se but a cheery outcome

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rth-WMD-risk-list-inquiry-hears.html#comments

This is how disgusting Labour are : Even the Mail can rip them to bits.

 

[glenquagmire]

Grrrrrrrrrrr ANGRY

 

[likesfish]

should be able to nail him No good good reason to go to war.
crap planning for said war that we would have lost if the iraqi could fight.
complete lack of planning for what happens after war.

 

[butchersapron]

It's not there to 'nail him' Brown has repeatedly emphasized that the Inquiry cannot "apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability." and there is no intention to attempt to do so. The stated intention is to uncover "lessons learned" i.e how they can better get away with this sort of deception in the future or make sure that the same/similar aims are more effectively met The only way anyone will be 'nailed' is by critical independent research of the new documents made public.

Going back to Butler, it was a white-wash - and one of the White-washers was...John Chilcot.

 

[elbows]

There have already been some memorable quotes from the enquiry:

Referring to a subsequent conversation he had with a leading US government official about Saddam Hussein, Sir Christopher added: "I didn't say just we are with you on regime change, now let's go get the bastard. We didn't do that. What we said 'let's do it cleverly and let's do it with some skill'. That means, apart from anything else, go the UN and get a security council resolution."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8380139.stm

 

[weltweit]

11 months before the war Blair and Bush may have agreed on "regime change" in private meetings at the Crawford ranch.

 

[Kaka Tim]

It's not there to 'nail him' Brown has repeatedly emphasized that the Inquiry cannot "apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability." and there is no intention to attempt to do so. The stated intention is to uncover "lessons learned" i.e how they can better get away with this sort of deception in the future or make sure that the same/similar aims are more effectively met The only way anyone will be 'nailed' is by critical independent research of the new documents made public.

Going back to Butler, it was a white-wash - and one of the White-washers was...John Chilcot.

Exactly - it bollocks. Its designed to bury the whole bloody mess. The furthest it will go will be to say somthing like

"systamaitc faliures in the relationship between the intelligence services and the government and 'mistakes' in how that information was used - that mistakes were made in the execution of the war and its aftermath - that reasons for going to war were confused"-

It will not say the what everyone knows anyway - that Blair deliberately misled the country in order wage an illegal, unjustified war that was about control of Iraqs oil resources and gaining a military presence in a strategically vital region of the world. And that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and made the UK a prime target for radical islamists.

 

[bemused]

Ditto. I would prefer if they'd spend the money that will be inquiry will cost to build a couple of new schools in remote areas in Iraq.

Would be better spent there at least. None of these enquiries has ever produced anything worthwhile.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The only way anyone will be 'nailed' is by critical independent research of the new documents made public.

I was just going to post something about how this is the only good that could come out of it - the occasional detail revealed that can be used in some other way.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

....as the facade of democracy wears thin.....

 

[weltweit]

I have a nasty suspicion that all the truly revealing documents will have long since been shredded.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, would anyone be at all surprised if it turned out to be another whitewash?

 

[weltweit]

I would be very dissapointed if it turned out to be another whitewash.

But if it does not put Blair in the dock I will not be very surprised, he is after all, teflon coated!

 

[Barking_Mad]

The only solution is to kill Blair.

What? Not legal you say?

 

[butchersapron]

I would be very dissapointed if it turned out to be another whitewash.

But if it does not put Blair in the dock I will not be very surprised, he is after all, teflon coated!

It's not putting anyone in the dock. It can't.

 

[elbows]

It would probably be more useful if all those people who were in favour of the war had not completely melted away once no WMD were found. I wasnt on U75 at the time but on another forum the change was shocking, the drooling warmongers who had shouted so loud were suddenly nowhere to be found.

 

[London_Calling]

Unless the Law of Unexpected Consequences kicks in with something pretty dramatic, it struck me this is effectively going to be the Trial of Tony Blair - actually as close as we'll ever get to a trial: To borrow from Harriet Harman 'In the court of public opinion . . .' It is implicitly all about (b) Blair, and (c) the UK's subservience to US foreign policy.

It's also interesting to note the initial tone set by Whitehall mandarins.

Imo, the conclusions have to be a whitewash, but the process itself might be enough to reconfigure UK policy in relation to USA foreign policy goals. Fingers crossed though for the unexpected.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

London Calling

I think it looks the way you describe, but if that happens i.e even more evidence of Blair's guilt but a whitewash conclusion, it will just stick it even more in people's face that criminal governments get clean away with it. They must assume we are too docile to act, just like over the banks.

 

[elbows]

Imo, the conclusions have to be a whitewash, but the process itself might be enough to reconfigure UK policy in relation to USA foreign policy goals. Fingers crossed though for the unexpected.

That may be a tall order considering the underlying reasons why we are subservient to the USA havent really changed. And US policy has changed style anyway, with the Obama years being about restoring credibility and doing things in a style that happens to be far more compatible with European sentiments anyway.