WHITEWASH: ‘Chilcot inquiry not to name wrongdoers’

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Sat Aug 15, 2015 4:22PM

File image of Sir John Chilcot who has headed the Iraq inquiry over the past several years.

British media reports suggest that the UK officials accused of wrongdoing in the Iraq war inquiry will never be named.


According to The Telegraph, Sir John Chilcot’s final report will not name any of the 150 ministers, civil servants and senior military figures who have been sent details of the criticism against.

This has already given rise to the accusations that the probe is being run like a “secret court”.

Now, it is speculated that the revelation will raise fears of a whitewash as servants and ministers will be able to persuade Chilcot to remove their details in secret and never be named.

The news comes against the backdrop of reports that scores of former ministers and officials are being offered free legal advice on how to formulate their answers.

The long-awaited inquiry started back in 2009 and was supposed to be completed within a year.

However, Sir John Chilcot who has chaired the £10million inquiry has already made it clear that the report may be delayed beyond 2015.

Now, a London-based anti-war activist says if the report fails to publish the names of the wrongdoers, It would simply be “waste of money”.

“It’s simply ridiculous to have a public inquiry and at the end of the incredibly lengthy process, so long indeed that one of the inquiry members died during it, and not to find at the end that who made the critical decision. That’s the point of a public inquiry that how decisions were made and who made them and for that not to be part of conclusion makes the whole process almost waste of money,” John Rees, from Stop The War Coalition told Press TV’s UK Desk on Saturday.



Meanwhile, Families of British troops killed following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq have threatened to take a legal action unless a long-delayed inquiry into the war publishes its report by the year's end.

Lawyers representing 29 families say they would move to the London High Court if the Chilcot inquiry fails to give a publication deadline in two weeks. "There have been outrageous delays to date and it seems as though those delays would simply be interminable," Matthew Jury, a lawyer representing the families said.

The US-led invasion of Iraq began in 2003 and lasted for over 8 years. The war, which was initiated under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction, took the lives of 179 UK personnel and nearly 4,500 US soldiers. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths has been estimated to be over 1 million by some sources.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/08/15/424878/UK-CHILCOT-IRAQ-INQUIRY