The anniversary of the outbreak of the Iraq War
in 2003 came and went last month.
Thank God British soldiers are no longer at risk, but everyday life there is still marred by car bombs and assassinations.
Understanding how mayhem rather than democracy was let loose in Iraq ought to be a priority for our political leaders.
But lessons vital for our country’s future security are still not being learned in Whitehall.
There, Tony Blair is still a colossus. No longer in Parliament, he still casts a shadow over Westminster that is in sharp contrast to the public cynicism about his decision to go to war.
It is this clash between the insiders’ view and the national consensus that is creating such an unhealthy political atmosphere.
Governments need to be trusted on matters of war and peace above all else, but as the public hostility to intervention in Syria showed last August, the legacy of Iraq is scepticism when Whitehall calls for action.
In office, Tony Blair argued in favour of pre-emptive military action against threats to the West. Last week he launched a pre-emptive strike on the Chilcot Report into his war in Iraq.
Didn’t we realise, he told a City audience, that it was a war against the Islamic fundamentalism now wreaking havoc worldwide?
Secular Saddam Hussein and his missiles launchable at 45 minutes’ warning were forgotten. Today’s war, even tomorrow’s, are what Tony Blair wants us to believe he was trying to pre-empt eleven years ago.
Although he was happy to let Lord Hutton inquire into BBC coverage of the death of Dr David Kelly, Blair fought tooth and nail against a public inquiry into how he led Britain to war on false information.
Although Gordon Brown in 2009 conceded an inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot, the political class in Westminster has fought almost five years of trench warfare against admitting mistakes, let alone placing the blame for them.
Every opportunity to throw sand in our eyes has been taken.
Even the ghost of inveterate fraudster Robert Maxwell has been summoned to lend a hand in spinning out the process.
Because Chilcot’s report cannot be anything other than damning, Blair and his key Ministers and advisers are allowed to ‘Maxwellise’ it before it is published.
Maxwellisation is named for the MP and publisher’s use of every legal hook and crook to fight against the Department for Trade and Industry’s 1969 ruling that he was ‘unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company’.
Maxwell got a judge to rule that anyone criticised in a public inquiry had the right to see the report before publication and propose corrections.
An ordinary person might have a right to see damaging material before publication, but should public figures rely on these methods in the hope of spinning things out till people lose interest and things move on?
A full and frank inquiry into the Iraq War could be a healthy thing for our democracy.
Going to war on the basis of dodgy dossiers and non-existent WMDs started the unravelling of respect for politicians which has culminated in the ongoing seediness of the expenses scandals.
Speedy publication of Chilcot’s report should have helped restore public confidence in our rulers.
‘Time to move on’ has always been Tony Blair’s favourite reaction to awkward questions about how he came to send hundreds of men to their deaths in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
The delay in publishing Chilcot’s findings means no one can move on. Whitehall is trapped in the decision-making that led to Iraq.
A century after the outbreak of the First World War, no one should need reminding that stumbling into conflict without adequate assessment of the risks and likely costs can be far more disastrous even than Iraq turned out to be.
Leaving aside the likely shredding of the reputations of Tony Blair and the close cronies who sat on sofas in Downing Street playing at God and reordering the Middle East, some critics of the Chilcot Inquiry worry that it will give away vital secrets.
Avoiding embarrassing our American allies has been proposed as another ground for delaying and censoring the report.
But Whitehall has a long history of keeping ‘secret’ from the British public matters already in the public domain on the other side of the Atlantic.
For instance, anyone writing a history of the British secret service could find copies of documents in the US archives which have been carefully weeded out of our own.
Sparing the blushes of our American cousins seems a shallow excuse for trying to keep egg off faces closer to home.
Whitehall's trench warfare on behalf of the Blairite Great and Good may be rewarded with gongs in the honours’ list, but it is hardly in the national interest.
Instead of fending off embarrassment to retired grandees of the Iraq War, the questions of what went wrong and why need to be addressed – to save lives and protect the national interest in future.
If anything, the world has got more dangerous since 2003, so the deep public cynicism about foreign policy is very dangerous, not least because – after Iraq – it is so understandable.
And unless the British people can learn to trust their Government again, foreigners, friend or foe, will not respect us either.
Corroding the trust that our Government will act honestly, even if not always wisely, is Tony Blair’s sinister legacy.
That could still be countered if the public felt Chilcot’s inquiry had delivered a comprehensive account of what went wrong.
Delay confirms public distrust.
Nowhere more than in deciding matters of war and peace does our Government need implicit trust from the people.
They don’t expect to get the whole truth when national security is at risk, but they cannot abide being deceived either.
David Cameron once called himself the ‘heir to Blair’. By not hurrying the funereal progress of Chilcot, the Prime Minister risks seeming to whitewash his predecessor.
The reputation of both could be irreparably blackened if the public decides that cronyism in the PMs’ club trumps the national interest in knowing what went wrong and why.
Prompt publication won’t kill off cynicism but it will be a start to restoring public trust.
In a dangerous and unpredictable world, that trust is far more valuable than the reputations of retired Prime Ministers.
Tony Blair will have every opportunity to defend himself after the Chilcot Report comes out. It is the defence of the realm – not of politicians – that should be on Whitehall’s agenda.
Complacent protection of the egos of the country’s leaders by the top bureaucrats is undermining our country by fuelling popular cynicism from below.
Turn the page for Peter Hitchens:
Thank God British soldiers are no longer at risk, but everyday life there is still marred by car bombs and assassinations.
Understanding how mayhem rather than democracy was let loose in Iraq ought to be a priority for our political leaders.
But lessons vital for our country’s future security are still not being learned in Whitehall.
There, Tony Blair is still a colossus. No longer in Parliament, he still casts a shadow over Westminster that is in sharp contrast to the public cynicism about his decision to go to war.
It is this clash between the insiders’ view and the national consensus that is creating such an unhealthy political atmosphere.
Governments need to be trusted on matters of war and peace above all else, but as the public hostility to intervention in Syria showed last August, the legacy of Iraq is scepticism when Whitehall calls for action.
In office, Tony Blair argued in favour of pre-emptive military action against threats to the West. Last week he launched a pre-emptive strike on the Chilcot Report into his war in Iraq.
Didn’t we realise, he told a City audience, that it was a war against the Islamic fundamentalism now wreaking havoc worldwide?
Secular Saddam Hussein and his missiles launchable at 45 minutes’ warning were forgotten. Today’s war, even tomorrow’s, are what Tony Blair wants us to believe he was trying to pre-empt eleven years ago.
Although he was happy to let Lord Hutton inquire into BBC coverage of the death of Dr David Kelly, Blair fought tooth and nail against a public inquiry into how he led Britain to war on false information.
Although Gordon Brown in 2009 conceded an inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot, the political class in Westminster has fought almost five years of trench warfare against admitting mistakes, let alone placing the blame for them.
Every opportunity to throw sand in our eyes has been taken.
Even the ghost of inveterate fraudster Robert Maxwell has been summoned to lend a hand in spinning out the process.
Because Chilcot’s report cannot be anything other than damning, Blair and his key Ministers and advisers are allowed to ‘Maxwellise’ it before it is published.
Maxwellisation is named for the MP and publisher’s use of every legal hook and crook to fight against the Department for Trade and Industry’s 1969 ruling that he was ‘unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company’.
Maxwell got a judge to rule that anyone criticised in a public inquiry had the right to see the report before publication and propose corrections.
An ordinary person might have a right to see damaging material before publication, but should public figures rely on these methods in the hope of spinning things out till people lose interest and things move on?
A full and frank inquiry into the Iraq War could be a healthy thing for our democracy.
Going to war on the basis of dodgy dossiers and non-existent WMDs started the unravelling of respect for politicians which has culminated in the ongoing seediness of the expenses scandals.
Speedy publication of Chilcot’s report should have helped restore public confidence in our rulers.
‘Time to move on’ has always been Tony Blair’s favourite reaction to awkward questions about how he came to send hundreds of men to their deaths in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
The delay in publishing Chilcot’s findings means no one can move on. Whitehall is trapped in the decision-making that led to Iraq.
A century after the outbreak of the First World War, no one should need reminding that stumbling into conflict without adequate assessment of the risks and likely costs can be far more disastrous even than Iraq turned out to be.
Leaving aside the likely shredding of the reputations of Tony Blair and the close cronies who sat on sofas in Downing Street playing at God and reordering the Middle East, some critics of the Chilcot Inquiry worry that it will give away vital secrets.
Avoiding embarrassing our American allies has been proposed as another ground for delaying and censoring the report.
But Whitehall has a long history of keeping ‘secret’ from the British public matters already in the public domain on the other side of the Atlantic.
For instance, anyone writing a history of the British secret service could find copies of documents in the US archives which have been carefully weeded out of our own.
Sparing the blushes of our American cousins seems a shallow excuse for trying to keep egg off faces closer to home.
Whitehall's trench warfare on behalf of the Blairite Great and Good may be rewarded with gongs in the honours’ list, but it is hardly in the national interest.
Instead of fending off embarrassment to retired grandees of the Iraq War, the questions of what went wrong and why need to be addressed – to save lives and protect the national interest in future.
If anything, the world has got more dangerous since 2003, so the deep public cynicism about foreign policy is very dangerous, not least because – after Iraq – it is so understandable.
And unless the British people can learn to trust their Government again, foreigners, friend or foe, will not respect us either.
Corroding the trust that our Government will act honestly, even if not always wisely, is Tony Blair’s sinister legacy.
That could still be countered if the public felt Chilcot’s inquiry had delivered a comprehensive account of what went wrong.
Delay confirms public distrust.
Nowhere more than in deciding matters of war and peace does our Government need implicit trust from the people.
They don’t expect to get the whole truth when national security is at risk, but they cannot abide being deceived either.
David Cameron once called himself the ‘heir to Blair’. By not hurrying the funereal progress of Chilcot, the Prime Minister risks seeming to whitewash his predecessor.
The reputation of both could be irreparably blackened if the public decides that cronyism in the PMs’ club trumps the national interest in knowing what went wrong and why.
Prompt publication won’t kill off cynicism but it will be a start to restoring public trust.
In a dangerous and unpredictable world, that trust is far more valuable than the reputations of retired Prime Ministers.
Tony Blair will have every opportunity to defend himself after the Chilcot Report comes out. It is the defence of the realm – not of politicians – that should be on Whitehall’s agenda.
Complacent protection of the egos of the country’s leaders by the top bureaucrats is undermining our country by fuelling popular cynicism from below.
Turn the page for Peter Hitchens:
It is amazing that the Blair
Creature does not grasp how much he is despised, especially by those who
once admired him.
He has taken to making speeches about doing good in the Middle East, where his Iraq policy helped to ruin the lives of millions for decades to come.
It also cost this country billions we could not afford, not to mention 179 British lives.
I still think the only way for him to regain our respect would be to take a vow of lifelong silence in a very austere monastery, where he could perhaps clean the lavatories.
But he still thinks he was right, and many of his accomplices also still walk around as if they had done nothing wrong.
It is a gigantic scandal that Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq War, which ceased taking evidence three years ago, has yet to be published.
Who is holding it up and why? Is it frontbench collusion between the parties?
If Parliament is any use at all, it will force publication this year.
He has taken to making speeches about doing good in the Middle East, where his Iraq policy helped to ruin the lives of millions for decades to come.
It also cost this country billions we could not afford, not to mention 179 British lives.
I still think the only way for him to regain our respect would be to take a vow of lifelong silence in a very austere monastery, where he could perhaps clean the lavatories.
But he still thinks he was right, and many of his accomplices also still walk around as if they had done nothing wrong.
It is a gigantic scandal that Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq War, which ceased taking evidence three years ago, has yet to be published.
Who is holding it up and why? Is it frontbench collusion between the parties?
If Parliament is any use at all, it will force publication this year.
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