Introduction
•
The Baha
Mousa Inquiry, chaired by Sir William Gage, was established in
May
2008 and
published its conclusions on 8 September 2011.2
5.
Before the
formal launch of the Iraq Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot met leaders of
the
main
opposition parties and chairs of relevant House of Commons select
committees
(Defence,
Foreign Affairs and Public Administration) as well as the
Intelligence and
Security
Committee. Those discussions helped to shape the Inquiry’s thinking
on its
remit and
approach.
6.
At a news
conference to launch the Inquiry on 30 July 2009, Sir John Chilcot
set out
the Terms
of Reference to which the Inquiry Committee would
work:
“[The
Inquiry] will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the
end of
July 2009,
embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action
and its
aftermath.
We will, therefore, be considering the United Kingdom’s
involvement
in Iraq,
including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to
establish as
accurately
and reliably as possible what happened, and to identify the lessons
that
7.
Describing how
the Inquiry intended to go about its work, Sir John
said:
“… we will
adopt an inquisitorial approach to our task, taking evidence direct
from
witnesses,
rather than conducting our business through lawyers. The Inquiry is
not
a court of
law and nobody is on trial, but I want to make one thing absolutely
clear.
This
Committee will not shy away from making criticisms. If we find that
mistakes
were made,
that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we
will
say so
frankly.”
8.
From the
outset, the Inquiry Committee took the view that it was in the
public interest
for its
work to be conducted with the greatest possible openness. This
included hearing
witnesses
in public whenever that was not precluded by security
considerations, and
publishing
as much evidence as possible alongside the Inquiry’s Report. Sir
John set out
the
Inquiry’s approach in a letter to the Prime Minister dated 21 June
2009.4
9.
In October
2009, the Inquiry announced the appointment of Sir Roger
Wheeler,
Chief of
the General Staff from 1997 to 2000, and Dame Rosalyn Higgins,
President
of the
International Court of Justice from 2006 to 2009, as Advisers to
the Inquiry
Committee
on military matters and international law
respectively.
2 A
number of other relevant inquiries or investigations were
subsequently launched, including the
Al-Sweady
Public Inquiry (which took place between November 2009 and December
2014), the Detainee
Inquiry
(which ran from July 2010 to December 2013) and the MOD’s Iraq
Historic Allegations Team, which
was
established in March 2010.
3
Iraq
Inquiry website, Transcript of Iraq Inquiry launch news conference,
30 July 2009.
4
Letter,
Chilcot to Prime Minister, 21 June 2009, [untitled].
3