Iraq - the cover-up continues

Labour may have bankrupted the country, but there’s still one commodity for which it will always find plenty of money – whitewash. Labour ordered a huge new consignment yesterday as Gordon Brown launched his “inquiry” into the Iraq War. It will be run by an underling from the Butler Inquiry. It will be held in secret and its explicit brief will be to ensure that no one is blamed for what is certainly the biggest British foreign policy disaster in more than half a century, and may be treason and/or a war crime.

You must have misread my blog of June 6th, Gordon. I said that it was essential that the inquiry was “full, public and independent”.

In history, we often find that the cover-up is more damaging than the original deed. Remember Watergate. The act itself is often committed in haste and hot blood by a small group. The cover-up tends to be a cold, calculating enterprise carried out over weeks, months and years, by a much bigger body of conspirators – in this case, the entire Labour Party.

More than six years after the disaster of Iraq, the only people who have lost their jobs are the Chairman and Director-General of the BBC, and the BBC reporter who dared to tell the truth. And Labour MP’s keep wringing their hands and agonising over why people have no respect for politicians! The party’s determination to ensure that those responsible for Iraq are not called to account is a cancer that will destroy Labour unless it is cut out, but it is hard to see this discredited bunch having the guts or the integrity to do the deed.