Results tagged “Iraq inquiry” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

I would love to know how much this Government has spent on whitewash, particularly as they must have ordered another tanker-load for Gordon Brown's newly announced Iraq inquiry.

This inquiry will be in private and will report after the next General Election when no doubt Gordon will already be coining it in on the board of some multinational bank or indeed several with taxpayer's cash safe and sound in the vaults.

All his rhetoric about cleaning up Government, transparency and the usual other cobblers about open government, with of course world class added regularly, that any of New Labour's snake oil salesmen spout whenever a notebook, microphone or camera appears, lasted less than a week.

An independent inquiry into the Iraq war by a hand picked team which will be held in private. We could save a lot of time and money by just announcing the result now because I am sure the Government already know what that will be.

I suspect any intelligence considerations are a minor concern behind the reasons for secret hearings and next year's resultant cover up . . . but preserving reputations and burying the lies - that is a different matter. Some things are happier kept in the dark.

Saddam Hussein was a nasty piece of work but until he invaded Kuwait he was our nasty piece of work. He might have been a corrupt, brutal dictator but while he was taking on Iran and al Qaeda he was a tolerated tyrant and still on the Christmas card list - Kuwait changed all that.

The first Gulf War ended before Hussein was topped which left a decade of stand off between Hussein and the US. Iran had no more to do with 9/11 than the Isle of Man but it was the excuse, the catalyst, the White House needed to finish what George Bush senior had started but never completed in the first Gulf War - taking out Saddam Hussein.

When you embark on a war against a nation not threatening your borders and a war which has seen anywhere between 150,000 and 1,100,000 Iraqis killed - depends whose figures you believe - along with 5,000 or so allied troops and thousands more wounded then you really need better answers than discredited claims of weapons of mass destruction to explain why.

Cover-up has been the hallmark of this administration though. I suspect you would be hard pushed to find enough people to make up a game of bridge who actually believed the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly. It was a high profile death but somehow the Government decided, conveniently, that no inquest was necessary. Witnesses under oath, medical evidence that can be questioned, a jury . . . can't have that sort of thing!

This latest charade will do nothing to reduce the contempt with which we hold our politicians. Without a public, genuinely independent inquiry into the lead up to and the reasons for the Iraq War then the report is not worth the paper it is lied upon.