Lazy Lob
06-15-2009, 04:03 PM
So Mr transparency has ordered a secret inquiry. Oh yes and a fvckin leopard will change its sodding spots.
Gordon Brown announces Iraq war inquiry
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has announced an inquiry will be held into the Iraq War.
Published: 4:01PM BST 15 Jun 2009
It will be similar in scope and make-up to the Franks Inquiry that examined the Falklands conflict in 1982.
Mr Brown announced the move in a statement at the House of Commons on Monday afternoon saying the scope and length of the inquiry would be unprecedented.
The Prime Minister said the inquiry would begin after July and take around 12 months. It will be headed by Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall mandarin, and cover the period between 2001 and 2009.
"Now is the right time to learn the lessons of this conflict," said the Prime Minister.
Mr Brown said all secret documents would be made available but said hearings would be conducted in private with the committee reporting back to the House of Commons and House of Lords.
"No inquiry has ever been conducted over such a long period or in such breadth. We will not set out to apportion blame or find criminal or civil responsibility."
Mr Brown said that although the inquiry would not take evidence in public, its report would be published with only the "the most sensitive information" held back.
He said: "The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned. The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability."
Mr Brown added that a public inquiry would mean "lawyers, lawyers and lawyers" but people could feel free to give evidence to private sessions.
Tory leader David Cameron said there was a danger that people would think the inquiry was "fixed" because it would not report until after the next general election.
He said: "This inquiry should have started earlier. How can anyone argue that an inquiry starting six months ago would somehow have undermined British troops?
"Indeed the argument that you can't have an inquiry while troops are still in Iraq has been blown away by the Prime Minister saying today that some troops will be staying there even as the inquiry gets under way."
He called for Mr Brown to look at the possibility of publishing an interim report early next year.
There "has to be a question" about the military experience of the inquiry panel and Mr Cameron called for senior politicians to be involved to consider the political judgments that were made.
He told Mr Brown: "The inquiry needs to be and needs to be seen to be truly independent and not just an establishment stitch-up."
The Conservative leader also questioned why the inquiry would not be allowed to single out people for blame.
"Shouldn't the inquiry have the ability to apportion blame? If mistakes were made, we need to know who made them and why they were made."
He also questioned whether the inquiry would be allowed access to US and Iraqi documents and witnesses.
Mr Cameron called for greater transparency, asking: "Shouldn't there be some proper public sessions?
"Isn't that what many will want and many will expect and part of the building of public confidence that is absolutely necessary?"
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "I am staggered that the Prime Minister is seeking to compound the error, fatal to so many of Britain's sons and daughters, by covering up the path that led to it."
The move will be seen by some as an attempt by the Prime Minister to draw a line under the Iraq war, which has proved so divisive for Labour.
But many on the left of his party are unlikely to be satisfied with anything less than a full public inquiry into how Britain went to war despite questionable evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Like the Franks Inquiry, which was overseen by privy counsellors, it will hear its evidence behind closed doors.
But Mr Brown, conscious of the accusations of a whitewash when Lord Hutton produced his 2004 report into the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, will argue that the members of the inquiry team will be fully independent.
The remit of the inquiry will cover the build-up to the invasion in March 2003 and its aftermath.
Mr Brown has resisted calls for an inquiry until British troops returned from Iraq. But with almost all British troops out of Basra, there is no bar on the official investigation.
On Sunday night, Mr Brown was warned not to hold the inquiry behind closed doors.
Angus Robertson, the Scottish National Party leader at Westminster, said: "Gordon Brown is on a collision course if he thinks people will accept a secret inquiry."
Making the announcement Mr Brown also paid tribute to soldiers in Iraq.
"A young democracy has replaced a vicious 30-year-old dictatorship. Iraq's future is now in its own hands," he said.
"We can be supremely proud of the way our armed forces carried out their mission. Today we continue to mourn and remember the 179 men and women who gave their lives."
Protesters angry at the decision to hold the inquiry in secret gathered outside at Wetsminster.
Ben Beach, 19, an architecture student from east London, said: "We're here today because they have announced the inquiries will be in secret which I think is an affront to democracy in this country.
"And it's an affront to British democracy that this war went ahead despite the overwhelming majority of people being against it."
The inquiry announced by Brown "doesn't go far enough at all".
He added: "We need to know the real reasons the war happened."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/5542414/Gordon-Brown-announces-Iraq-war-inquiry.html
Gordon Brown announces Iraq war inquiry
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has announced an inquiry will be held into the Iraq War.
Published: 4:01PM BST 15 Jun 2009
It will be similar in scope and make-up to the Franks Inquiry that examined the Falklands conflict in 1982.
Mr Brown announced the move in a statement at the House of Commons on Monday afternoon saying the scope and length of the inquiry would be unprecedented.
The Prime Minister said the inquiry would begin after July and take around 12 months. It will be headed by Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall mandarin, and cover the period between 2001 and 2009.
"Now is the right time to learn the lessons of this conflict," said the Prime Minister.
Mr Brown said all secret documents would be made available but said hearings would be conducted in private with the committee reporting back to the House of Commons and House of Lords.
"No inquiry has ever been conducted over such a long period or in such breadth. We will not set out to apportion blame or find criminal or civil responsibility."
Mr Brown said that although the inquiry would not take evidence in public, its report would be published with only the "the most sensitive information" held back.
He said: "The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned. The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability."
Mr Brown added that a public inquiry would mean "lawyers, lawyers and lawyers" but people could feel free to give evidence to private sessions.
Tory leader David Cameron said there was a danger that people would think the inquiry was "fixed" because it would not report until after the next general election.
He said: "This inquiry should have started earlier. How can anyone argue that an inquiry starting six months ago would somehow have undermined British troops?
"Indeed the argument that you can't have an inquiry while troops are still in Iraq has been blown away by the Prime Minister saying today that some troops will be staying there even as the inquiry gets under way."
He called for Mr Brown to look at the possibility of publishing an interim report early next year.
There "has to be a question" about the military experience of the inquiry panel and Mr Cameron called for senior politicians to be involved to consider the political judgments that were made.
He told Mr Brown: "The inquiry needs to be and needs to be seen to be truly independent and not just an establishment stitch-up."
The Conservative leader also questioned why the inquiry would not be allowed to single out people for blame.
"Shouldn't the inquiry have the ability to apportion blame? If mistakes were made, we need to know who made them and why they were made."
He also questioned whether the inquiry would be allowed access to US and Iraqi documents and witnesses.
Mr Cameron called for greater transparency, asking: "Shouldn't there be some proper public sessions?
"Isn't that what many will want and many will expect and part of the building of public confidence that is absolutely necessary?"
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "I am staggered that the Prime Minister is seeking to compound the error, fatal to so many of Britain's sons and daughters, by covering up the path that led to it."
The move will be seen by some as an attempt by the Prime Minister to draw a line under the Iraq war, which has proved so divisive for Labour.
But many on the left of his party are unlikely to be satisfied with anything less than a full public inquiry into how Britain went to war despite questionable evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Like the Franks Inquiry, which was overseen by privy counsellors, it will hear its evidence behind closed doors.
But Mr Brown, conscious of the accusations of a whitewash when Lord Hutton produced his 2004 report into the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, will argue that the members of the inquiry team will be fully independent.
The remit of the inquiry will cover the build-up to the invasion in March 2003 and its aftermath.
Mr Brown has resisted calls for an inquiry until British troops returned from Iraq. But with almost all British troops out of Basra, there is no bar on the official investigation.
On Sunday night, Mr Brown was warned not to hold the inquiry behind closed doors.
Angus Robertson, the Scottish National Party leader at Westminster, said: "Gordon Brown is on a collision course if he thinks people will accept a secret inquiry."
Making the announcement Mr Brown also paid tribute to soldiers in Iraq.
"A young democracy has replaced a vicious 30-year-old dictatorship. Iraq's future is now in its own hands," he said.
"We can be supremely proud of the way our armed forces carried out their mission. Today we continue to mourn and remember the 179 men and women who gave their lives."
Protesters angry at the decision to hold the inquiry in secret gathered outside at Wetsminster.
Ben Beach, 19, an architecture student from east London, said: "We're here today because they have announced the inquiries will be in secret which I think is an affront to democracy in this country.
"And it's an affront to British democracy that this war went ahead despite the overwhelming majority of people being against it."
The inquiry announced by Brown "doesn't go far enough at all".
He added: "We need to know the real reasons the war happened."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/5542414/Gordon-Brown-announces-Iraq-war-inquiry.html