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Iraq War Inquiry Opens in UK
A public inquiry into the UK's role in the Iraq war has opened in London, with former civil servants first to appear in hearings that will climax with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, taking the stand.
Anti-war protesters from the 'Stop the War' group, wearing masks depicting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, right, former US president George W. Bush, center and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, pose for the photographers, outside the conference center where the Iraq war inquiry ia taking place, in central London, Tuesday Nov. 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) One-time senior officials from the foreign and defence ministries
will outline Britain's policy towards Baghdad in early 2000, as the
five-member committee investigates what lessons can be learned from the
US-led war.
John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman and a former civil servant, said he was confident of producing a "full and insightful" account of the decision-making that led Britain to join the 2003 invasion against strong opposition at home and abroad.
An appearance by Blair, who took Britain into the conflict, is likely to be the highlight of the inquiry, although he and other Labour government figures are not due to give evidence until next year.
'Unprecedented' inquiry
Shane Greer, executive editor of Total Politics,
a British political magazine and website, told Al Jazeera that he
believes the inquiry will uncover new information about the Iraq war.
"First of all the scope of this inquiry is absolutely unprecedented.
"Already back in July Sir John [Chilcot] began speaking with families of injured and killed soldiers ... now he's going onto the spy chiefs, civil servants ... and moving onto politicians.
"So I think we're going to see much more from this inquiry than any previous inquiry, because of course the frame of reference is so much wider, the access to information is so much wider.
"And also the inquiry has been given the power to apportion blame which really is quite incredible."
'No trial'
Chilcot has said that nobody will be on trial in the inquiry, held at a conference centre near parliament in central London, but has also vowed not to shy away from any criticism if the findings warrant it.
"No-one is on trial here. We cannot determine guilt or innocence. Only a court can do that.
"But I make a commitment here that once we get to our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms, either of institutions or processes or individuals, where they are truly warranted," he said in opening remarks.Chilcot and his fellow committee members have already met families of some of the 179 British troops who died during the six-year conflict, who raised issues about whether they were properly equipped and trained.
The inquiry will also look into the justification for the war, principally the claim that Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, had weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found.
Among the first witnesses to be called on Tuesday is Peter Ricketts, who chaired the government's senior intelligence committee between 2000 and 2001 before taking a senior post at the Foreign Office (FCO) between 2001 and 2003.
Also due to present statements at the hearing are William Patey, the former head of the FCO's Middle East department; Simon Webb, the fomer head of operational policy at the Ministry of Defence; and Michael Wood, an former FCO legal adviser.
War 'legality'
Families of soldiers who died in the conflict have said they want "honest" answers from the inquiry.
Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon died in Iraq in 2004, said: "We do hope that the committee are going to be honest ... I don't know why he died until the end of this inquiry," she said.
Demonstrators have protested outside the conference venue, with some dressed up as former US and UK leaders with blood on their hands.
Anti-war campaigners are calling for a ruling on the legality of the conflict, which was carried out without explicit approval by the United Nations Security Council.
Two official investigations into the run-up to the war have already taken place, but ministers had refused to hold a full inquiry until after the military deployment had ended.
Analysts have said the inquiry is incapable of addressing the key issue of whether the invasion was legal, because of a lack of lawyers and judges on its six-member committee.
An unnamed senior judge told The Guardian newspaper that analysing the war's legality was beyond the committee's competence.
Source: Agencies- Posted in
17 Comments so far
Show AllShame! The Iraq war pushed by Bush-Cheney_Blair lies takes us on a slippery slope of more such shameful dying by our young.
"The inquiry will also look into the justification for the war, principally the claim that Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, had weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found."
Not exactly true. There were component parts for weapons, particularly biological weapons - anthrax and other agents, that were guarded by UN inspectors (what's Scott Ritter up to these days anyway?). These sites were abandoned and subsequently looted when coalition forces dismissed the inspectors. We know this because the UN kept monitoring these sites via sattelite. So the main purpose for invading, stopping the spread of Saddam's WMD to terrorists, was defeated by the actions of the invaders. Ironic, no?
Components of weaponry that were found were out of date -- critically so in the case of anthrax and similar bio weapons, which expire.
What was claimed was that the Iraqis had currently viable weapons, not that they had owned such things once upon a time.
"Clear and present danger," which means weapons are ready to be utilized via their delivery systems. Check that last item--delivery systems. Iraq had none for its non-existent weapons. Enough information is in the public domain to inform us that BushCo and Blair *KNEW* the weapons and their delivery systems *DIDN'T* exist. There is also enough information in the public domain to tell us the war was waged in an attempt to control oil flow rates now and in the future, as both the US and UK know all about the peaking of global oil supplies. Michael Klare has written extensively on the real reason for the Iraq Holocaust. The targeting of Iraq's civilians through the poisoning of their water by not allowing its purification and poisoning the land with depleted uranium in the hope that cancers in the longrun will decimate the Iraqi population to the point where no internal resistence will be possible when the US and UK reinvade is the biggest war crime committed since Hitler, and its coverup is of supreme importance.
That's correct--I said reinvade. This will occur after Iraq's oil extraction rates have at least doubled to over 5 million barrels per day from its current rate and several millions more have died through the poisonings noted above, about ten years from now, which is the current date for being finished in AfPak.
And we shouldn't forget the guilt of Anzar, Howard and Berlusconi(sp), nor the cowardice of Russia, China, Japan and the EU. GHW Bush, Clinton and others from their administrations should also be added to the dock and charged with War Crimes.
The US spent almost $1 billion on two exhaustive searches for WMD after the fighting ended. "Interim Progress Report of the Iraq Survey Group (David Kay,Oct,2003)and "Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq's WMD" (Charles Deulfer, Sept.,2004). One half of the house wives in the US have the ingredients to create chlorine gas. That does not make them terrorists. Most of the ingredients found in Iraq were from a factory that made insecticide. The neo-cons to this day grasp at straws and willingly state that all the WMD was slipped into Syria by Saddam Hussein. The CIA told the White House six months before the war started that Iraq had no WMD and the reply back was,"We are no longer interested in WMD, we are going for regime change. The neo-cons practically slobbered all over themselves when some old artillery shells with nerve gas was found by our soldiers. They were left overs from the Iran-Iraq War and they determined that the nerve gas had been degraded because of excessive heat.
Gee, maybe Western Civilization will be a good idea - or involve one.
Peace is when the young bury the old.
War is when the old bury the young.
Let's all work for peace.
Hopefully this is part of the crack in the power dam protecting USA war criminals.
When a country becomes weaker other countries begin to prosecute the weakening nation's war criminals, as are Italy and soon Lithuania; did the Spanish inquiries get totally quashed?
Post invasion the monetarily largest bank robbery in history happened in Bagdad, looting of ancient treasures in the Museum, looting of an unguarded warehouse containing tons of the highest tech plastics available(IED material)and nuclear research facilities left unguarded.
The article concludes with the following.
"Analysts have said the inquiry is incapable of addressing the key issue of whether the invasion was legal, because of a lack of lawyers and judges on its six-member committee.
An unnamed senior judge told The Guardian newspaper that analysing the war's legality was beyond the committee's competence."
BS! If I and many other citizens have been able to analyse the war's legality, and we have, and it was easier than making pie, then the inquiry can certainly examine the question of whether or not the war was legal, or not. Just because self-righteous or pointy-headed analysts and self-righteous judges pretend that we don't have the competence for determining whether the war was legal, or not, does not mean that these jerks are telling the TRUTH, which they're not doing. They're just pointy-headed and self-righteous jerks who allow titles, often undeserved and should-be relinquished titles, to fog up their thinking abilities; if they really ever had any worthy of respectable note anyway.
MY ASS(!) we don't have the competence to judge these criminals who launched and commanded these undeniably criminal and illegal wars! My ass has more brains than these pointy-headed and self-righteous idiots possess in their entire bodies.
How many lawyers and judges sit on juries, which are rightly described as the anchor of western juris prudence?
I had thought of the jury point or argument and just didn't include it, so you're right to bring it up, imo.
Do lawyers and judges never sit on juries? Certainly not on cases they're defending or prosecuting, or judging, or presiding over, but what about cases unrelated to their specific assignments? I don't know. Maybe it always is only ordinary citizens who sit on juries.
Regardless of whether lawyers and judges sometimes sit on juries, or not, ordinary citizens regularly make up a large percentage of the jurists, and we can certainly consider ourselves as members of the international jury judging these war crimes. A good example of a more official international movement of such jurists is found in the videos for the Perdana War Crimes Conference and Exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Feb. 5-7 2007. The videos, .wmv files, for the many speakers at the conference are available in the videos page of www.perdana4peace.org and there are copies viewable online at Youtube and probably some other websites for at least some of those videos.
The Japanese started a similar movement or held a similar conference in 2002. Probably people from other countries joined, but this was initiated by Japanese activists; I believe including some members of the political offices in Japan.
All of us have an inalienable right to judge these war crimes when we know enough about them to be qualifiable as jurists making these types of decisions. If not, then it'd be hypocritical to allow trials by jury at any time; and eliminating trial by juries would be tyranical, etcetera, even if juries, like in the U.S., too often arrive at decisions based on racial discrimination. The latter is a problem that mustn't be repeated, but isn't a reason to eliminate use of trials by juries.
Based on the findings of earlier British inquiries, we can expect this one to be more Kabuki Theater; lots of noise but no meaningful results or charges.
The US and UK have been rehearsing the known conclusion for some time now. Blair will put on his usual academy award performance, that will act as publicity for his upcoming memoirs. He will walk away a very rich man.
Blair And Bush two born again morons plotting together their christian crusade in Iraq and I will believe in international justice when evil basturds like them are put on trial but not before.
i think the plan is to spend a long time sifting through papers, and then, after a couple years, to issue a report like the 911 commission- that is to say a whole lot of blather and no truth. i can hardly wait.
fry the nwo pondscum wherever they are - blair's a good start
V IS FOR VENGEANCE! TO BAD EVEN THOUGH IT WAS ON CABLE
HERE IN THE STATES NOBODY WATCHED! the whole world has
been seized by the elite!