Archive for 'Evidence' Category
How Blair led us into war in Iraq
by Brian Jones
This is the lecture that I gave at the Royal United Services Institute yesterday to launch my book Failing Intelligence: How Blair led us into war in Iraq.
In the year or so following my retirement in early 2003, I gave evidence on intelligence and WMD to two of the four inquiries on Iraq [...]
March 2002 Iraq briefing
by Chris Ames
I have found a copy of the March 2002 “Iraq Briefing” by Michael Williams, one of Jack Straw’s special advisers at the Foreign Office.
It is on the website of what was the Campaign against Sanctions on Iraq.
Iraq war increased terror threat in Britain
by Chris Ames
The Inquiry is at its best when it sits down with a co-operative witness to make rational assessments in the cold light of day. This morning’s session with Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller allowed the former head of MI5 to measure her words about links between Iraq and the terrorist threat to the UK. In [...]
Wilful Ignorance about Civilian Deaths
by Brian Rappert
Today, the former Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Adam Ingram, will be giving testimony to the Iraq Inquiry. One of the topics he should be speaking about is the number of Iraqi civilians that died from the invasion.
Yesterday a report titled “A State of Ignorance” was released on this topic. [...]
Ross “used me to stop Bush going wobbly”
US journalist Colum Lynch (I think that’s his real name) has written a blog post, based on Carne Ross’s evidence to the Inquiry in which Ross said that he deliberately leaked a story to the Washington Post in order to embarrass the US government.
Lynch notes that he was the journalist who wrote the [...]
Ross explodes the consensus
by Chris Ames
I’ve just published this piece on Comment is Free:
“Carne Ross is a man with too much to say to mince his words. Britain’s erstwhile first secretary at the UN saw a lot of how Britain got into the Iraq war, but his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry went much further, with some very [...]
Carne Ross statement
The Inquiry has published a statement by Carne Ross, today’s first witness. The statement has been redacted and includes a comment from Ross that he was warned by Inquiry officials not to reveal the contents of classified documents.
More on his evidence later.
New document on reconstruction published
In connection with this morning’s hearing, the Inquiry has published a new declassified document entitled “THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF THE BASRA PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM (PRT), APRIL 2006 – JANUARY 2007: LESSONS IDENTIFIED”
New DFID documents at the Inquiry
In four days of hearings since the election, the Inquiry has published 30 declassified documents, although not all of them have come from government departments. This is just three fewer than the total number published before the election.
The Inquiry has published new documents relating to Sally Keeble’s appearance today: a statement from the former junior [...]
Blair warned of overstretch in post-invasion Iraq
The Inquiry has published two new declassified documents today, relating to this morning’s session on MoD resources. One is a small section of a letter sent jointly from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to Tony Blair on 19 March 2003 (a day before the invasion) on the issue of “Iraq: [...]