The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
844.
Addressing the
evidence given to the Inquiry by Lord Goldsmith and
Mr Blair,
Ms Short
stated:
“I see that
both Tony Blair and he [Lord Goldsmith] said the Cabinet were given
the
chance to
ask questions. That is untrue.”365
845.
Asked what she
was trying to discuss and why she was not able to do so,
Ms Short
told the
Inquiry that she had asked for a meeting with Lord Goldsmith
but:
“There was
a piece of paper round the table. We normally didn’t have any
papers,
apart from
the agenda. It was the PQ answer, which we didn’t know was a
PQ
answer
then, and he started reading it out, so everyone said ‘We can read’
… and
then …
everyone said, ‘That’s it’. I said, ‘That’s extraordinary. Why is
it so late?
Did you
change your mind?’ And they all said ‘Clare!’
“Everything
was very fraught by then and they didn’t want me arguing, and I
was
kind of
jeered at to be quiet. That’s what happened.”366
846.
Asked if she
then went quiet, Ms Short replied:
“If he
won’t answer and the Prime Minister is saying, that’s it, no
discussion, there
is only so
much you can do … the Attorney, to be fair to him, says he was
ready
to answer
questions, but none was allowed.”367
847.
Ms Short added
that she had later asked Lord Goldsmith, “How come it was
so
late?”, and
that he had replied, “Oh, it takes me a long time to make my mind
up.”368
848.
Mr Campbell
wrote that Ms Short had asked Lord Goldsmith “if he had any
doubts”.
Lord
Goldsmith had replied that “lawyers all over the world have doubts
but he was
confident
in the position”.369
849.
Dr Reid told
the Inquiry: “everyone was allowed to speak at these
[Cabinet]
meetings. I
don’t recognise some descriptions of some of the least quiescent
of
my colleagues
claiming to have been rendered quiescent …”370
365
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, page 28.
366
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, pages 28-29.
367
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, page 29.
368
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, pages 29-30.
369
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
370
Public
hearing, 3 February 2010, page 75.
152