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Advancing, Paintbrush In Hand… June 15, 2009

Posted by bensix in Uncategorized.
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Well, Gordon Brown has announced an “independent inquiry” into the Iraq war. Unfortunately, it’s a sick joke, for these reasons among others…

  • The inquiry is much too late. Last December the government was claiming that it couldn’t be held while troops remained in Iraq, but it wouldn’t have been released for a year and so they’d have long-since returned. As it is, the Committee will report in the summer of 2010, conveniently after the general election.
  • Brown states that the Committee “will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability“. Well, why the hell not!? Even if international law is beyond them, no half (quarter, eighth) decent inquiry could ignore the copious lies, fabrications and deceits.
  • The inquiry will be held entirely in private. Hands up everyone who trusts them…

(Suspected as much.)

  • Among the privy councillors on Brown’s “Committee of Inquiry” is Sir Lawrence Freedman. Now, Freedman may be a wonderful, erm, inquirer, but he also advised Blair on Iraq, as well as contributing to his Chicago speech on foreign policy. That, surely, represents a conflict of interest.

This “enquiry” is an insult to all who’ve suffered over the past six years. I wouldn’t trust it to investigate a wedgie.

Comments»

1. Guano - June 15, 2009

Meanwhile people like Denis MacShane will apportion whenever they feel like it.

2. edgar the dolphin - June 15, 2009

i think its funny. i had no idea GB had such a good sense of humor.

3. Selected Reading (15/06/09) « The Bleeding Heart Show - June 15, 2009

[...] Ben & Justin point out that the ‘independent inquiry’ into Iraq is just all kinds of wrong. [...]

4. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill - June 16, 2009

Good title.

5. Telebarf… « Back Towards The Locus - June 16, 2009

[...] of course, that the inquiry has been established precisely so as to be ineffective. Mr Brown was surely right to say that the primary purpose of the inquiry must not be to [...]

6. Paintstripper… « Back Towards T' Locus - October 1, 2009

[...] Posted by bensix under "War on Terror", Iraq, War Leave a Comment  For reasons well-rehearsed here, John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry could hardly be trusted to investigate a wedgie. Chris Ames, of [...]