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The Chilcot Inquiry: Not For Your Eyes Only

December 18, 2009

Chilcot Inquiry Christopher Lee writes: The Chilcot inquiry in London into the circumstances of the Britain’s entrance and subsequent action in the war in Iraq is drawing to its Christmas recess. There are those who call it a cover up and say that it does not tell anything that we did not know before.

For insiders, that must be true. But Chilcot is an inquiry for the public. It is an attempt, with all the reservations about political embarrassment and giving away state secrets, to reveal the story of how the UK got dragged into George & Tony’s war, what happened when we got there and why amazingly grand military, political and intelligence figures got it so wrong. And, if they did not get it wrong, then to find out whether they lied.

I am sorry if the London nomenklatura and the intelligentsia think it’s a waste of time. It is not. It tells us – we the electorate, we the ordinary women and men, we the too often helpless – as much of the truth as we can handle and, enough of the truth for us to make up our minds about the way we are led and, the people that we vote for and those we rely on to protect us.

Once, there was a theory of kingship. In its simplest form, a monarch asked the allegiance of his people and in return promised to protect his people from their enemies – invaders and the government. Today, we ask our government to do the same. Chilcot is a reminder that it does not always work.

Take this final week. We hear that Tony Blair was so mesmerized by the sense of authority and power in the White House that he would have done almost anything that Bush asked him to. We have heard allegations that the Prime Minister of the day, Blair was going to war whatever the legality of doing so. Blair is, in theory, discredited and, in some cases, we have heard that this inquiry is the prelude to his public trial -but one suspects no sense of humiliation. Humiliation is not enough. But Chilcot is not all about Blair.

We now know also that the American governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, was considered as someone who did not tell Washington the truth about the state of affairs in Iraq. It’s now said that the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, relied on UK Intelligence because he could not trust his own people. We have heard from the Controller MI6 Sir John Sawyers who was the UK’s special envoy to Iraq from May to July 2003, that “very few observers” foresaw that Iraq would attract al-Qaeda terrorists and Shia extremists backed by Iran. What he means that no one in high position knew. Actually one person did warn that it would all go to hell in some handbasket: the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak told everyone who would listen that if we invaded Iraq then we would unleash 100 bin Ladens. Also, those they had called in as token briefers, most certainly knew and said so. Academics and defence & global affairs experts (your writer included) warned various parts of government that Mubarak was correct and that the invasion plan as it existed (without the post-war plan) meant disaster. If I may, with no pride, mention that I quoted Tacitus to one very senior American Administration official. Tacitus said, we created a wilderness and called it peace. Her response? Those Greeks weren’t always right. Poor Tacitus, clearly stateless and a candidate for CIA rendition should he return – from Rome of course, not Athens.

The story will continue in the new year. We should listen carefully and let no one say this inquiry is a nonsense. Chilcot tells us that we were led by dishonest people. We almost expect that. But most of all, we were led by incompetent people. It tells us the guilty escape into another (and more lucrative) life. Quietly, as we sit in the anti-room watching and listening to this encyclopaedic tragedy there is an uneasy sense that our people -the ones we’ve trusted, admired and even envied their position and leadership – have not been very good. Chilcot did not set out to tell us that, but after just four weeks that’s what it’s done. We took on a fifth rate state and created not victory but a wilderness. The inquiry tells us one more thing: the same level of incompetence has been transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan.

– End –

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One Response to “The Chilcot Inquiry: Not For Your Eyes Only”

  1. Annie on December 20th, 2009 6:53 pm

    I really admire The Brits for doing this. Canada, the land of the useless, may have to follow suit about revelations about Canadians in Afghanistan. Maybe we could call it the Useless Inquiry?

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