1872 The Iraq Inquiry Clare Short and Ann Clwyd

It is 8.50 am on February 3rd and I have used the past two hours since rising in what has become a daily struggle to attend to do what I should rather than do what I want. In part it is a getting old problem, in part its is the continuing colder winter than usual, and in part it is me being me.

I am glad to have seen the back of January, an overall cold and miserable month in which the one immediately memorable highlight was the relay of a new production of Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera House New York highlight was Carmen, despite having a cough following a cold. There has been some excellent television and I have made some progress in my artwork project but overall all it is a month of dissatisfaction with myself, a failure to have made a made a valuable contribution to anyone else and a sense of having failed to make the best of what could prove at anytime to have been my final weeks of self aware consciousness.

I have decided to make better use of today, having completed the washing up from yesterday, I will first check on my commitments over the coming weeks including the trip to London when I could attend the Iraq Inquiry if there is a public session of interest, and then attend to two outstanding matters which I have put off. I need to write thanking the lawyers for their work in relation to the car accident and check the intray. How far I will make progress we shall see. I will go out again later as there has been no further snowfall to get some planters and bulb compost but the real test will come when I feel up to wrapping up and sorting out the patio and for garage for the Spring when both will be repainted. I will go and see Invictus at Bolden Cineworld, probably tomorrow afternoon a film where both lead actors have been nominated for Oscars, but the film itself has not. The nominations were announced yesterday and I for the first time in a decade I have not seen most of the films nominated.

Given everything that has gone wrong for the country and Gordon Brown’s Government, significant reduction in the Conservative Party opinion poll lead over the Labour Party at the weekend is extraordinary, and indicates the maxim that seven days is a long time in politics, the devil you know is always better and so on. The greatest miscalculation made by David Cameron over recent weeks is to take positions and immediately change them as soon as the media questioned and the polls indicated public disquiet. The present outcome is likely to be a hung Parliament with neither major party having an overall majority and the country run by the civil servants to a greater extent than now! This may, in part, reflect, the public view of a plague on both your houses and an innate conservatism which will prevent the majority from gambling that one of the minor parties will be able to do any better in practice.

It is impossible to generalise about how the non political will vote come General Election Day, not just those who are not members of a political party but the large number who have no interest in politics unless they become personally affected, the council is taking no action to clear pavements and side roads of icing snow, the government raises taxation or cuts a service which is used, or there is a dramatic loss of livelihood and the ability to care for dependents and having any control over the important aspects of ones life. What immediately affects or impress is likely to govern those who vote while a high percentage will abstain.

There is a significant different between the personalities of the remarkable women who appeared before the Iraq inquiry on Tuesday and Wednesday Clare Short and Ann Clwyd. I begin with the Ann Clwyd a bright star in the political firmament.

According to Wikipedia Ann was brought up in Flintshire attending the grammar, now High school in Holywell and the Queens School in Chester where I lived during my first year working for Cheshire County Council before moving to Bromborough. After university she worked as a journalist for the BBC and became Welsh correspondent for the Guardian and Observer for 15 years, becoming vice-Chair of the Arts Council of Wales from 1975-9 and then chair until 1997 when she left to become a member of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service. She remains a Trade unionist and stood twice for Parliament unsuccessfully until becoming a Member of the European Parliament 1979 to 1984. She was elected to Parliament in a by-election following the death of Ioan Evans and became the first woman to sit for a Welsh valleys constituency. She served as Shadow Minister of Education and Women's Rights from 1987 but was sacked in 1988 for rebelling against the party whip on further spending on nuclear weapons. She returned as Shadow Secretary of State for Overseas Development from 1989 to 1992 and then served as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in 1992 and for National Heritage from 1992 to 1993. She was the Opposition Spokesperson for Employment from 1993 to 1994 and for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1995 when she was again sacked, along with Jim Cousins, for observing the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kirkuk without permission. In 1994 she staged a sit-in down Tower Colliery mine in her constituency to protest at its closure.

She was a member of the International Development Select Committee from 1997 to 2005. Having been prominent in her concern for the situation in Iraq before the war there in 2003, Tony Blair made her a Special Envoy on Human Rights in Iraq in the run-up to the War. She was the first journalist to put forward claims that some Iraqis were killed in woodchippers. On 9 August 2004, she became a member of the Privy Council. Ann Clwyd, chosen for a Private Member's Bill via Ballot was pressurised by hundreds of pressure groups in order to publicise their group. Clwyd chose the Female Genital Mutilation Bill (to prohibit parents from sending, or taking, their daughters abroad for operations such as female circumcision) By Ann Clwyd speaking about this bill, Female Circumcision was banned in 1985. She was once regarded as on the left-wing of the party and has been a vocal supporter of the Iraq War.

She is currently Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group and the All Party Parliamentary Iraq Group. She is Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coalfield Communities, and Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cambodia. She is a former Chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an Executive Member on the (IPU) Committee on Middle East Questions and an Executive Member on the (IPU) Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians. She has been appointed by the Prime Minister as a Member of the British Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council for Europe.

These are her credentials. Before the inquiry she casually explained that she has pressed the Iraq Prime Minister about his country’s continuation of the death penalty while the first of five bombs went off in close proximity and she was forced to leave the building for security reasons, that she explained she had not been able to make the point that the death penalty was not proving a deterrent for murder. She spoke of one man who had brought to her information about the atrocities of the regime before the to allied invasion of 2003. After 2003 he was able to tell Ann his real name and has since sold his business interests in order to create a fee speech radio station. Ann had three messages, The first was the view that why did it take so long before the intervention took place. The second is that there has been considerable improvement despite the continuing security problems and sectarianism, drawing attention that 25% seats of the Parliament are female who all withdraw when the Speaker of the House argued they should be home as wives and mothers. The speaker was replaced and the women are pressing for an increased percentage. The third is that it is important to continue to be vigilant about human rights which appeared to be her continuing passion. She brought the position of the military, the civil servants and politicians into the perspective of what had gone on before and what was happening now to individuals and their families.

This balance perspective followed on from Richard Madeley, the former chat show host with Judy, his wife. Which became very popular with over 2 million views for the greater part of a decade. He made all the points I made in my comments about the appearance of Tony Blair at Inquiry last week and for once Andrew Neil and his new assistant failed in their blatant attempt to undermine the strength of his arguments. The only agreement was that Tony missed the opportunity to express regret at the loss of all the lives lost in conflict.

To counter the suggest that Tony Blair was right we had the testimony of Clare Short who combined her personal experience and prejudices into a devastating indictment of her former leader, but the strength of her case quickly emerged when one of the panel quietly asked, do you have any evidence, to which Clare responded in effect any other conclusion beggar’s belief.

I have a lot of time for Clare as I had for Mo Mowlam. I was on a train in London one evening when I overheard a civil servant from her department speak in glowing terms about what her boss was achieving in terms of the quantity and the processing of providing overseas aid in a structured and positive way. Such testimonials from civil servants, however junior, are rare, I suspect.

Clare although born in Birmingham has an Northern Irish Catholic background and has been sympathetic towards the aspirations of a peaceful Sinn Fein. My personal position developed after hearing from a journalist who visited the Northern Ireland prior to the insurgency when the unionist had total power and boasted openly about how they used Westminster money to keep the Catholics in their place depriving them of political influence, let alone power. One can still see the anti Catholicism which pervading certain interests in the UK, when only yesterday there was outrage on the BBC because the Pope had politely and carefully told Labour’s deputy leader that to apply a proposed new law to legislation currently before Parliament undermined a fundamental aspect of the present Catholic faith and should be reconsidered. The amendment was immediately withdrawn which added to the outrage on the part of some. The issue is more complicated than this but it nevertheless reflected the problem of trying to run a society where no individual religion, or those with no spiritual religion are allowed political dominance over others to the extent that it interferes with the liberty of others to practice their beliefs, but which in turn do not going against the basic human rights that are agreed should apply to everyone.

Clare had a child at 17 who was adopted and with whom she had no contact until 1996, discovering that he was a staunch conservative, married with three children. She had a brief marriage while still a student and her second ended in tragedy when her husband died, a former Labour Minister died of Alzheimer’s disease, thus he childhood and experience will have given her a personal insight and empathy with the impact of horror and violence of humanity and the belief that we should constantly strive to do much better.

Clare became a civil servant, working in the Private Office of a Conservative Minister, which held her to the conclusion she could do as good if not better job than some of the politicians she encountered. She was elected to the Ladywood constituency in 1983, the area in which she was raised and immediately created a problem for herself by accusing the infamous Conservative politician Alan Clark of being drunk at the despatch box. There was outrage at this and she had to withdraw the accusation although honest as ever when he wrote his diaries, Alan admitted he had been. When she conducted a campaign against the page three photos of Sun newspaper she got the label killjoy Clare.

Clare was always on the left of the Party but independent minded leaving the Socialist Campaign group when Tony Benn decided to challenge Neil Kinnock for the leadership of their political Party. In 1994 she supported of Margaret Beckett against Tony Blair and John Prescott for the leadership. Having supported the withdrawal of troops from Northern Ireland it was not surprising that she resigned her from a place on the opposition front bench because over the support given to the Prevention of Terrorism Act and then to the UK 1990 Gulf War involvement. She supported the legalisation of cannabis and other causes considered too controversial to become acceptable to the electorate

Clare became openly critical of the Prime Minister in the period before the decision to join the USA in armed intervention in the absence of a further mandate from the Security Council of the UN called him reckless, but did not immediately resign, in contrast to Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary. She told the Iraq inquiry that she had been given a number of promises by Tony Blair in relation to pressing the USA over a settlement of the Israel Palestine problems and in assisting Iraq after the removal of the regime. However two months later she resigned and became increasingly critical of Blair personally and the government alleging that the UK was intercepting United Nations Communications including those of the Secretary General. Although not denying the charges she was attacked by the Prime Minister as being irresponsible and typical of her character. She was contacted by the Cabinet Secretary and warned about further public discussion of security matters, disclosing his letter to TV with its implication of formal action being taken against her. In 2004 she released An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power and with covers her relationship with Tony Blair and his with Gordon Brown. In 2006 she announced her retirement from Parliament as a protest at the Labour Government, hoping for a hung Parliament and the introduction of proportional representation. In relation to the subsequent expenses scandal Clare confirmed that she had been overpaid £8000 in relation to a mortgage in 2003 which had been repaid in 2006, that is long before the recent change in legislation and leaking of the information.

There was therefore no surprise in her evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry which she communicated with great conviction resulting in prolonged applause at the end according to media reports. There were several allegations of key figures being economical with the truth and that she and Parliament had been manipulated.

She strongly opposed the Presidential style of government which Tony Blair had introduced and which she alleged was contrary to the constitution. I have an Advanced level General certificate of Education in British Constitutional History and copy of Walter Bagehot’s English Constitution in which he sets out the doctrine of Cabinet Government, arguing in 1867 that the balance of power was first achieved between the Monarchy, the Aristocracy and Parliament, and second with the Prime Minister being the first among Equals- primus inter pares. I have Harold Laski’s work on Parliamentary Democracy in which he argues for the strength of Parliament to balance the power of the Executive. The problem, although some would say its advantage, is that the constitution is unwritten excepts for components which have become law and therefore more open to change and flexible interpretation. The problem is also that most people do not understand the nature of the international economy and international politics and the limitations this places on all governments. The best example is the Chinese who suddenly understood the true nature of international capitalism and are the process of becoming an even greater superpower than the USA.

Most people do not fully appreciate the limitations of democracy in terms of making positive changes and getting things done without the consent of the individuals who carry out the decisions, assuming it is possible to reach agreement about anything in the first instance. It is not sensible for Ministers with specific departmental responsibilities to comment on the decisions of other Ministers unless they have experience or expertise in the subject. Policies should be a matter for the Political Party system and the Election manifestoes.

The position of individual parliamentarians who are not members of a government is a separate issue. The first duties are towards their constituents and towards the party who appointed them and is here that conflicts will inevitably arise. They should never forget that they are representatives of the majority viewpoint of their constituents and of their political party and their personal views and conscience should remains secondary in this respect unless they have been clear about their alternative position at the time of the election.

My final observation is that it is possible to admire both Clare Short and Ann Clwyd without agreeing with everything either does or says and it is also possible for both to be right at about the same subject at the same time and hold conflicting views. If the inquiry panel has the wisdom to understand this they may come up with recommendations for the future which will be worthwhile.

1869 The former Prime Minister at Iraq Inquiry

I went to prison in 1960 to express my opposition to the possession and potential use of weapons of mass destruction, refusing to agree not to continue undertaking non violent civil disobedience for a period of two years. I was able to leave prison at any time if I agreed to the undertaking. While supporting non violent civil disobedience and other action to indicate a personal position, encouraging others to do likewise in the hope of changing the position of the UK government and governments in general, I also even before going into further and higher education and training, accepted the that the role of any government was to protect its people from violence and crimes from within the state as well as from without. It could be argued that this is only legitimate role for a government and that all its others are options which in a democracy should depend on the will of the people.

This was one major reason why I supported the decision of the USA and UK governments to invade Iraq in 2003 to remove weapons of mass destruction from the control of its leaders who had used chemical and biological weapons against their own countrymen and in the war against Iran and where an estimated I million are thought to have prematurely died because of the power and political ambitions of the controlling family. When no such weapons were found in a situation where it appeared the majority opinion in the UK was against our involvement it was evident that there would be political repercussions for the Prime Minister in particular and Labour administration in general, particularly because of his style of political leadership and management, from having been in power for six years, having won a second term with a large majority, and successfully managing the economy appearing to have brought to an end the years of boom and bust.

Seven years later all the emotions and beliefs about the intervention and its aftermath are being revisited through the Chilcot Inquiry.

Until the appearance of Tony Blair before the Iraq Inquiry on Friday January 29th 2010 I was impressed with the inquiry panel which appeared to me to be asking all the right questions raised by critics as well as treating witnesses with respect and showing a good understanding of their different roles.

However yesterday the panel failed to show appropriate respect to a former Prime Minister, and one who history may well come to regard as a major figure in British political history. The panel appears to me to have become biased and prejudiced and pandering to the media who motives appear to be Party political with a General Election looming.

Whereas all previous witnesses were given some opportunity to put into context their positions Mr Blair was rudely interrupted whenever he made the attempt to explain his approach in context, although the chairman did intervene at one point.

I hope the Inquiry will give Mr Blair the opportunity to supplement his evidence with additional information if he wishes. I believe the context in terms of the role taken by the UK in the intervention other situations prior to Iraq is highly relevant as well as 2010 question if the action had not been taken. The panel member who commented that an alternative to the Blair 2010 proposition was that the former leadership could still be contained not only demonstrated his bias but detachment form the reality of what that would have meant for the people of Iraq, for the stability in the middle east in general.

I make these comments having been a member of an important child care inquiry in 1980 conducted originally on an adversarial legal basis with 50 legal officers, from QC’s to solicitor's clerks, attending on the first day but which was quickly switched to a hybrid where the panel conducted the inquiry on an inquisitorial basis but legal representatives were also able to question and introduce the evidence of their clients. The two forms of Inquiry are different and the panel appear to have forgotten they are undertaking the latter and not the former

I appreciate the Iraq inquiry has given witnesses the opportunity to submit detailed memoranda and documentation in advance of their appearance

As someone who became one of the longest serving Directors of Social Services in the UK 1974-1992 and experienced different forms of political and management styles to government I also detect that the panel appear through their questioning to have become prejudiced against the leadership style of the former Prime Minister in favour of the traditional civil service and local government style of formal committees and sub committee, agendas and papers, and minute circulation. My experience was that this produced a stable but ineffective system in terms of bringing about change and getting things done as intended.

In fact for the first years in my local authority there was such an obsession with the formality and decision taking process that I had to point out that no one was bothering to find out if what had been agreed was being implemented or if the action taken was effective and meeting the intentions of the decision takers. I also became skilled in ensuring that the minutes of meetings reflected my interpretation of decisions rather than that of the minute takers.

The other lesson which I quickly learnt was that if I was to be held personally accountable for everything which happened in an organisation with 1000s of employees and ten of millions annual expenditure of public money, then it was wise to personally take all the key decisions, having listened to the often conflicting advice and information and then to check that the decision was implanted in the way I had made clear. Records and paper were only a means for defending and verification but never for getting things done. However it important to also remember who Guards the Guardians?

I also accept that many people will have been angered by what Mr Blair had to say, especially those whose opposition to British participation in the war remains ideological or emotional, or both. Most serious political analysts and commentators will not have been surprised by his general approach and individual responses. As has been observed by some he appeared nervous and anxious when he commenced but quickly relaxed and settled into restating what he has said to Parliament and other inquiries. What was new and what impressed me most was his argument about what would have happened had the USA and the UK not intervened when they did. This is based on the finding of those who investigated why the regime had in fact pretended they continued to possess weapons of mass destruction when they had they not. This was only to gain international acceptability and an ending of sanctions but there was the proven intention to regain biological and chemical as well as developing nuclear power for military purposes and the missiles to deliver them. The former Prime Minister made the point that given the subsequent rise in the price of oil from 10 to 100 dollars a barrel he would also have had the financial means to develop the weaponry on a substantial scale. The threat would have become even greater. There was comment from the inquiry that equally the possibility was that he would have been contained as before the intervention. This was an aside to which I would have challenged are you saying it would therefore had been alright for him to oppress his people, torturing killing opponents depriving children and babies of medication and adequate health care, excluding 80% of the population from any involvement in government or government positions on racial grounds.

The charges against Blair is that he made a commitment to the President of the United States to support getting rid of the Iraq leadership and then found the means to do so, that there was an agreement to go to war at a secret meeting at which he and President spoke together without officials, that the dossier on weapons of mass destruction presented to Parliament in order to persuade the Commons to vote in favour of action was doctored for political reasons and pressure was successfully exerted on the Attorney General, the chief Legal adviser, to declare that that intervention was legal in terms of International Law.

There was also criticism levelled that the military had been given insufficient time to prepare for combat and were ill equipped under resourced. The USA and Britain also inadequately prepared for the aftermath and miscalculated the consequences in terms of the intervention of Iran and Terrorist groups based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa. The criticism is that the world has become a more dangerous places as a direct consequence of the intervention and that the people in Iraq are worse of rather than better and therefore by implication that the 200 or so British service men and women who died and all those who were substantially injured did so in vain.

There was a clear denial of the charges that he was determined to intervene in major way alongside the USA regardless of the existence of EMD, in order to change the regime, that he had ensured that the worst case scenario was presented to Parliament in order to obtain Parliamentary approval or on pressurising the Attorney General. He then made the point that he had made judgements and taken decisions within a context of his general approach and strategy. He accepted there were differences and strong differences about the judgements and the decisions but the charges about conspiracies and fixing outcomes were false. However I accept their is fine line between what all governments do to get results in a democracy and doing so outside the rules applicable at the time. The attorney general covered himself by saying that although a legal case could be made for the action in terms of International Law he could not say what the outcome would be if his view was put to the test in an international court. The emphasis was also on that whatever pressure had been exerted on the Attorney General to come off the fence any decision was always his own and therefore its responsibility.

There most successful aspect of the evidence was for me the explanation that that in order to achieve the desired outcome of the UN resolutions of which the last one at the time was the strongest to date of several, that regime change was the solution which would work. The objective was not regime but the means for achieving the objective. I thought Mr Blair could have been made this point better.

He also reacted strongly to the suggestion that the forces had been given insufficient time to prepare and were under equipped and resourced. He had told the Military of that they encountered problems because of red tape they should come directly to him and they had not done so. There was an admission that he had been economical with the truth in response to a Parliamentary question about the preparedness of the military for a combat intervention. At the time there had been no decision to intervene but acting on the advice of the military there has been some preparations necessary. He had subsequently agreed to making the position public acting on the advice of the Foreign Secretary.

He was also willing to admit that everyone had got wrong what would happen if you immediately removed the civil service, police and military structures, failing to have understood the extent to which power and decision taking had been held by a few and fear and corruption had permeated through every aspect of civil and social life. The other aspect was the failure to plan for the way Iran then intervened in an attempt to make the new regime fail. It had been assumed that they would appreciate the removal of the ruling family which had led to war and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. I would have pursued this aspect further because it beggars belief that those employed to make risk and worst scenario assessments did not anticipate that while Iran would be overjoyed at the demise of the controlling family and the removal of nuclear capability, biological and chemical weaponry they would be equally opposed to the development of democracy in Iraq, of a potentially secular state. Of the presence of foreign troops and administrators on their doorstep and power being given to Muslims unsympathetic to their brand of the religion, I accepted what Mr Blain said about successfully managing the humanitarian consequences, but I have some sympathy for the panel who stated rather than posed the question that the preparations for the aftermath had been cavalier. The root problem was in fact the failure to immediately establish order and security.

I woke up this morning to find over six inches of snow. I had not checked the weather forecast so I do not know if it was predicted but with the temperatures still at freezing the omens are not good.

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