Posts tagged Politics past

The Chilcot inquiry was pummelled by Gordon Brown, as words rained down like nutty slack down a coal hole

Talk about bullying! The Chilcot inquiry was pummelled by Gordon Brown, walloped and thumped as words rained down like nutty slack down a coal hole. Short questions would be greeted with replies of 300 words. Longer questions were met with disquisitions on the British constitution, the recent history of the Middle East and any other weapon the prime minister found lying around.

He had to be told to slow down; he was going too fast for the stenographer who, we assumed, was slumped unconscious on the floor. Brown takes the view that you need to say everything a dozen times. Then once more, in case there’s a hermit on Uist who hasn’t heard it yet. Plus one for luck.

It was like a grisly new Radio 4 game, Just A Century, perhaps, in which contestants have to speak for as long as possible while using maximum deviation and repetition. And statistics. He had files full of numbers which he hurled at the hapless panel. There was no hesitation. If he didn’t have an answer he deployed instant repetition, snapping: “it was the right decision taken for the right reasons,” which I counted five times before my own brain began to rattle in my skull, like a retired boxer.

He began with an encomium to those who died in Iraq. Unlike Tony Blair, who couldn’t bring himself to express regret. Was it a dig? I wouldn’t be so cynical. Then he told the committee the three main areas they should be focusing on. This made him the first witness to give them their instructions.

Next we were on to how much he knew about the war before it began. The answer was, everything and nothing. Why, he didn’t even know there was going to be a war until the last minute! He wasn’t on the relevant cabinet committees. Had he heard that Blair had promised full support to Bush? You don’t catch him that way! He flannelled. “I’m just trying for a yes or no,” said Sir Roderic Lyne.

“Yes or no?” What kind of talk is that? The prime minister treated it with a majestic ignoral. Instead he hammered on about the need for a diplomatic decision, all options to be considered …

Very well, had he known that the attorney-general’s advice had changed, from saying that the invasion was probably illegal to saying it was entirely pukka? To paraphrase the prime minister’s reply, it was: “I didn’t know nuffink. And I’ll tell you nuffink till my brief arrives.”

Then they got onto the big accusation, that lives had been lost because he had not provided enough money for military equipment. He got round that one by means of a cunning plan: he denied it. Several dozen times. Not one single request from the brass had been ignored! There had been a dumper truck full of money round at the MoD, tailgate open, with Brown asking them please to “say when”.

They had even had a military chap round at the Treasury itself telling them what they wanted. “Anything under £10m was agreed without there having to be a process.” I thought that there must be a dozen other departments crazed with envy when they heard that.

Finally it was over. The panel reeled out, possibly to call an anti-bullying hotline and grass him up.

The Chilcot inquiry was pummelled by Gordon Brown, as words rained down like nutty slack down a coal hole

Talk about bullying! The Chilcot inquiry was pummelled by Gordon Brown, walloped and thumped as words rained down like nutty slack down a coal hole. Short questions would be greeted with replies of 300 words. Longer questions were met with disquisitions on the British constitution, the recent history of the Middle East and any other weapon the prime minister found lying around.

He had to be told to slow down; he was going too fast for the stenographer who, we assumed, was slumped unconscious on the floor. Brown takes the view that you need to say everything a dozen times. Then once more, in case there’s a hermit on Uist who hasn’t heard it yet. Plus one for luck.

It was like a grisly new Radio 4 game, Just A Century, perhaps, in which contestants have to speak for as long as possible while using maximum deviation and repetition. And statistics. He had files full of numbers which he hurled at the hapless panel. There was no hesitation. If he didn’t have an answer he deployed instant repetition, snapping: “it was the right decision taken for the right reasons,” which I counted five times before my own brain began to rattle in my skull, like a retired boxer.

He began with an encomium to those who died in Iraq. Unlike Tony Blair, who couldn’t bring himself to express regret. Was it a dig? I wouldn’t be so cynical. Then he told the committee the three main areas they should be focusing on. This made him the first witness to give them their instructions.

Next we were on to how much he knew about the war before it began. The answer was, everything and nothing. Why, he didn’t even know there was going to be a war until the last minute! He wasn’t on the relevant cabinet committees. Had he heard that Blair had promised full support to Bush? You don’t catch him that way! He flannelled. “I’m just trying for a yes or no,” said Sir Roderic Lyne.

“Yes or no?” What kind of talk is that? The prime minister treated it with a majestic ignoral. Instead he hammered on about the need for a diplomatic decision, all options to be considered …

Very well, had he known that the attorney-general’s advice had changed, from saying that the invasion was probably illegal to saying it was entirely pukka? To paraphrase the prime minister’s reply, it was: “I didn’t know nuffink. And I’ll tell you nuffink till my brief arrives.”

Then they got onto the big accusation, that lives had been lost because he had not provided enough money for military equipment. He got round that one by means of a cunning plan: he denied it. Several dozen times. Not one single request from the brass had been ignored! There had been a dumper truck full of money round at the MoD, tailgate open, with Brown asking them please to “say when”.

They had even had a military chap round at the Treasury itself telling them what they wanted. “Anything under £10m was agreed without there having to be a process.” I thought that there must be a dozen other departments crazed with envy when they heard that.

Finally it was over. The panel reeled out, possibly to call an anti-bullying hotline and grass him up.

No question discomfited Gordon Brown and he gave nothing away. You can see why witnesses have come to love Chilcot

Would he flip? Would the new, passionate, anguish-ridden Gordon Brown lose his head on his first outing to Chilcot-land? Reincarnated as the patron saint of psychoanalysis, would he bully everyone and throw his water glass at the chairman?

The answer was no. For over four hours Brown was formidable, positioning himself as unshakeably close to his old boss, Tony Blair, yet not so close as to share any blame that might attach to him. No question discomfited him and he gave nothing away. You can see why witnesses have come to love Chilcot. Donald Rumsfeld should offer to attend. Here Saddam himself would smell of roses.

Brown’s first coup was to reverse Blair’s awful parting gesture in January when he refused to express any regret to bereaved families sitting right behind him. Lobbed a soft ball from Chilcot, the prime minister affirmed that the invasion was “the right decision and for the right reasons,” but graciously offered sympathy and respect to soldiers and civilians who had died. He repeated this at the end. Unlike Blair he was not followed by boos from the audience.

Chilcot hearings are universally dull, obsessed with Whitehall procedure and epitomised by Lady Prashar’s habit of asking questions signalling their own answers.

Was Iraq really a threat to Britain? What could Brown say but yes? Did he really think there were weapons of mass destruction? Yes, he was told so. Was he really in the Downing Street loop? Yes. Did he starve the troops of money? No. The paint dried.

Chilcot’s supposed hard man, Sir Roderic Lyne, was hardly more successful, though he did open chinks between Blair and Brown. To Blair, Saddam was an immediate threat that he and George Bush had to eliminate at once.

Eschewing such nonsense, Brown described Saddam as not so much a threat as a test of the much-vaunted international community. The dictator was “a serial violator of international law”. Having “exhausted the diplomatic route,” said Brown, “the international community had to act.”

The committee’s lack of forensic skill was glaring. Nobody asked the obvious rejoinder, that the Iraq invasion was made in defiance of the international community. It ignored UN principles on regime change and pre-empted the weapons inspecting regime. It was not sanctioned by the UN and was opposed by most of Europe. Small wonder Brown began smiling, a lot.

If we learned little new about the war, we did learn of Brown’s skill at positioning. He was strangely “not aware of” private letters between Blair and Bush committing Britain to war. He did not know of the attorney-general’s doubts about legality, only that in cabinet “the legal advice was unequivocal”. He regretted one thing, the failure of reconstruction, but that was the Americans’ fault.

Nor did Brown hear of the personal anguish that reportedly afflicted Robin Cook, Jack Straw and Lord Goldsmith. Going to war, he said, was “the gravest decision of all”, but it was not one that seems to have caused this deeply emotional man to lose sleep. War was not his department. He was always in the loop but never in the lead.

The committee saved to the afternoon the vexed topic on which Brown’s military critics had spent the previous day savaging him, the claimed lack of armoured cars and helicopters. There was no joy here. Brown had stressed during the military build-up that “no option should be ruled out on grounds that it would be too costly”. Thereafter, he said, “every single request that military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.” He repeated this over and again.

When reinforced vehicles were first requested, in 2006, they were immediately approved at a cost of £90m. It was not true that defence was being cut during the war: the extra annual cost of £1bn since 2003 was “on top of a rising defence budget”. When the Commons defence committee said there was a 30% gap between needs and availability of helicopters, “the Ministry of Defence said they had enough”.

Brown was not invited to comment on the lobbying by the army against him, which noticeably began only when it faced defeat in Iraq – and Afghanistan. But then everyone at Chilcot is polite about everyone. At the end Sir John felt moved to reassure Brown that “life in Iraq is now incomparably improved on what it was under Saddam”. No one asked, better for whom? Brown just smiled. It was oh so cosy.

No question discomfited Gordon Brown and he gave nothing away. You can see why witnesses have come to love Chilcot

Would he flip? Would the new, passionate, anguish-ridden Gordon Brown lose his head on his first outing to Chilcot-land? Reincarnated as the patron saint of psychoanalysis, would he bully everyone and throw his water glass at the chairman?

The answer was no. For over four hours Brown was formidable, positioning himself as unshakeably close to his old boss, Tony Blair, yet not so close as to share any blame that might attach to him. No question discomfited him and he gave nothing away. You can see why witnesses have come to love Chilcot. Donald Rumsfeld should offer to attend. Here Saddam himself would smell of roses.

Brown’s first coup was to reverse Blair’s awful parting gesture in January when he refused to express any regret to bereaved families sitting right behind him. Lobbed a soft ball from Chilcot, the prime minister affirmed that the invasion was “the right decision and for the right reasons,” but graciously offered sympathy and respect to soldiers and civilians who had died. He repeated this at the end. Unlike Blair he was not followed by boos from the audience.

Chilcot hearings are universally dull, obsessed with Whitehall procedure and epitomised by Lady Prashar’s habit of asking questions signalling their own answers.

Was Iraq really a threat to Britain? What could Brown say but yes? Did he really think there were weapons of mass destruction? Yes, he was told so. Was he really in the Downing Street loop? Yes. Did he starve the troops of money? No. The paint dried.

Chilcot’s supposed hard man, Sir Roderic Lyne, was hardly more successful, though he did open chinks between Blair and Brown. To Blair, Saddam was an immediate threat that he and George Bush had to eliminate at once.

Eschewing such nonsense, Brown described Saddam as not so much a threat as a test of the much-vaunted international community. The dictator was “a serial violator of international law”. Having “exhausted the diplomatic route,” said Brown, “the international community had to act.”

The committee’s lack of forensic skill was glaring. Nobody asked the obvious rejoinder, that the Iraq invasion was made in defiance of the international community. It ignored UN principles on regime change and pre-empted the weapons inspecting regime. It was not sanctioned by the UN and was opposed by most of Europe. Small wonder Brown began smiling, a lot.

If we learned little new about the war, we did learn of Brown’s skill at positioning. He was strangely “not aware of” private letters between Blair and Bush committing Britain to war. He did not know of the attorney-general’s doubts about legality, only that in cabinet “the legal advice was unequivocal”. He regretted one thing, the failure of reconstruction, but that was the Americans’ fault.

Nor did Brown hear of the personal anguish that reportedly afflicted Robin Cook, Jack Straw and Lord Goldsmith. Going to war, he said, was “the gravest decision of all”, but it was not one that seems to have caused this deeply emotional man to lose sleep. War was not his department. He was always in the loop but never in the lead.

The committee saved to the afternoon the vexed topic on which Brown’s military critics had spent the previous day savaging him, the claimed lack of armoured cars and helicopters. There was no joy here. Brown had stressed during the military build-up that “no option should be ruled out on grounds that it would be too costly”. Thereafter, he said, “every single request that military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.” He repeated this over and again.

When reinforced vehicles were first requested, in 2006, they were immediately approved at a cost of £90m. It was not true that defence was being cut during the war: the extra annual cost of £1bn since 2003 was “on top of a rising defence budget”. When the Commons defence committee said there was a 30% gap between needs and availability of helicopters, “the Ministry of Defence said they had enough”.

Brown was not invited to comment on the lobbying by the army against him, which noticeably began only when it faced defeat in Iraq – and Afghanistan. But then everyone at Chilcot is polite about everyone. At the end Sir John felt moved to reassure Brown that “life in Iraq is now incomparably improved on what it was under Saddam”. No one asked, better for whom? Brown just smiled. It was oh so cosy.