New Iraq Inquiry will be another whitewash

Tuesday, 16 June 2009 10:41

The Prime Minister yesterday announced the setting up of an independent inquiry to look into lessons learned from the invasion of Iraq.

The inquiry will begin next month and take at least a year to complete. It will cover the period from July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, who sat on the Butler Inquiry into Iraq’s possession of WMDs.

The PM’s decision to hold the inquiry behind closed doors and out of the public eye has been heavily criticised. It would certainly seem incongruent with his statement to the House last week on making government more open and accountable to the electorate.

Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said of the Government’s decision:

"This, remember, was probably the biggest foreign policy mistake that any government has made since Suez.

"It's very important that the process by which we learn the lessons from that is open - the process of doing it is almost as important as the conclusions themselves."

"This would have been a great moment for Gordon Brown, who has said he wanted more openness and transparency in politics, to show he meant it."

Calls for an independent inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq was last debated in the House in March 2008 when the motion was defeated on grounds of if not being an appropriate time to conduct such an inquiry.

Should the Iraq Inquiry be held in secret? What do you think of the PM’s decision to do so?

Read Jonathan Steele's comment in The Guardian's Comment is Free, 'Skewed and in secret, this Iraq inquiry is a scandal'.

Update: 'Hutton and Butler 'back public Iraq inquiry''

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