Blair Running Scared

The Observer's just broken this pretty shocking story. What's the real reason for Brown opting for a secret Iraq whitewash inquiry? Is it that Brown has something to hide himself? Probably, but no, not quite that. Is it because there was pressure brought to bear by a US government keen not to reopen old wounds? Absolutely not.

The real reason for the secret inquiry is that Brown did a deal with - guess who - Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. According to the Observer:

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.

The revelation that the former prime minister, who led the country to war in March 2003, had intervened will fuel the anger of MPs, peers, military leaders and former civil servants, who were appalled by Brown's decision last week to order the investigation to be conducted behind closed doors.

Blair, who resisted pressure for a full public inquiry while he was prime minister, appears to have taken a deliberate decision not to express his view in person to Brown because he feared it might leak out.

Instead, messages were relayed through others to Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, who conveyed them to the prime minister in the days leading up to last week's inquiry announcement.

The other parties are already up in arms about this, and Nick Clegg's reaction was pretty blunt:

"If this is true about Blair demanding secrecy, it is simply outrageous that an inquiry into the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez is being muzzled to suit the individual needs of the man who took us to war - Tony Blair."

Quite. It's another stitch-up from beginning to end. Just like the referendum on Europe, out-of-control public finances as Brown tries to buy himself a general election, the expenses scandal and a whole clutch of others. I suppose we should not expect anything more from the most corrupt and incompetent government in the history of Britain.

The Tories offer a faint glimmer of hope, though, as they have 'threatened' to widen the scope of the inquiry if Brown doesn't immediately perform an about-face. Good for them.

But Brown. Ah, Brown. Lying once again to House of Commons. Doing shady deals with his nemesis. Spinning his way into another media disaster. What a numpty.

"Security" was his excuse for holding a secret investigation, with no powers of subpoena and no witness oath, with a panel tainted by previous inquiries and a report delayed for a year. Well, people, now we know the real reason: one more small favour for his predecessor; one more giant insult to the people of the United Kingdom. Mind you, I doubt he did it willingly. Brown thought he had finally killed-off Blair once he'd knifed him in the back and stolen his crown. But it's never that easy with regicide. Ask Menzies Campbell.

As the only suitable role model for Brown I can think of would say:

The time has been,
That when the brains were out the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Blair's ghost has returned to haunt the usurper, mad McBrown. Seriously, though, just when you think this government cannot get any worse, something like this pops up. Incredible. Surreal.

Sickening.

Hutton II

The Grauniad's chief 'security' correspondant, Richard Norton-Taylor has written a thoughtful piece on the subject of Brown's latest attempt to pour oil on the turbulent water that is the Labour Party just now. After the announcement of a 'review' of the planned Post Office privatisation (designed to appease the Left) and Sunday's preparation for a U-turn on ID cards (designed to appease just about everyone in the country) we now have another half-baked policy shift, this time on Iraq. With the latter, though, it appears Brown has completely, rather than only partically, miscalculated public anger. Iraq is not Mandy's Mail or the no-brainer that is "NO2ID". Iraq was a terrible business, shady and perverse, organised by people who would go to any lengths to create the conflict and motivated by a combination of personal vengeance (on the part of Bush and his political allies) and utter, brainless, deadly vanity (on the part of Blair and his).

Norton-Taylor voices the scepticism any sane person will feel about Brown's latest volte-face this time on the subject of a new inquiry into Britain's worst war.

There really is no legitimate reason now for any of the inquiry into the invasion of Iraq to be held in private. Extremely sensitive information, intelligence material in particular, has already been disclosed, either here or in the US, by official inquiries or leaks.

The reason why the government wants it to be held behind closed doors – a weapon allowing Whitehall to control proceedings – is to enable it to protect itself, and individuals, from embarrassment. To drive home the point, the members of the inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot, the epitome of a Whitehall mandarin, will be made privy counsellors, told to swear an ancient oath of secrecy.

We already know a great deal about how the Iraqi banned weapons dossier was manipulated by Whitehall officials and intelligence chiefs, at the behest of their political masters – most notably, Tony Blair. We know from a leaked Dowing Street memo, marked " secret and strictly personal – UK eyes only", that, at a meeting Blair chaired on 23 July 2002, nearly a year before the invasion, Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, warned that in Washington "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy"; and Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, said "it seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action ... But the case was thin."

Lord Butler told the Guardian that his committee set up to investigate the use and abuse of intelligence in the build-up to the invasion had seen the document. He said his report did not refer to its contents on the grounds that they related to US use of intelligence, which was outside his terms of reference. The explanation is one reason why a fresh inquiry needs to be held in public. That Chilcot himself sat on the Butler committee hardly inspires confidence that this new inquiry will be any more penetrating.

Other leaked documents, which we can assume were also seen by Butler, include a letter in March 2002 from David Manning, then Blair's foreign policy adviser. He told Blair that he said to Condoleezza Rice: "You would not budge in your support for regime change [an objective Blair was advised was unlawful] but you had to manage a press, a parliament, and a public opinion which is very different than anything in the States". A few days later, Sir Christopher Meyer, our ambassador in Washington at the time, told Manning of the need to "wrongfoot Saddam on the [UN] inspectors".

The 23 July 2002 document also revealed that ministers were warned by their officials and the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, that an invasion to topple Saddam would be unlawful. Goldsmith eventually advised that invasion was lawful by reinterpreting an entirely different set of circumstances – namely, the scope of past UN security council resolutions.

We have a good idea through leaked documents that Blair made it pretty clear to Bush two years before the invasion that he would commit UK troops. We know, because senior MoD officials have admitted it, that equipment for British troops was ordered late because ministers did not want to suggest to MPs or the public they had decided to go to war months before the March 2003 invasion.

We know from leaked documents that some ministers warned Blair of the need to prepare for the consequences of an invasion. The warnings were ignored because Whitehall, and the Foreign Office in particular, did not have the stomach to take on the US. To prepare adequately for occupation of a foreign country is a duty imposed by the Geneva Conventions. Senior military officials have suggested Blair, and others, could be prosecuted for war crimes on this ground alone.

These are very serious issues to which answers have not been given by those, ministers and officials alike, directly involved. Senior diplomats and security and intelligence officers were deeply opposed to the invasion. This should been their opportunity to speak publicly for the first time. Alas, it will not be.

Brown's and Labour's motives for all these ridiculous policy shifts are eminently evident. There isn't a principle in sight. These are all sops to a variety of troublesome constituencies, such as the Left of their party. But this latest whitewash inquiry is the most cynical of the three. As Norton-Taylor says, all the civil servant yes-men will be made privy councillors (effectively members of the judiciary) and will have to swear an "ancient oath". But he omits to mention who the President of Privy Council now is, as of June 5th 2009. Yup, folks, it's the Prince of Darkness himself, Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham. He is now in charge of an inquiry into a war for which he almost certainly helped to lay the political groundwork and then build a huge patio of lies and spin on top of it.

You can just imagine the scenes in Downing Street last week: "It's alright, Gordon. Don't worry about Iraq. Just make me head of the judiciary and I'll handle it. We'll make it secret and tell them it's a national security matter. It won't report until after the election anyway so we're in the clear." That's how powerful the unelected have become now that Brown (unelected-in-chief) has finally bust not only our economy, but our democracy too.

"Hutton II" will be an even bigger stitch-up than Hutton I and Butler put together. Yet another terrible, terrible day for Britain. I'm sorry to say that I have no confidence David Cameron will nail Brown for this latest travesty. So, the abuse goes on.

Iraq Inquiry: Whitewash Part 74

As far as I can tell from Brown's gabbled statement to the House of Commons right now, the latest Labour-inspired pseudo-inquiry into the Iraq war will cover the entire occupation, so its terms are so wide it will have no real focus. It will be secret so no one will know who testifies or what they actually say. It will take over a year for it report (the Franks inquiry only took six months). There will be no political representation, so, as Brown puts it, it will not be permitted to 'apportion blame'. So Tony Blair will once more will not be held to account for lying to the House. And so it goes on. As Cameron put it a few moments ago, it's just another Establishment stitch-up.

Sorry, none of this is good enough.

It's not good enough that it is to be held in secret. It's not good enough that it will not include senior politicians from all parties (this is a democracy, isn't it?). It's not good enough that no one will know who testifies to what. It's not good enough that no blame will be apportioned for what was, after all, a war fought on the basis of a lie. It's not good enough that Brown has dodged the issue once more by making sure this inquiry will take so long, over a year will pass and there will be a general election before it reports.

This is a just another bit of expensive, lousy, fake 'lesson learning' (whitewashing) by Labour's lying leadership and, as such, is yet another insult to the Armed Forces. Members of the inquiry board will be hand-picked by Brown and, as Clegg has just said, it will not be held in secret to protect British security, it will be held in secret to protect Blair's, and therefore Brown's, reputation. Clegg's right: only a public inquiry can heal the wounds to our democracy and to the reputation of our Armed Forces inflicted by Blair's terrible, vain, arrogant decision to take us into a war of aggression on the basis of untruths and without the slightest provocation from the 'enemy'.

But what do we get from Brown? More stinking politics from Britain's most stinking politician.