This is a project to monitor and comment on the Iraq Inquiry.
Read more about the projectAssembling the evidence
by Chris Ames
Sir John Chilcot said yesterday that now that the Inquiry’s first two phases of public hearings have ended, the panel will be “trawling the thousands of documents that we hold and comparing them with the evidence we have already heard from different perspectives.” During the hearings it has emerged that the Inquiry has unpublished evidence, including some highly significant papers whose contents have been partially revealed, that contradicts the evidence of government witnesses.
The Inquiry has now assembled all the “declassified” documents that it has published on a single page.
I have now produced a page listing all of the known Submissions to the Inquiry, including those made by witnesses and others of which the Digest is aware. The Inquiry has not published submissions other than those relating to its initial seminars and those made by witnesses.
If you have made a submission to the Inquiry, please let us know.
Tories: Recall Brown To Iraq Inquiry
According to Sky News, Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has written to the Iraq Inquiry asking Sir John Chilcot to recall Gordon Brown.
Dr Fox said: “Today I have written to Sir John Chilcot to ask that Gordon Brown is recalled to the inquiry to clarify his evidence.
“There have been so many other witnesses whose evidence directly contradicted his, concluding with Bill Jeffrey today, that there is a clear case for questioning Gordon Brown again.”
In the letter, the shadow defence secretary acknowledged that Sir John would not want the inquiry to be “involved in party politics” but said it was “important to get the truth in this matter”.
Defence funding (not) clarified
by Chris Ames
Today’s second witness was Sir Bill Jeffrey, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence since 2005. Jeffrey was said to have been unwell when he was first due to give evidence and his eventual appearance follows on from the row over the funding of the MOD.
According to the Telegraph:
Gordon Brown has not given the Ministry of Defence enough money to fund the defence programme, forcing ministers to seek “cuts”, the top civil servant at the ministry has said.
Sir Bill Jeffrey told the Iraq Inquiry that the small annual increases in the defence budget Mr Brown has made have not been enough to meet the sharp rises in the costs of defence operations and equipment.
Except that, according to the same story:
Sir Bill said that his budget had been squeezed by rising staff and equipment costs, the “side effects” of the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the fall in the value of the pound.
“All that means not that defence is ‘underfunded’ or has been cut, but that we have a very serious management issue,” he said.
But the article does clear up why the MOD’s costs go up so fast:
“Economists say that the MoD faces a higher rate of inflation than other organisations because the prices of the goods and services it buys increase very quickly.”
It’s because prices increase very quickly.
Miliband at the Inquiry
Today’s main witness at the Inquiry’s final session before the election was David Miliband MP, Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs since 2007.
Questioned by Sir Roderick Lyne, Miliband declined – as Gordon Brown did – to say that Iraq was a “real and present danger” to the UK and declined to back Jack Straw’s assertion that regime change is not a proper aim of UK policy. On the latter, Miliband would only say that the government/Foreign Office is not currently pursuing regime change anywhere else.
The Inquiry has not yet published any new documents to co-incide with Miliband’s appearance. It has not published any new evidence for weeks.
12.00 Here is the press reaction to Miliband:
In the Guardian, Andrew Sparrow picks up on Lyne’s point that the Inquiry had heard “three rather different explanations as to why we took military action against Iraq in 2003″ from Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown.
In the Telegraph, James Kirkup leads with Miliband saying that “Britain is more respected in the Arab world because of its role in the Iraq war” and the Daily Mail takes a similar line. Meanwhile, in a blog piece, Kirkup asks if anyone was listening to Miliband.
The questions Brown couldn’t answer
by Chris Ames
The Inquiry has published the transcript of Gordon Brown’s evidence here, along with the session with international development secretary Douglas Alexander.
Perhaps the most revealing exchange came when Sir Roderick Lyne asked Brown why the Cabinet had chosen to go to war on 17 March 2003:
SIR RODERIC LYNE: But at this precise time we are talking about, the UN inspectors were saying, “Give us more time”. The French government was saying to us, and the Chilean President, who was a crucial player, the Chilean government on the Security Council, were again saying, “We need more time before we come to this decision”.
They weren’t saying, “We will never do it”. So why did we have to take the decision on 17 March?
RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: I think you have got to make a judgment here –
SIR RODERIC LYNE: It wasn’t because the Americans had said, “We are simply going to take military action this week”?
RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: I think it is a matter of judgment here, that for –
SIR RODERIC LYNE: But there was an American military deadline, wasn’t there?
RT HON GORDON BROWN MP: But it is a matter of judgment for the British Cabinet, and I’m talking about the decisions that we made and not that other countries made. The matter of judgment was whether, after 14 resolutions, after 1441 had united the international community, after Saddam Hussein had refused to comply, was giving minimal disclosure, the diplomatic channels had become exhausted, as to whether you take the action that you said in November you were prepared to take. We were prepared to take that action and I justify that decision on the basis of our judgment that the diplomatic route had become exhausted.
Does Brown’s defence add up?
by Chris Ames
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, tries to explain why other former senior military figures, like Lord Guthrie and Lord Boyce have disputed Gordon Brown’s assertions on Friday about defence spending.
The explanation is quite simply that on the matter of providing money for current operations the Treasury is obliged under Government agreements with the MoD to pay for the extra costs of operations under the Urgent Operational Requirements protocols.
As Chancellor, Gordon Brown was obliged to make these payments and did so, hence his remark that whatever the military asked for, they got.
But, in front of Chilcot, he did not address the issue of the underlying underfunding of defence that has been endemic since the Strategic Defence Review of 1997/98.
Implementation of that otherwise excellent Review was hobbled from the start by the Treasury under Gordon Brown not only not fully funding the outcome of the Review, but imposing a three per cent year on year efficiency savings target.
To that deficient baseline needs to be added the reopening of the MoD’s budget in 2003, a re-examination of the rules and the effective removal of a £1 billion year on year – what Sir Kevin Tebbit referred to as “guillotining” of the defence budget.
Furthermore, despite the Government increasing the headline figure of the defence budget on an annual basis, the uplift to match general inflation was below that of defence inflation, which habitually runs at several percentage points higher.
So the net effect over recent years has been that the real value – the purchasing power – of the defence budget has decreased every year, and the pressure on the MoD and the Armed Forces has increased.
Dannatt’s basic argument is that Chancellor Brown did not understand (or “get”) defence but that as Prime Minister he does now. If this is the case, and Dannatt’s explanation is correct, Brown will have known that his defence did not add up
Reaction to Brown
by Chris Ames
I’ve done a Comment is Free piece this afternoon and the Guardian’s Politics Weekly Podcast with Michael White.
I would also recommend this piece from the BBC’s Paul Reynolds:
Unasked questions
The members of the inquiry struggled to make dents in his arguments for the war and he was able to make a series of statements which critics of the inquiry might feel should have been picked up.
Here are some of them.
…
‘Diplomatic solution’A third example came when he constantly referred to the efforts to get a diplomatic solution at the UN in the final weeks. He blamed “countries” for blocking this (being pressed to name the French among them) and for thereby forcing the issue to go to war.
He was not questioned about the nature of those diplomatic efforts, much of which were designed to bring the whole Security Council behind a decision to go to war. The French and others did not block a solution with Iraq, they blocked a clear Security Council authorisation for a war with Iraq.
Gordon Brown at the Inquiry
Today’s witness from 10.00 to 12.00 and 13.30 to 15.30 is the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown MP, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 2001–07.
As usual, the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow is blogging live.
15.30 Sir John Chilcot closes this part of todays hearing, Douglas Alexander MP, Secretary of State for International Development, 2007–09, will be giving evidence shortly (from 16.30 to 18.00), but this is the end of the blogging for today.
15.26 Gordon Brown’s final refections – we have the best armed forces in the world – these were the right decisions but it is our duty to learn lessons – US and Europe must work more closely together where there is instability. Our structures of Govt must be prepared for this. He recognises the sacrifice of the 179 who have lost their lives.
15.22 Chilcot – despite continuing violence – looking at whole 7 years – have we achieved a new order? No doubt about improvement in life in Iraq.
15.18 Chilcot – policing and establishing security and corruption – asks about view of concept. Brown – this is about how you train. Best policing is when population has faith in police service – you need local people for this. Civilian model is best. Cannot conjure up democracy overnight so meed to be realistic about what you can achieve.
Read the rest of this entry »
More questions for Gordon
by Chris Ames
Today’s papers are full of military figures saying that Gordon Brown starved the armed forces of cash – at the expense of British lives – and sets of questions for Brown when he appears at the Inquiry from 10 today.
The Sun has a particularly good piece by Colonel Richard Kemp, Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, with ten questions the PM must answer about the two conflicts. The Times similarly has Ten questions that Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues should ask, which it breaks down into the same roles as the Digest’s list. The Daily Mail has a piece from Tory William Hague with four questions for Brown.
The Digest will be running a live feed and I will be blogging from 10 O’clock.
A classic establishment lie
by Chris Ames
I’ve written before about the attempt by Sir John Sawers, currently chief of MI6, to mislead the Inquiry about his role in excluding Clare Short’s Department for International Development (DFID) from the review of Iraq policy in early 2001. On his second appearance, having been given a strong hint the first time around, Sawers admitted that DFID had initially been excluded:
It is true to say, I think, that the Department of International Development was not substantially involved in the development of Iraq policy at that time.
…
the main policy deliberations in London were between the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and Number 10. So they weren’t deeply involved.It is true to say that the letter with an outline paper was not copied to DFID. It is also true to say that a lot of other documents on Iraq policy at that time were also not copied to that department, but they were involved in the discussions after the paper issued. They took part in a Cabinet Office meeting. I think it is their participation in that meeting that may have triggered a letter asking for them to be more fully involved in it, and I think they were.
In the light of this, it is worth looking at how the government’s witnesses tried to pull the wool over the Inquiry’s eyes in the very first hearing: