Former prime minister to be questioned in public and private over evidence he gave to panel on invasion’s legalityThe Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war is to summon Tony Blair back to give evidence and he will be asked to testify in both public and private, officials saidlast night.The former prime minister, who gave nearly [...]
On at least two crucial points, the Chilcot inquiry allowed Tony Blair to get away with murder (Righteous, responsible but no regrets: Blair’s day in the dock, 30 January). First, Blair continued to claim an essential link between Iraq and 9/11. It is a matter of record, however, that just a few hours after the 9/11 [...]
Bereft of lawyers, the Iraq war inquiry has suffered total forensic failure. This was a cakewalk for BlairNone of the members of the Chilcot inquiry have training in either legal principles or forensic skills. They have no permanent appointed legal experts or advisers and no appointed counsel to represent the tribunal and to cross-examine witnesses. [...]
When Tony Blair appeared at the Chilcot inquiry last week, the families of some of the British soldiers killed in Iraq were there to hear him defend his decision to go to war. Here Reg Keys, whose son was one of six military policemen brutally killed in 2003, writes about the mix of fierce anger [...]
It has become increasingly clear that the PM was fully signed up to the overall Iraq war planGordon Brown was in meetings for most of Friday and only caught glimpses of Tony Blair’s televised appearance before the Chilcot inquiry. But with his own appearance only a few weeks away, he will have read the reaction [...]
The Chilcot inquiry summoned Tony Blair last week to establish facts for the historical record. But Mr Blair turned up to win history’s approval, its gratitude even. The result was pure theatre; the fluent former prime minister was given the stage and the cues. He performed.The questioning was neither forensic nor consistent enough to disturb [...]
Slowly he established dominance and it was Chilcot and his colleagues who took on a hunted lookThis was the big one. Yet as we sat down to the climax of the Chilcot inquiry, in walked a ghost. Its muscles were taut, its eyes bloodshot, its tan implausible, its mouth unsmiling. The hand visibly shook when [...]
Former PM gives no substantial ground on why he sent troops to Iraq to disarm Saddam of weapons he did not possessTony Blair ended an epic six-hour inquisition by the Chilcot inquiry last night by insisting he had “no regrets” over toppling Saddam Hussein, arguing that the world was more secure and that Iraq has [...]
There is a planet, some way removed from the real one, on which Tony Blair lives. He invited the Chilcot inquiry to join him on it yesterday. On this alternative earth, certainties dissolve and falsehoods become truths. Facts are transformed into opinions and judgments turn into evidence. Success and failure are both the same. On [...]
Once the Chilcot inquiry establishes the truth about Iraq, we should be quick not to judge, but to forgiveThe Chilcot inquiry was never expected to have spiritual consequences. Yet some optimists hoped that it might take on a confessional dimension, with apologetic forms of testimony emerging from those witnesses who had regrets about their mistakes and [...]