What was bizarre about the Hutton inquiry was the disconnect between the often sensational evidence and the ultimate “whitewash” report.
Who knows how Sir John Chilcot will jump when it comes to ordering the evidence to his inquiry into some kind of published form?
I dropped into the inquiry for three hours this afternoon (normally Alex covers it for the FT) and a few comments leapt out.
There was one point where Sir John Sawers, former political director at the Foreign Office – and now head of MI6 – claimed the government had achieved various goals set in 2003 such as a stable, united, law-abiding, co-operative, unthreatening state.
Chilcot dismissed this curtly:
“The picture that is painted in that statement of objectives is not, I think, what you would find in Iraq today.”
Interestingly, Sawers also admitted that Britain might have baulked at invading Iraq if it had known what would have happened next:
“Had we known the scale of the violence it may well have led to second thoughts about the entire project.”
The windy summing-up by Chilcot was also an indication that he may not take a favourable view of the Iraq venture.
I think we have talked a lot about potential, if not final judgements, at any rate provisional judgements about the whole six years. And I think the committee itself is extremely … aware of the casualty list, the blood. Treasure you can rebuild. Blood you can’t get back. I don’t know whether at this stage we shall come to the kind of final judgement that these last questions have raised. This may be the first draft of history. But we are conscious throughout of that cost that has been incurred by humankind. I think I’ll close with that.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
