About this site
This is a project to monitor and comment on the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. Its aim is both to inform and to provide a dynamic forum for comment and analysis as the Inquiry progresses. It seeks to provide a balance of views and opinion. Its objective is to be constructive and to provide reasoned and well argued comment.
The main aims are to set out what appear to be the main questions or issues that the Inquiry will need to address and to provide a commentary on the Inquiry’s proceedings and revelations.
Questions and evidence
The site firstly seeks to set out the questions that the Inquiry will need to answer and the evidence that might answer them. The two are of course closely connected as many of the questions arise from what we know already. We try to show why the questions arise – why there is a “case to answer” – and what further questions the evidence prompts.
The Proceedings
As the Inquiry gets going, the site will contain a running commentary of what its hearings – and hopefully newly published evidence – show. The Inquiry’s proceedings will be scored on their transparency, as will the witnesses.
About us: who is Iraq Inquiry Digest?
The project is run by a group of volunteers, journalists and public figures who want to establish the truth about the Iraq war. The editor is journalist Chris Ames.
Contributors
See a list of our contributors.
Supporters and partners
See a list of our supporters and partners.
About You: Get Involved
Sign up as a supporter
If you would like to sign up as a supporter of the Digest, please contact us.
Volunteer
Do you want to contribute to the project? Here’s how
Comment
We also want you to comment on everything that we put up on the site – and anything you think we have missed. Read more
Do you have information?
There are a number of ways that you can provide information to the project.
You may also want to provide information to the Chilcot Inquiry itself. If you are doing this, please let us know.
13 Responses to “About this site”
Comment from BlairSupporter
Time December 7, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Jimm Sillars, Mr Roberts? Is he one of the eight SNP MPs (if I recall the number correctly) who charged his solicitor’s advice fees to his constituents via his EXPENSES? His ‘expenses’ under Office costs, though it clearly had nothing to do with running their consituency offices.
The Nats and the Three Plaid Cymru MPs who also used our money for this advice (couldn’t have been all that useful – Blair has still not been charged) don’t seem to have thought there was anything wrong or perhaps dishonest about this.
What scruples! What integrity!
Get the country’s PM into court, and hopefully behind bars, all with the aid of the constituents of ALL parties, including Labour. That number including those of ALL parties and none who may have had doubts about this course of action for ALL sorts of reasons.
And DON’T, ‘principled’ Nats, whatever you do, put your money where your mouth is. And this, even despite the fact that we are talking a few hundred pounds EACH per “principled” MP.
See my posts on this:
The Scottish Nationalists who YOU paid to impeach Blair:
The Welsh Nationalists:
Pingback from Part 1 – The “Iraq Inquiry Digest”, edited by Chris Ames « Tony Blair
Time December 8, 2009 at 1:45 am
[...] the About Us page it [...]
Pingback from Chris Ames on the Iraq Inquiry’s 1 MINUTE blackout: “TELL US WHAT THEY SAID” « Tony Blair
Time December 16, 2009 at 1:48 pm
[...] Chris Ames has a website set up solely to find Blair guilty of war crimes… to … (oh go here and believe them if you will) [...]
Comment from Silver Fox
Time January 8, 2010 at 7:24 pm
“As the Inquiry gets going, the site will contain a running commentary of what its hearings – and hopefully newly published evidence – show.”
4 days of hearings this week and one passing reference to them albeit via the coverage of another website. Isn’t it about time you moved on from 2003 and thought about the following 6 years of UK involvement in Iraq?
Comment from Ian Leslie
Time February 2, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Is there a reason that you don’t state your views about the war above? The great majority of contributors, including the site’s editor, clearly think the war was a massive mistake and that the process was corrupt. In which case, why don’t you say so upfront? It couldn’t be that you’re keen to present yourselves as neutral, open-minded commentators, could it? If so that’s silly, and self-defeating. It just makes me and I presume others distrustful of you. Which is a pity.
Comment from andrewsimon
Time February 2, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Ian -
I think the reason is that this website does not represent one homogeneous viewpoint. I don’t disagree with or dispute the fact that many of us who write here have significant misgivings about all that happened, but if you read through the comments you will find a full span of views, from one extreme to the other. The intention here was never to run this as an anti-war website, but rather to use it as a forum to fully examine all the available evidence which was used to make the case for war (and to a lesser extent for proper peace after that). We have at least one pro-war writer here, we would be happy to have more but alas no-one else has come forward to undertake this role. I don’t know why exactly, but perhaps any other prospective writers have been put off by the strength of the case that they would have to campaign against?
Comment from Ian Leslie
Time February 8, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Andrew – yes, that will be it – the pro-war writers who were about to “come forward” were suddenly struck by the utter futility of their case! Oh come on. Look, there’s nothing wrong with running an anti-war site – which, whether by accident or design, is what this is. But you ought to be up front about where the overwhelming majority of commenters – and the editor – are coming from. As I say, you’re not doing yourself any favours by pretending to neutrality.
Comment from andrewsimon
Time February 8, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Ian -
I would still maintain that there is a wide divide between the extreme anti-war and the extreme pro-war (far left and far right?) positions, and that we as the writers here are attempting to remain slightly more objectively centred than some who allege that overt mass murder took place because Tony Blair ‘lied’ about the WMD. I don’t think we ever claimed to be ‘neutral’ in the first instance, in fact I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have strong views about the whole Iraq ‘thing’ in one way or another. Sure, the balance here may have seemed to have slipped to one side since we started this site, but is this not because the whole weight of evidence seems to be going in only one direction…?
Comment from joan W. Gartland
Time February 19, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Why aren’t The Foreign Office and Jack Straw required to describe the steps taken to recover Margaret Hassan’s remains?
Comment from Somanee
Time March 1, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Hi there, tomorrow is my public law exam. Lecturer suggested that I can use the current issue, Chilcot Inquiry in showing the accountability of ministerial responsibility. Looking around here and see what I can discover to put into my answer tomorrow.
Comment from joan W. Gartland
Time May 9, 2010 at 4:42 am
Still no information on the location of Margaret
Hassan’s remains, even though, according to the Chilcot Inquiry, Gordon Brown told Mrs. Hassan’s sister that the British government knew the location and that he would help her in the recovery. This continuing delay is horrendous and
unforgivable. What is going on?
Comment from Bobm
Time June 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Dear Chris
I read your posts regularly and am disappointed that you get so little, positive, feedback.
Are you familiar with Karl Popper’s proposition that Plato deliberately misrepresented the key political question…substituting
-who should rule? for..
-how can we so arrange matters that our rulers do us the minimum of harm?
Questions which are surely relevant for people who marched against the war..
Comment from Lee Roberts
Time November 23, 2009 at 7:49 pm
A few years ago I wrote an extensive piece for Compass on Blair’s role in the Iraq Invasion. It is true that some new evidence has emerged, but most of the incriminating evidence that made the media is contained in this essay. It is chock full of detail and took weeks to compile. Nothing much was ever made of the piece, which I still think gives a pretty good insight into the games that Blair was playing at the time, and the chronology of events. To the extent that the analysis is helpful, I am placing it here in the public domain for anyone to use as they wish. The link is:
http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=276
If there is any way I can help further, the organizers are very welcome to contact me at the email address I have provided. I strongly recommend that you add Phillip Sands to your supporters. Have you thought of contacting Jim Sillars, the former SNP politician, who tried to get a prosecution of Blair for war-crimes heard in Scotland ?
I have littlke doubt that this enquiry is planned as a whitewash and a way to help Blair escape prosecution by classifying evidence heard in private. I wish you well and will be following this site and Chilcot developments very closely. Best of luck