Archive for 'Hearings' Category
Howard shoots Blair down under
by Chris Ames In the ongoing debate in Australia about whether there should be an inquiry into that country’s participation in the invasion of Iraq, former PM John Howard is to make a speech defending his actions. A version of the speech is online on theaustralian.com website, with the predictable title Errors were made but [...]
Old evidence prompts new story
by Chris Ames The story in today’s Independent on Sunday, Tony Blair and Iraq: The damning evidence is another one of those where it’s very difficult to know what is new and what isn’t. The main gist of the story, that Hitherto unseen evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by British intelligence has revealed that [...]
Statement on Blair/Bush FOI request status
by Andrew Mason Whilst researching for a new post about Stephen Plowden’s FOIA first-tier tribunal appeal decision, which itself now appears to be the subject of a further appeal process by the FCO, I have just come across the following, which was published on 24 July: Statement by Stephen Plowden If the Foreign & Commonwealth [...]
Calls for Inquiry recall over Campbell claim
by Chris Ames The Independent on Sunday reports that: MPs demanded an emergency recall of the Chilcot inquiry last night after new revelations that Tony Blair blocked the Government’s most senior lawyer from explaining to Cabinet the legality of the war in Iraq. The story is based on the new version of Alastair Campbell’s diaries, [...]
Countdown to Iraq
by Andrew Mason Alastair Campbell is scheduled to release Volume Four of his diaries on 20 June. This further edition, entitled ‘The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq’, is the final planned part of his series, although this new volume apparently indicates that he continued to keep a diary beyond 2003, the entries from which may [...]
Reconstruction goes Pear Shaped in Iraq
Those Pear Shaped Comedy people have done another of their pages on the Inquiry, with some animations of transcripts – this time on the post-invasion situation and reconstruction efforts – and some commentary on the Inquiry’s policy of holding on to any newly declassified documents so that it can control what we learn when and [...]
Also while we were away…
by Andrew Mason Bush, Blair found guilty of war crimes A Malaysian tribunal has found former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war,
Does Hoon get it now?
Last month, the Digest published a lengthy article by Hans Blix whose main theme was to look at recent memoirs of Tony Blair, George Bush and John Howard and ask in particular why these war leaders responded as they did when UN inspections began to cast doubt on their claims about Iraq’s WMD: What the [...]
Who can we believe?
Looking at the secret and public evidence of David Manning, who was Tony Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser and a key participant in most of the events that led up to the war, it is amazing how much he is contradicted by documentary evidence or other witnesses. One striking example is this comment in Manning’s [...]
Blair, Butler misled us; Chilcot plans to
by Chris Ames As Brian Jones has pointed out, the memo sent to Tony Blair in July 2002 by his chief of staff Jonathan Powell is clear that for those at the top of government at least, the policy on Iraq is to support regime change, and to tell George Bush: “We will be there [...]