Hard to see the idea of holding an inquiry in public ‘whenever possible’ as undesirable, isn’t it?

Unless of course, the war was started by your party contrary to your party’s and public opinion. And if the British public was misled about the intelligence justification, purpose and legality of the war. And if the war was a total strategic failure which destabilised the region, split key alliances and demoralised and overstretched the UK’s armed forces.  And if the war has cost the UK taxpayer more than £6.44 billion.  And if the war made us hated as Bush’s poodle, not just amongst the Muslim masses but also amongst our allies globally and our Muslims at home.  And destroyed our reputation for defending civil liberties and opposing torture.  And saw us fail to oppose rendition.  And, most importantly, the war cost the lives of 179 British troops and thousands more Iraqi civilians with, of course, the loss of homes and limbs of thousands more, Iraqis and British alike.

We should learn the lessons of the Hutton Inquiry into the events surrounding the death of David Kelly.  Any thinking person knows now that Kelly was right when he said the intelligence was sexed up, and that Gilligan was acting in the public interest to report it.  Yet the report cleared the government and castigated the BBC and Gilligan, forcing the resignation of an excellent Director-General and Chairman, contrary to all the evidence.  How could this whitewash happen?  Hutton claimed that the public would interpret ’sexed up’ as meaning an outright lie rather than exaggeration, and hence what Gilligan reported was ‘untrue’.  Talk about splitting hairs for government advantage.  No wonder the Independent ran a blank front page headlined ‘Whitewash?’.

Why does this matter for the new Iraq inquiry?  Well, the author of the Kelly whitewash, Lord Hutton, made his career in Northern Ireland, that province of the UK where the intelligence community, the judiciary, courts without juries, internment without trial, the police, the military, the SAS and dirty tricks and politicians merged into a dirty primordial soup.  Lord Hutton was made lawyer for the Northern Ireland Attorney General in 1969.  Hutton defended Britain in the European Court of Human Rights when it was found guilty of torturing internees without trial in 1978.  Lord Hutton represented the Ministry of Defence during the Bloody Sunday inquiry.  Can any of you spot a pattern?  The Guardian summarised Hutton’s past best when it quoted the republican Danny Murphy on the Hutton whitewash:

Although in the Belfast high court Hutton occasionally acquitted republicans and dismissed the appeals of soldiers, nationalists generally considered him a hanging judge and the guardian angel of soldiers and police officers. [...] I was amused at the response of sections of the media and British public [to Hutton's exonerating the Blair government]. Do they know anything about how the establishment works?

So, where does this lead us?  What relevance does this have to the new inquiry into Iraq?

Question: Who is the chairman of the new Iraq inquiry?

Answer: Sir John Chilcot

Question: Past form regarding Iraq?

Answer: He was a member of the Butler Review, boycotted by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, into the handling of the intelligence used to justify the war.  The Evening Standard called it Whitewash (Part Two).

Question: How did Chilcot make his name?

Answer: As Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, in the primordial soup referred to above.

Question: Any other interesting things about Chilcot?

Answer: Chairman of the Police Federation, Staff Counsellor to the National Criminal Intelligence Service, Staff Counsellor for the Security and Intelligence Agencies.  Conducted reviews of Royal and VIP security (1999) and the Castlereagh Special Branch break-in (2002-3).

Question: Where is Castlereagh?

Answer: No surprise,it is in Northern Ireland.

So, let’s just wait for Whitewash (Part Three).  It looks inevitable.