Sunday Times 2
It’s a betrayal, say British soldiers’ families
Families of British troops killed in Iraq reacted angrily to the news that the Chilcot inquiry will not publish the full exchanges between Tony Blair and George Bush.
They said the agreement to include only quotes or ‘gists’ of the messages and conversations meant they would never learn the full truth about the decision to go to war.
Secrets: The hold up in the publication of the Chilcot report is down to a disagreement over what can be published from the notes and conversations between George Bush and Tony Blair in the run up to the war
Reg Keys, whose 20-year-old son Lance Corporal Tom Keys was one of six Red Caps killed by a mob in Iraq in 2003, said it ‘beggared belief’ that Mr Blair and Mr Bush were being allowed to ‘get away with it’.
He said inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot would have his hands tied by the failure to get permission to publish the classified documents in full.
Mr Keys, 62, from Solihull, West Midlands, said: ‘I’m not happy with it at all. I want to know the reason why my son gave his life for his country.
‘I don’t want the “gist” of it. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
‘This isn’t some minor bit of legislation going through Parliament like the fox-hunting Bill.
‘We need all the details that led up to the war, which was a war of option, not necessity.
‘Parliament has been misled, the general public have been misled, but worst of all those troops have been misled.
‘We need to see the full story. It is very, very important as part of closure for those who have lost loved ones.
‘And there are also people who have been maimed, crippled or blinded – they may want to know why they sustained those injuries.
‘If there is nothing to hide, why hide it? If Bush is so proud of what he did, release all the documents.’
Rose Gentle, 50, from Glasgow, whose son Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed in Iraq in 2004, told the BBC the relatives of those who died were disappointed by the decision and now felt they would not get to the truth about why Mr Blair took Britain to war.
‘Now a lot of families think: “What was the point? What is going to be the outcome? Is it just going to be covered up now?”
‘I think they should be released for the families to see them, because we’re going to wonder for the rest of our lives what was in it.
© Daily Mail, London
| War inquiry sham: Report to reveal only parts of Blair-Bush letters
LONDON (AFP) – Britain’s government has agreed to give extracts of letters from Tony Blair to George W. Bush to an inquiry into the Iraq war, overcoming the main hurdle to publication of the long-awaited report. The probe will receive “gists and quotes” of communications from former prime minister Blair to ex-president Bush in the run-up to the conflict in 2003, inquiry chief John Chilcot said in an official letter. But Bush’s replies will not be included in the report, which is examining Britain’s involvement in the war, Chilcot said. “I am pleased to record that we have now reached agreement on the principles that will underpin disclosure of… communications between the UK Prime Minister and the President of the United States,” Chilcot said in his letter to Jeremy Heywood, the British government’s top civil servant. “These documents have raised difficult issues of long-standing principle,” Chilcot wrote. The inquiry was set up in 2009 and was expected to report in 2010. The last public hearings took place in 2011. But disagreements over the publication of some 25 written notes from Blair to Bush and more than 130 records of conversations have been the biggest factor in delaying the findings of the inquiry. |