Post-Hutton

In the new post-Hutton world some are trying to cope with their disappointment. Clare Short simply doesn’t believe it:

It seems to me — despite Lord Hutton’s careful findings — that it remains the case that the Gilligan story was basically true, reflected what David Kelly said to him, and that Andrew Gilligan is guilty of nothing more than sloppy wording when he said that the Government inserted the 45-minutes figure probably “knowing it to be wrong”.

Her conclusion comes as no surprise at all:

I am afraid it remains my conclusion that through a series of deceits, half truths, and omissions, the Prime Minister got the UK into a war in support of America which has strengthened al-Qaeda, further destabilised the Middle East and increased the suffering of the people of Iraq.

Meanwhile Germaine Greer :

The evil genius that could have destroyed the world was eventually discovered hiding like a rat in a hole with so little fight in him that he didn’t use the one weapon he had, but nobody had time to investigate why well-informed world leaders so aggrandised this petty tyrant.

The Hutton inquiry, with its huge deployment of forensic intelligence, deflected the energy that should have rammed down the Blair Government’s throat the only question that really matters: why did Britain court complicity in the “shock and awe” campaign that unleashed massive violence against the civilian population of Iraq?

“Increased the suffering of the people of Iraq”? – “aggrandised this petty tyrant”? – “unleashed massive violence against the civilian population of Iraq”? These people clearly neither know nor care what Iraq was like under Saddam.