Chilcot - publish or be sued.

[Workingman]

The families of those killed in Iraq are threatening to sue Chilcot unless he publishes his report before the end of the year. His inquiry ended in 2011 and he still sits on it on the pretence that he is waiting for rebuttals from those criticised.

If the victims are successful a precedent will be set so that other inquiries have to set a publishing date. That should stop inquiries being kicked into the long grass and has to be a good thing.

[TheOstrich]

Yes, it's way past time to get this report out in the open ..... I hope the families can soon get the justice they're looking for.

[cromwell]

The last statements were taken in 2011. Chilcot is a disgrace and I hope the families do sue him.

[Aggers]

I certainly think that it is time we knew exactly what took place in the
run-up to our military evolvement in Iraq. I hope legal action is taken
against Chilcot, and that it results in an end to this sort of obstructive
behaviour in future.

[Workingman]

I certainly think that it is time we knew exactly what took place in the
run-up to our military evolvement in Iraq. I hope legal action is taken
against Chilcot, and that it results in an end to this sort of obstructive
behaviour in future.

Seconded.

[cromwell]

This explains a lot!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Blair.html

[Workingman]

Secret meetings, dinners in private, Honours awarded along with well-paying Whitehall jobs, even after retirement. The Club members creating the rules to protect themselves. What surprises!

[Suff]

Well we were never going to get a real answer from the politicians.

I've watched this from afar and I've looked at what the press is stirring up and, honestly, I'm left totally cold to it all.

I see the press going on and on and on about how the parents want to know why their child died.

Well this is a personal argument which rages back and forwards in the left and right wing segments of my family and, sometimes, breaks out into open warfare. I am an ex serviceman of two families which have a history of service going back 200 years.

I have a simple answer for those parents and it's not the one they want to hear. The answer is this.

Their child died because they chose to enter the armed forces of this country and put their lives at the disposal of the government for whatever activities the government would choose.

In the last argument in our family the left wing faction said to me "So you are telling me that if your son was in danger or even killed in action, you would not blame the government". My eldest daughter answered that one, privately. Her husband was RAF at the time and was of the opinion that he, as a serviceman, should get some say as to whether he was put into danger or not.

My daughter said to me and my wife "Nobody forced him to sign the contract or take the money, so he should not complain if he has to face the danger".

I know it's not what most people here think and I know that very few might be inclined to agree with me. But the point is I lived the life and it's what we all understood.

What needs to be resolved here, urgently, is that families understand that people who join the armed forces may just not come back. If they don't like that understanding then they should convince their children not to go. If their children go anyway, then they know who's decision it was.

Whilst I am all for transparency in government shenanigans. Whilst I'd like to see Blair hung up by his gonads for lying to the people over his reasons for going into Iraq, I will not and certainly never will, blame the government when a member of the armed forces dies when deployed in active service.

Unless...

The government put them in a position where they did not have the equipment to do the job when they could have.

Poor commanders who order servicemen and women into situations that take their lives? Part of the job. Killed because you ran out of ammunition or the vehicle you were using lacked parts? Their fault.

I've tired to keep this to myself but I'm sick and tired of the press using the deaths of brave servicemen and women to serve their own political ends and I'm just getting tired of ignoring it.

[Workingman]

I also lived the life, and I also understood, and that is why I disagree.

I served in the RAF from 1971 to 1983, a time of heightened tensions between NATO and the Soviet Bloc. The Vietnam war was still raging. I was on detachment in Cyprus in July 1974 when Turkey invaded. There was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which put us all on high alert. When the Falklands war started my squadron was readied to take part. Had things gone differently any of us in the forces at those times could have been involved in any of those conflicts - it was what we signed up for. All of those things would have been legal conflicts.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 I was working for the Saudi Air Force as a secondee on a UK government contract. I was there for the whole of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. They were both legal as a country had been invaded. We worked with the RAF squadrons because they had the same aircraft we had. We Brits did most of the dirty work and were happy to do so. Where things went wrong with Desert Storm is that we did not finish the job - we stopped short - Bush Snr chickened out. That resulted in an open wound for the West, and it festered to the point where some thought that it had to be lanced. Bring on Bush GW and Blair.

What B&B did in order to invade Iraq in 2003 was illegal. The UN said so, our Attorney General, Peter Goldsmith, said so, a dossier was 'sexed up', other legal experts have said the war was illegal. It is for those reasons that the families want the Chilcot inquiry to publish, and they have every right.

I would have had no problem being sent to war when it was legal and just, but to be sent to war to massage the vanity of politicians - no way.

[Suff]

That is the whole point however. Legal or illegal as far as the world is concerned. The order, however it came about, was in fact legal, as it was passed by parliament and legally given. Therefore those in the service died carrying out a legal order. Whether or not, on the world stage, the activity being carried out was deemed legal or not.

The point I'm trying to make here is the separation that civilians seem to be totally unable to understand. People join the forces, people are sent to war, people die. That is what being in the services is about. If you don't agree with it don't sign. Families of those who do sign need to know and understand that.

The other issue is political and the press are blurring the lines of the two.

As far as I am concerned the press is doing Exactly what Blair did in order to get at Blair. "My little jhonny was killed in an illegal action" is exactly the same. Your little jhonny died because he signed a contract that put himself in the line of a bullet.

Blair should be brought to book because he lied to the people and waged a war on the international scene which has been deemed illegal by the world of nations.

Even then, if the war has been deemed illegal by every other country in the world, if it was in the vital interest of UK national security and the wellbeing of the British people, the UK has the power and the ability to simply say "tough it was right for the UK, if you don't want a war don't threaten us". That I would support unreservedly.

However it was not in the interest of the UK national security or the wellbeing of the British people.

THAT is the point which should be being discussed. Because our armed forces are there, ostensibly, to protect the UK security. In reality they are there to do as they are ordered and, if necessary, die in the pursuit of those orders.

I just want the whole thing put in it's right perspective and not some emotive plea because people died. That's what Blair did and it was wrong then and it's wrong now.