Barry: Time to lay blame for Iraq bloodshed

Jun 17 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Because the inquiry Mr Brown plans on holding isn’t up to the job of investigating the war which Britain helped launch in that country.

Perhaps I’m missing something here. I wouldn’t describe myself as a legal expert, but I was under the impression that launching a war of aggression was considered a bit of a no-no.

We have, as a species, had a lot of experience of war and found it a quite unpleasant experience. So, I was led to believe that supposedly civilised countries didn’t start wars any more.

And I also seem to recall that starting a war is in itself a war crime, in fact the most serious of all war crimes.

Yet none of the men responsible – George Bush and Tony Blair chief among them – has ever had to answer to a court for what they did.

They embarked on a crazed adventure to remake the Middle East in their own image. It has failed utterly, hence the need to “learn lessons”. But there will be no answering for crimes.

And, unlike a court case, the inquiry will take place in secret, far from the prying eyes of any journalist.

As Mr Brown explained to the Commons this week, taking evidence in private will allow ministers and generals to be “as full and candid as possible”.

Or to put it another way, if the inquiry is held in secret, witnesses will tell fewer lies than they would if it met in public. By that reasoning, every court case in the land should take place in secret.

Of course that would mean that we, the great unwashed, would never have a clue what was going on in the justice system. But at least it would allow people accused of criminal offences to be “as full and candid as possible” about their crimes.

There’s something else that Mr Whittaker always says in Huddersfield Coroners’ Court, after he’s told the family that an inquest doesn’t apportion blame. He goes on to say that the question of guilt “may be a matter for another court”.

At least the grieving relatives are given this small hope, that if someone is to blame for the death of their loved one, they may eventually have to answer for it.

But when will we get this same assurance about the Iraq War? When will the men responsible for all those deaths have their day in court?