Sir John Chilcot has defied calls to set a timetable for publication of the eagerly-awaited £10 million Iraq Inquiry report, stressing that the vast scale of the panel’s task and the need for fairness to all has meant it “would take a considerable time to produce”.
The inquiry chairman said he understood the "anguish" of the families, who lost loved ones in the conflict, but argued that the probe was "unprecedented" in its scope and scale.
Nonetheless, Sir John's justification was immediately rejected by bereaved families, who have been threatening legal action to force him to publish by the end of the year.
Glaswegian Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon was killed in a bomb attack in 2004, said: "Chilcot says he understands the anguish of the families but he's not the one going to bed and having nightmares, dreaming about it every night."
Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon was killed in Iraq in 2005, urged Sir John to “get on with it”, adding: “If he was in our shoes, he might well take a different view on what is going on.”
Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Tom Keys was killed in Iraq in 2003, said the families wanted the report to be "open, transparent and unflinching in its findings".
Noting how the families of the fallen simply wanted closure, Mr Keys complained that the balance had tipped away from the military families and the public and was now “pandering” to the wishes of politicians and officials named in the report.
He pointed out how his wife had died two years ago and, consequently, would not know the report’s findings. “How many other families and loved ones will we lose without finding the results?" he asked.
Sir John issued a rare public statement after an assertion was made by Clare Short, the former International Development Secretary, that the delay in publication was not, as people have been led to believe, down to so-called Maxwellisation – the process whereby those criticised have a right of reply prior to publication – but to a "very poor" quality report.
Ms Short claimed its spread of criticism was so wide that "we won't get a proper diagnosis" about the Iraq war.
But the career civil servant defended the inquiry’s process, in particular Maxwellisation.
He stressed that allowing people to respond to criticisms made against them was “essential not only to the fairness but also the accuracy and completeness of our report. It has already led, for example, to the identification of government documents which had not been submitted to the inquiry and which have in some cases opened up new issues”.
Sir John also emphasised that individuals had not been given an open-ended timescale nor was Maxwellisation a process of negotiation; the inquiry, he insisted, “remained in control of its deadlines”.
The scope of the inquiry, he said, had “no precedent”, investigating the UK's involvement in Iraq from 2001 to 2009. It had held more than 130 sessions of witness evidence and received more than 150,000 documents, some declassified, including Prime Ministerial notes and telephone calls with US President George W Bush.
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