The return of Chilcot

RKing

Scrap the whole charade and lets have a proper inquiry........ under oath!!!

Hugh Janus

Gus O'Donnell went native some time ago, and always watches his former master's back very carefully.

Vulture

So Dave is continuing to cover-up for his hero Bliar?

Govts may come and Govts may go but THEY continue to rule whatever the party label.

Chilcot should publish and be damned.

Senor Frizby

Is it not too late? I thought Blair had canonised or deified himself!

strapworld

Sir John Chilcott has skillfully placed the issue back fair and square in the hands of the government.

I now wait to hear of an almighty row within cabinet, led by Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

I would not be surprised to hear David Davies ask a question at PMQ's tomorrow on this important evidence.

Hopefully the press will give this prominence tomorrow!

Sadly, Vulture, Chilcott cannot publish and be damned. The publishing will be in the hands of the government- they win all the time.

laverda

The fact that Chilcot cannot publish the memos does not affect the conclusions and recommendations the enquiry make. They have the documents and if appropriate can say the war was illegal in their view after reading all the documents.
'Sir' Gus O' Donnell is a disgrace, a Blair lackey through and through.

Naomi Muse

What is it that protects Tony Blair from scrutiny, whether on Iraq (when we know that his Attorney General was exercised about the decision); and that he can shred his parliamentary expenses claims and not have to explain or pay back although the claims were substantial?

Tom (Bristol)

Perhaps once this despot Bliar is finally called to account for War Crimes in the Hague all this info will be forced into the public domain. Everyone will be able to read about his machiavellian duplicity & once found guilty he's locked for LIFE, that will certainly make the UK a much safer place for the general public.
I call upon Chilcot to start the process to bring Bliar & the rest to account asap.

Concerned

chilcott should have a word with a young chap called Julian who is staying at the front line club.

He can published and not be dammed and Julian is in all sorts of trouble already.

Norman Dee

Dream on Tom, do you think any leader is going to sanction the trial of an ex leader, when he could be next. Officially or not heads of state are pretty much beyond recall, no precedents, no looking over your shoulder !.

London Bob

Good God Tom - have you just walked out of the lecture theatre and into the student bar?

Annie

Call me naive, a fool or whatever you like but Blair's past is going to catch up with him and hopefully quite soon.
The Cabinet Secretary is attempting to cover for him - for whatever reason - but in the end the truth will out. I hope!

Clear Memories

I don't see Chilcotts problem, why not just ask Wikileaks for a copy?

It's time this matter was resolved and the odious war criminal Blair locked away for a long, long time.

Fergus Pickering

Tom, could you tell me why locking up Blair will make Britain a safer place? Or do you never think before you speak?

Tarka the Rotter

Let's not get too excited. Nothing is going to happen. It never does. Despite many pre-election promises, this government has done little to roll back the nanny state, and will do nothing to put Blair in the dock. Nothing will be done to hold Brown accountable for the lamentable mess we are in financially, and Sir Gus O'doo-dah will not be removed. The government decides what's in the public interest, not the public. End of.

Roy

Nothing was expected to come out of this Inquiry and nothing has.
Now, what has it cost the taxpayer?
Has it even relieved any minds in the turn of the carousel?

cuffleyburgers

There is no such thing as Prime Minister Blair - there is or was The Prime Minister Mr Blair.

What a horrible americanised usage that is

michael

Why should PM T worry he's gone catholic.
A spot of self flagellation in the confessional with a bottle of cillit bang a hail Erica hail Areeba ... wham bam thank you mam he's squeeky.

Clear Memories

Fergus Pickering
January 19th, 2011 3:50am

My personal view is that there are two purposes achieved by locking anybody up.

One is to express society's disapproval of the actions of the transgressor and the other is to act as a warning to other's not to act in a way as to warrant society's disapproval.

If the removal of Blair from public life to an unpleasant place discourages any political figure to think before lying to the public and bringing this nation into both danger and disrepute, then all to the good.

Never forget, untold numbers died because of his lies and deceptions.

David Bouvier

I am so BORED of people who think the Iraq war was WRONG not having the guts to argue this position in public and instead obsessing whether or not it could be construed as 'illegal' in some rather ill-defined jurisdiction with rather ill-defined rules, as if that is all that matters.

I recall 2/3rds or so of the public being in favour, which dropped to about 1/3rd once we messed up the post-war administration and got bogged down in insurgency.

Blair and others stupidly allowed the finding of live chemical weapons to become the perceived justification for invasion.

If you read the details of ISG reports and others etc it seems clear that

(a) Saddam had destroyed or exported his chemical weapons

(b) He wanting sanctions lifted but would not clearly admit he had no current capacity because he was afraid of e.g. Iran and

(c) was preserving his technical capability (hidden caches of documents and crucial components, some of which were found) to restore the program once sanctions were lifted.

He clearly misjudged things in maintaining public defiance while trying to convince the West that sanction should be lifted. Oops.

RKing

David Bouvier

You might be BORED but millions are DEAD and millions more are GRIEVED.

All because W Bush wanted to impress his father and was assisted by A Blair by apparently not revealing the truth.

A rather shameful episode in our history!!

arnoldo87

Right and Left hate Tony Blair for very different reasons. Old Labour will never forgive him for abandoning Clause 4 and making the party electable, but most of all they despise him because he became partners in a war not just with capitalist America but with the most right-wing president in memory.

The right hate him because he was a spectacularly successful Prime Minister whose charisma made him a world statesman. He also won three elections just like Maggie, but didn't leave the stage snivelling in the back seat of a limousine. Instead, he departed to a standing ovation from all sides of the Commons.

So the problem has been how to get back at him. Iraq gave them the opportunity. The campaign to call him a liar and an illegal warmonger has been relentless and has been joined by Right and Left.

I don't care if the war was illegal. Any definition of "illegality" which includes the United Nations as an arbiter is worthless. The NATO - led war in Kosovo was also illegal, but saved thousands of lives.

That leaves us with the "liar" accusations. I have challenged others on a separate thread to name these "lies", and to date none have emerged. So again, those of you who most vehemently charge Blair with lying, where is your evidence? (Beating in mind that a lie is a statement made when its author knows it to be untrue)

RKing

arnoldo87

To mislead, to withhold information or to lie amount to the same.

Your comments are irrelevant.

arnoldo87

RKing says:-
"To mislead, to withhold information or to lie amount to the same."

Wrong - they all mean different things.

You have failed dismally, just like others on this site, to respond to my earlier challenges to find a Blair lie, after you called him a liar.

Blair being a "pathological misleader" or an "inveterate withholder" doesn't quite have the same ring as Bliar, does it?

Percy

arnoldo87
The Commons gave him a standing ovation. Big wow.

ButcombeMan

arnoldo87

Read Hansard 18 Mar 2003 : Column 760 and the humbug and hyberbole from Blair in the light of what we know know about his deal with Bush. Especially in respect of the Downing Street memo: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

It is sensible to believe Blair deliberatly set out to mislead the HoC and the country.

RKing

arnoldo87
You must read what I actually said not what you think I said.

Repeat....... "AMOUNT to the same" not "they ARE the same"

You however are still irrelevant!!

arnoldo87

Butcombeman,
Thankyou, at least, for giving some sort of reply. The Bliar merchants on this thread have signally failed to do so.

Column 760 of Hansard for March 18th 2003 (the debate that took us to war) refers to the resolution only. Did you mean this? What exactly did you think was a lie?

And again, you mention the Downing Street memo without pinning down what you thought was the lie.

Usually people point to this sentence as a smoking gun:-

"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

and claim that the USA and Britain knew there were no WMD and so invented their existence to back up the intent to invade anyway.

That is one interpretation, but later on comes this:-

"For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

If the smoking gun conjecture is true, then, you had senior Government and Military men discussing the use of weapons that they knew didn't exist!