Chilcot deadline would ‘wreck’ inquiry

FAMILIES of soldiers killed in Iraq could have to wait well into 2016 for the findings of the long-delayed Chilcot inquiry, a senior MP has suggested as he warned that imposing a deadline on the process could wreck it.

Crispin Blunt, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, estimated the independent inquiry, which has run for more than six years, was in the last 10 per cent of its time.

He spoke as a senior military officer who gave evidence to the inquiry joined calls for a deadline to be imposed, saying the military lessons of the war could not be fully learnt until it was published.

Sir John Chilcot is facing legal action from bereaved families after again defying calls to set a timetable for publication before Christmas.

The chairman said he understood the “anguish” of those who lost loved ones in the conflict, but argued that the probe was “unprecedented” in its scope.

Sir John has revealed he was still pursuing new lines of inquiry and has yet to receive responses from everyone criticised in a first draft of the report.

Mr Blunt rejected calls for an end date to be imposed. “We can do that, but then we can wreck the inquiry in the process,” he said.

“The inquiry, which is independent and sets its own procedure, has determined how it is going to conduct itself.

“It is without any doubt, I think, in the last 10 per cent of its inquiry time – I would sincerely hope so after six years.

“So in that sense we would be getting very impatient – understandably as far as the families are concerned, of course, and indeed everyone else who has been waiting for this – at the end of a six-year process.”

A senior military officer who gave evidence to the inquiry, but who declined to be named, said the military lessons of the Iraq campaign could not be properly learnt while everyone was waiting for the inquiry.

He said: “I think it’s gone on far, far too long. I share the view of those who say there should be a rigorous time scale set out. To still be waiting for the results of this six years later is stretching it. You can only put things right when you know what’s gone wrong.”

Sir William Patey, former ambassador to Iraq, who also gave evidence, said the delay was stifling debate about what had gone wrong in the campaign.

He said: “We can’t move on. We have got to have a debate. The debate is not being had because it’s awaiting Chilcot.”

Matthew Jury, a lawyer representing some of the families, said Sir John’s claim that witnesses “have not been given an open-ended time scale” to respond to criticisms was “meaningless”.

He said the families’ legal team “will be taking further legal steps as are considered necessary and appropriate”.