Kuwait Times

Published Date: November 25, 2009

LONDON: A long-awaited public inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war opened yesterday with a vow not to "shy away from criticism" during hearings set to climax with an appearance by Tony Blair. More than six years after the then prime minister led Britain in joining the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, inquiry chairman John Chilcot said no-one was "on trial" in the probe, which is due to last a year.

No-one is on trial here. We cannot determine guilt or innocence. Only a court can do that," Chilcot said in opening remarks. "But I make a commitment here that once we get to our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms, either of institutions or processes or individuals, where they are truly warranted." Top officials from the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence were first to appear before the five-member inquiry committee and explained Britain's policy towards Iraq in 2001, two years
before the invasion in March 2003.

An appearance by Blair, pencilled in for January, is likely to be the highlight of the hearings. Families of soldiers who died in the conflict said they hoped the inquiry would produce answers, among them Rose Gentle, whose son died in Iraq in 2004. "We do hope that the committee are going to be honest... I don't know why he (Gordon) died until the end of this inquiry," said Gentle, who co-founded Military Families Against The War.

She said she would return when Blair gives evidence, telling the BBC: "I would ask him why he doesn't meet the families... if mistakes were made, he's the one that's got to live with it." A small group of protesters were seen outside the inquiry venue, wearing masks of Blair, former US president George W. Bush and current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and with fake blood on their hands.

Anti-war campaigners want a ruling on the legality of the conflict, which took place without explicit approval from the UN Security Council. In the first session yesterday, senior British civil servants said Iraq was considered a threat in 2001 because of its continuing efforts to "acquire WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capability".

Iraq's suspected possession of such weapons was the main justification for the invasion in 2003, but they were never found. There were "voices" in Washington in 2001 talking about deposing Saddam Hussein, but US and British policy was focused on containing the Iraqi leader's ambitions through sanctions and a no-fly zone, the officials said.

William Patey, head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office in 2001, said he had ordered a memo detailing "all the options" to be drawn up. It included regime change, but he said this was quickly dismissed. Peter Ricketts, who chaired the government's top intelligence committee from 2000 until a week before the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States when he took on a top job at the Foreign Office, supported this view.

I was certainly not aware of anyone in the British government promoting or supporting active measures for regime change," said Ricketts, adding that in early 2001, most US thinking "was very much along the same lines.

Thinking in Washington and London shifted after the September 11 attacks, the hearing heard, and concern shifted to what terrorists might do if they got hold of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. "One of the clear trends post 9/11 was (that) the willingness to accept the risks intrinsic in a containment policy"-notably that Iraq could still acquire WMD and sell them onto terror groups- "had declined", Ricketts said. The inquiry committee has already met with families of some of the 179 British troops
who died during the six-year conflict, who raised issues about whether they were properly equipped and trained.

The first few weeks are intended to establish "a reliable account" of the main features of British involvement in Iraq between 2001 and 2009, when the war ended with the withdrawal of all but a handful of British troops in July. There have already been two official probes into elements surrounding the run-up to the invasion, but ministers had refused to hold a full inquiry until after the military deployment had ended.-AFP