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The Report of the Iraq Inquiry
52.  When he established the Inquiry, Mr Brown stated that it would have access to all
government records. The Inquiry has received more than 150,000 such documents
during the course of its work. Where it has not been possible for the relevant department
to supply a document that the Inquiry believes existed, that is indicated in the text.
The Inquiry has no reason to believe that any document has been deliberately withheld.
53.  The Inquiry has examined material produced before summer 2001 and after July
2009 where that is necessary for a full understanding of the Government’s response
to events between those dates.
54.  The Inquiry’s access to, and ability to publish material from, documents produced
by the UK Government has been governed by the Protocol between the Iraq Inquiry
and Her Majesty’s Government regarding Documents and Other Written and Electronic
Information. The Protocol can be found on the Inquiry’s website and on www.gov.uk.
It applies a test to determine when material may be disclosed publicly which is specific
to this Inquiry, and which differs from the criteria set by the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
55.  Throughout its duration, the Inquiry has sought the Government’s permission to
publish material under the terms of the Protocol. It has done so by:
Asking for the declassification of whole documents where they are considered
to be particularly significant. Around 1,800 of these documents, including
any redactions required by the Government, appear on the Inquiry’s website
alongside this Report. Redactions appear as blank white space, not as black
lines.13
Asking for agreement to disclose a limited amount of material from documents,
either in the form of a directly quoted extract, a summary of the document’s
contents (known as a “gist”) or a mixture of the two. The source for a quote or
gist is included as a footnote in the Report. The Inquiry has used material from
around 7,000 documents in this way.
56.  The material agreed by the Government for disclosure by the Inquiry is highly
unusual in its scale and sensitivity.
PUBLICATION OF THE MOST SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS
57.  Some categories of document to which the Inquiry considered it necessary to refer
raise difficult issues of principle for the Government.
58.  This Report therefore contains, exceptionally, material of a kind which would
normally be regarded as highly sensitive and confidential, including:
extracts from Cabinet minutes;
13  In JIC Assessments, which have been retyped by the Inquiry at the Government’s request, redactions
appear as “[…]”.
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