Text by Sarah Phelan
There’s an interesting report in today’s UK Guardian about a British inquiry into the Iraq war that is examining the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, including the run-up to the conflict, the ensuing military action and its after math.
Called the Chilcot inquiry, because the chair of the committee conducting the inquiry is called Sir John Chilcot, the committee was reportedly told today that, “ the government had intelligence days before the invasion in 2003 that Saddam Hussein might not be able to use chemical weapons.”
This inquiry marks the third attempt in Britain to look into the Iraq war, but while the committee has been given a wide mandate Chilcot’s allegedly close relationship with military and government figures has provoked accusations that the inquiry will be a whitewash.
But apparently a parallel Dutch inquiry could pressure Chilcot to question whether controversial British legal advice may have influenced the Dutch government to get involved, the left-leaning UK Guardian suggests.
Meanwhile another British paper, the right-leaning Telegraph, has a story in which the current British defense secretary Bob Ainsworth is reportedly blaming Obama and the US for a decline in British support for the war in Afghanistan. Hmm. It’ll be interesting to see if the British inquiry into Iraq or Ainsworth’s blame game gets any air time in the US, as Obama prepares to announce his plans for Afghanistan in a speech at West Point, this coming Tuesday, December 1.