1 Boring Old Man

Chilcot’s Straw man argument

Until all the pre-war documents are published – including ones Jack Straw has suppressed – the Iraq inquiry will be hobbled

guardian.co.uk
by Chris Ames
8 February 2010

The Iraq inquiry seems to have saved the best till last. At the final session of its second phase, the Chilcot panel used former foreign secretary Jack Straw’s appearance as little more than a canvas on which to paint a picture of what really happened in the runup to war. Straw could do little more than agree, comment that the inquiry had seen the documents and try to put his gloss on things.

Once again, the inquiry has used a witness session with a key decision maker to tell the public – perhaps more directly than ever – what is in the documents that they have seen but are not allowed to publish. At the end, Sir John Chilcot said that, however revealing the sessions have been, the great bulk of the evidence, telling us "what really went on behind the scenes", is in the documents. This is not entirely satisfactory, but it is the best we will get for now.

What we appear to have learnt this afternoon is that US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Straw in early 2003 that the US was going to go to war come what may, that UN security council members were reluctant to back a second resolution, having gained this impression, and that Britain knew very well that France was not threatening to veto any such resolution but that Tony Blair and George Bush decided to blame the French anyway.

Straw, the man who backed the war but wants us to believe he was against it, tried to have it both ways at once, but eventually the weight of his contradictions caught up with him. Although most predictions were that Straw would be put under pressure over the legal issues, he was in most difficulty over the endgame: the failed attempt to get a second UN resolution to back the war – sorry, to secure Iraqi disarmament.

The first major hint of what really happened was when Sir Lawrence Freedman asked Straw if Powell had ever told him that military action was planned for the middle of March 2003, even if Saddam complied with security council resolution 1441. Straw could not remember this but Freedman suggested that he check the records, which Straw agreed to do: "I think you are trying to tell me something." Nothing you didn’t already know.

Sir Roderick Lyne then weighed in with questions about the failure to get the second resolution, telling Straw pretty clearly that Britain never had the nine security council votes it needed, so the idea that French president Jacques Chirac had scuppered the process did not stand up. Was not loyal Bulgaria saying that it was becoming harder to justify what was increasingly being seen as an authorisation for war? Straw could only agree that noises coming from people like US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not help.

Lyne also asked whether Britain got calls from France on 11, 12 and 13 March 2003 to say that they were misinterpreting Chirac’s statement that France would veto a new resolution "whatever the circumstances". The question was too detailed to be speculative – to be based on anything other than based on real evidence. Again, Straw could only try to put his gloss on the issue by claiming that the damage from Chirac’s comments was already done.

Finally, Lyne asked whether there was an agreement between No 10 and the White House on 12 March to blame the French for the failure to get a second resolution. A helpless Straw could not disagree. At the end of the session, Chilcot said that from everything the inquiry had heard and read, Straw was the only person to have been kept fully informed throughout. Straw suggested that defence secretary Geoff Hoon was also closely involved, but the point had been made: not just that Straw was in the loop all the way through, but that most of the rest of the cabinet didn’t know a lot of what was going on.

As for the legal issues, Straw admitted that he had persuaded attorney general Lord Goldsmith not to tell the last pre-war cabinet meeting that "the legal issues were finely balanced," as I wrote here. Goldsmith himself had denied it and both men still claimed that the attorney had attended cabinet prepared to answer questions, whatever Clare Short had said.

Here, Straw collapsed under the weight of his own contradictions, with no help from the Chilcot panel. He had indeed been concerned that news that the legal issues were finely balanced might leak if the cabinet were told. But then, he said, the fact that the legal issues were finely balanced was known to anyone who opened a newspaper at the time, so the cabinet did not need to be told. So why the need for secrecy?

And Straw seemed completely oblivious to the ultimate contradiction behind his decision to veto publication of the minutes of that meeting. He had done so to protect cabinet confidentiality and collective decision making, even though – as has been pointed out – ministers and spin doctors are happy enough to leak their version of cabinet discussions when it suits them. But the cabinet was not, in this case, to be trusted with the information to have a proper discussion in the first place.

At the end of the session, Chilcot summed up for a few minutes on where the inquiry has got to, as it packs up public hearings for a few months – give or take the odd session with the current prime minister. But he seemed unwilling to confront the contradiction under which it continues to suffer: while the "central core" of the inquiry is about the documents rather than the witnesses, most of it remains hidden from public view, in unpublished documents.

Freedman and Lyne are doing their best to let us know what really happened, and spotting the hints can be entertaining – but it is a poor substitute for a fully open inquiry.