UK: Generals go to war over Iraq inquiry

[cal04]

Senior military and intelligence officers have condemned Gordon Brown's decision to hold the Iraq war inquiry in secret, warning that it looks like a cover-up.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/generals-go-to-war-over-iraq-inquiry-1706908.html

Military leaders, who have lost 179 personnel in Iraq, want their actions judged by the public, and intelligence officials say that politicians' manipulation of intelligence should be thoroughly examined.

The pressure on No 10 mounted yesterday as the shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, tabled a Commons debate for next week demanding that inquiry evidence be heard in public. The Conservatives will be supported by rebelling Labour backbenchers and by Liberal Democrats, who could force another embarrassing parliamentary defeat on Mr Brown.

General Sir Mike Jackson, head of the Army during the Iraq invasion, said: "I would have no problem at all in giving my evidence in public." He said Mr Brown's decision that the proceedings be held in private fed "the climate of suspicion and scepticism about government", adding that the Prime Minister ought to consider requiring witnesses to give evidence on oath.

"I do not see why it could not have gone for a halfway house with sessions in public and then having private hearings when it comes to intelligence," said General Jackson. "And they do have to look at the intelligence that Blair used in the run-up to the war... which at the end turned out to be fool's gold.

(snip)
One serving senior officer who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan said: "It was a political decision to go to war and we followed orders, although a lot of us had private reservations.

"One thing I do remember is how urgent procurement orders were delayed and delayed because the Government wanted to pretend it was still following diplomatic channels. This was one of the main reason for the shortages we faced and this resulted in lives being lost. We won't mind details of that coming out to the public."

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. It is a cover-up. Evidently, the sacred seal of confession must never be broken.

Brown has a habit of making grandiose (in normal circles, "half-decent") pledges, without understanding the political/geopolitical context. The impression I have is that the UK and its government are as much a hostage of your military-industrial complex, as you and your government are.

"Poodle" doesn't begin to express the thrall we are in to the US. Rather ironical when you consider Churchill's concerned exortation that we should never allow our ties with the US to be weakened.

This political myopia is what ensures that Brown keeps stumbling from one self-inflicted crisis to another. "We'll have an election soon. No. I've changed my mind." He thinks aloud, then makes his real decision in response to the response that he discovers his protocol decision has elicited.