1 Feb 2010

Iraq Inquiry: the military's turn

The Iraq Inquiry blogger gets back into the saddle after last week’s epic session.

‘Follow that up’ I hear you say, and it’s true that Friday’s session will be a hard act to beat. But even as the first public phase of the Inquiry comes towards its end there are still some key witnesses to hear from.

Thanks to recent developments we still have Gordon Brown, David Miliband and Douglas Alexander to get through either late this month or early next (in the mean time the panel will adjourn for about a fortnight next Monday).

And Clare Short was out banging her war-drum yesterday ahead of her own appearance tomorrow morning. She told Marr that Brown was marginalised by Blair in the run-up to Iraq, and that he feared that his job as Chancellor was at risk.

As for today it’s military men of one sort or another. The supremely-monikered Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup served in a number of the armed forces’ top slots culminating in Chief of the Defence Staff 2006-09. Interestingly his brief in the key years 2002-03 gave him responsibility for equipment, so we may hear more about whether political pressure from No 10 hampered preparations as several witnesses have alleged.

Sir Bill Jeffrey was the top civil servant at the MoD from 2005-09. Immediately prior to that he served a brief but again significantly-timed stint as Security and Intelligence Coordinator at the Cabinet Office – a post he was in when the 7/7 bombings rocked London. Last up is General Lord Walker, a predecessor to Stirrup as Chief of the Defence Staff.

Live Tweets at twitter.com/iraqinquiryblog from 11h00. I’m pretty much resigned to seeing the ‘Follower’ numbers ebb after Friday’s Blair-high – oh ye of little faith…