Tony Blair and the Chilcot Enquiry

2010-01-28
Gulf News OpEd

Those in Britain – the majority as it happens – who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq are hoping that Tony Blair's appearance before the Chilcot committee on Friday will see him finally held accountable for leading the country into a disastrous (and quite possibly illegal) war.

Many among them say they would like to see the former British Prime Minister tried at the International Criminal Court in the Hague for the deaths of more than 1,400,000 Iraqis and 179 British soldiers, creating 5 million refugees, destroying what was one of the most developed countries in the Middle East, destabilizing the entire region, wasting £8.4 billion of taxpayers' money and making London a target for the al-Qa'ida attack of 7 July 2005 in which 52 people died.

All of these people will be disappointed. Chilcot's committee is actually the third such apparatus established, apparently, not to uncover the truth but to soothe public opinion and provide the illusion of accountability.

The January 2004 Hutton enquiry was set up in response to widespread scepticism surrounding the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly. Kelly was a UN weapons inspector who had briefed the BBC that the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) dossier Tony Blair was using as justification for the imminent invasion was unreliable. Hutton went along with the official line - that Kelly had committed suicide - and exonerated the government of having played any role in his untimely end. In December 2009 five senior doctors, certain that the scientist had been murdered for political reasons, dismissed the report as 'whitewash' and started legal action to force a new inquest.

The Butler enquiry in July 2004 was set up to consider Tony Blair's presentation of intelligence as a justification for war. Sir John Chilcot was a member of Lord Butler's enquiry committee. Referring to the so-called 'dodgy dossier' which stated that Saddam's WMDs could strike Britain within 45 minutes, it concluded that 'the government probably knew it was wrong' and that MI6 had withdrawn as 'unreliable' much of what Tony Blair presented to his cabinet as 'compelling' evidence. Nevertheless, Lord Butler and his colleagues found Tony Blair not guilty of 'bad faith or dishonesty' leading many to dismiss the report as another case of 'whitewash'.

There is little reason to suppose that Sir John Chilcot's own committee will trouble Tony Blair. Consider their remit: to 'examine the United Kingdom’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish as accurately and reliably as possible what happened, and to identify lessons that can be learned'. There is no suggestion in this rather woolly statement that anyone will be personally held accountable or that there is any legal content or intention.

Indeed the committee has already been widely criticized for not containing a single lawyer. The 5 person panel, hand-picked by Prime Minister Gordon Brown (who whole-heartedly supported Blair's decision to invade) comprises two historians – Martin Gilbert and Laurence Freedman - diplomat Roderic Lynne and Baroness Usha Prashar. All are known apologists for the war in Iraq with close links to the political establishment.

The Chilcot committee has provided a platform for disgruntled supporting actors to unburden themselves, however. Army generals have told how they warned the war would be a 'shambles', cabinet colleagues have revealed that they thought Tony Blair had 'gone mad' and senior civil servants have archly admitted that they tries to 'distance' themselves from talk of regime change in Iraq.

Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, used the opportunity to absolve himself and point the finger at his former boss when he dramatically apologized to the committee for his role in the invasion, saying he had been 'very reluctantly' persuaded by Tony Blair to whom he had presented an alternative, non-military strategy, on the eve of war.

So what, in an ideal world, would the Chilcot committee do with their opportunity to test Tony Blair on Friday?

First, they should seek to establish whether or not Mr Blair knew that his commitment to support President George W. Bush in attacking Iraq in order to force regime change was an illegal act of aggression under international law. One assumes that as a highly professional lawyer married to a human rights lawyer, he would be aware of the Geneva convention and the findings of the Nuremberg trials but if he were not, his Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, was explicit on the matter. In a 2002 letter he wrote, 'there is no legal basis for military action...as things stand, you obviously cannot do it.' On January 26 2010 leading Foreign and Commonwealth (FCO) lawyers Sir Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst (who resigned over Iraq) told the Chilcot enquiry that the entire FCO legal team had advised against invading but were overruled by Jack Straw.

Second, in the absence of a mandate from the UN to invade Iraq, did Mr Blair deliberately mislead his cabinet, parliament and the British people by fabricating evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs that presented a real and present danger to Britain? Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors found nothing in the run up to the war, and the CIA confirmed in 2005 that no such weapons existed at the time of the invasion.

Third, has Mr Blair personally benefited from his collusion with George W. Bush to bring down Saddam Hussein and replace him with a 'friendly' government in Iraq? It is said that he earns £1 million a year for one day's work a month at JP Morgan, which has invested heavily in reconstruction projects in Iraq. Co-incidentally, Chilcot committee member Roderic Lyne is also a JP Morgan 'advisor'.

If it is found that Tony Blair fabricated evidence to prosecute an illegal war which has caused the deaths of nearly one and a half million innocent Iraqis and from which he has personally benefited then surely these are crimes and he must answer for them in a court of law?

At least Tony Blair would be given a fair trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, something that was denied his Iraqi counterpart, President Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was tried instead by a 'Special Tribunal' that organizations such as the UN's High Commission for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said did not meet international standards for a fair trial. Saddam, of course, was hanged.