Chilcot announcement

Has the Chilcot report lost all credibility?

one - 2010
The credibility of the Iraq inquiry depends on witnesses telling the truth in its public hearings. Sir Roderick Lyne did not give Sir John Sawers warning that documentary evidence disproved his version of events. But Sawers, who used to be Tony Blair's foreign affairs adviser called his bluff.

The document is a letter written by Sawers in March 2001, circulating a revised version of a new policy paper. It shows that he was at the heart of co-ordinating the paper and that he sent it out for comment by foreign secretary Robin Cook and defence secretary Geoff Hoon.

When the inquiry was set up, there was a lot of criticism about the absence of an oath and therefore any real sanction against people misleading it. Chairman Sir John Chilcot reassured us: "If someone were foolish or wicked enough to tell a serious untruth in front of the inquiry like that, their reputation would be destroyed utterly and forever. It won't happen." Later, he said that the fact that "the stuff is there on paper anyway" would deter people from dissembling.

two - 2013
The Chilcot Inquiry is going to focus on the timeline of events through the Iraq War so we can clarify who knew what and when, and this lies behind their detailed approach to the Bush/Blair decision making timeline but also the Blair/Cabinet information timeline, however, overriding Chilcot and his fellow members is a power made by Privy Councillors and after the Maxwellisation device who knows what the final watered down report will say.

three - 2014
He wrote a letter that started "I am pleased to record that we have now reached an agreement on the principles that will underpin disclosure of material from cabinet -level discussions..." it had taken him five years to come to this conclusion, yesterday [Thursday 29-Oct-2015] he has announced that 2 million words will be available next summer for a security review.

Will it be worth it for the families of those who lost their lives?