CHILCOT, GORDON BROWN AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Last week, the Chilcot inquiry began into Britain’s role in the Second Iraq War which began in 2003.

Like many in the UK during the months leading up to the decision to go to war, I was not convinced by the flimsy arguments put forward by the British Government as a pretext to committing our troops to war in Iraq.

Indeed, I remember having quite heated debates with friends and colleagues who thought that Saddam Hussein should be removed whatever the cost.

Unfortunately, too many of our MPs were also ready to follow this line at the time, ignore the evidence before their eyes and support Tony Blair’s suggestion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready for deployment within forty five minutes.

Why did Tony Blair cling to this line of argument for going to war with Iraq?

Well, it would seem that his own Solicitor General, the UK’s top law officer, had informed him that there were only two legitimate and legal reasons for going to war, namely "humanitarian intervention" and “military intervention on the basis of self-defence”, neither of which applied to the situation in Iraq.

Given that earlier United Nations resolutions on Iraq would also be difficult to enforce legally, he therefore needed an excuse for going to war and the threat of weapons of mass destruction, however flimsy at the time, provided this.

Thanks to the Chilcot enquiry, we now find out that a deal had been struck in 2002 with the Bush Presidency for ‘regime change’ and that there needed to be a case to make this happen.

This was exactly the charge made by the late Robin Cook when he made the honourable decision to resign from the Cabinet in protest at the decision by his own Government to make the case for war with Iraq.

The real scandal therefore is that the UK Government knew for several months that it was going to war with Iraq. Given this, why did it focus its entire efforts on making the case for war rather than preparing our troops for a war it knew was coming? As a result, our troops were left with inadequate equipment, such as body armour, to do a proper job in Iraq.

Only one week since the Chilcot enquiry began, we have already seen revelations from senior civil servants which, if they had been made public at the time, would most certainly have caused many MPs to pause before making the decision to go to war.

Whilst civil servants are there to advise their Ministers, it is the Government of the day which makes the final decision.

Therefore, the real focus of the Chilcot enquiry should be on how many members of the Cabinet in 2003, including the current Prime Minister, knew what was going on at the time, had knowledge of the real reasons for going to war in Iraq, and were aware of the delays in getting equipment procured to enable our Armed Forces to do their job properly?

Indeed, it would an incredible admission that Gordon Brown, the second most powerful man in the UK at the time, knew nothing about the real facts about the lack of evidence regarding the weapons of mass destruction.

Worse still, if he did accept the flimsy evidence as it stood, does this not question the judgement of the Prime Minister who is currently running the country?

One can only hope, regardless of the fact that we are only six months away from the general election, that the Chilcot inquiry fully examines the roles played by members of the current Government regarding he decision to go to War and that we find out why they supported this unnecessary and costly conflict.