Letters to the editor: Chilcot delay points finger at guilty

Apology: Tony Blair in a helicopter over Iraq in 2007
PA
2 November 2015
WEST END FINAL

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The Chilcot Report is looking more and more farcical [“Iraq report: Fury at delay till 2016”, October 29]. The newly announced delay means it will have taken seven years to compile — longer than the British occupation in Iraq itself.

Every effort is being made by the Establishment to delay publication and weaken the report. We learnt last year that the cause for delay was those who were criticised being allowed to respond in private to the committee. Now we hear that further time has been allocated for security services and various civil servants to vet the report. This is the very opposite of the transparent inquiry we were promised.

Further delays and obfuscation can only strengthen the view that Tony Blair and his colleagues were guilty of taking us into an illegal war, and that our elite will do anything to deny this. The whole charade raises serious questions about the kind of democracy we live in. As the current government considers bombing Syria, learning from history has never been more important.
Chris Nineham, vice-chair, Stop the War Coalition

Your front-page story on the further delayed publication of the Chilcot Report into the invasion of Iraq follows closely after Tony Blair’s purported U-turn last weekend, where he allegedly “apologised for the fact the intelligence we received was wrong”.

However, the intelligence on Iraq was not “wrong” — it was correct but shamelessly cherry-picked by Blair and his political sidekick, Jack Straw.Mr Blair’s inexplicable failure to share with Parliament the key revelation made by Hussein Kamel that “all weapons — biological, chemical, missile and nuclear — were destroyed” was, of course, a disgraceful deception of Parliament. That said, other MPs should have scrutinised government assertions with greater commitment by demanding evidence.

It’s a pity they didn’t. If they had, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and 179 brave British military might still be alive today.
Dr David Lowry, senior research fellow, Institute for Resource and Security Studies, Massachusetts

Sir John Chilcot must be allowed to produce his report properly if we are to have confidence in his inquiry into the Iraq War.

The Saville Report, for example, took 12 years to report into the events of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, and when it was produced it so commanded the confidence of the Government that David Cameron issued a heartfelt apology from the House of Commons for the failure of the UK government of the day.

The Chilcot Report must also command confidence but this can only be achieved if Sir John and his team are given enough time to produce an effective and efficient report.
Andrew Edwards

Democracy is in tatters under Tories

Lord Howard states that “the House of Commons is elected, the House of Lords is not”, when referring to the tax credit clash [October 28]. But he fails to appreciate that only just over a third of the electorate voted the Tories in. At the previous election, the Tories said there would be no top-down re-organisation of the NHS, and then brought in the biggest re-organisation since the birth of the health service.

The Government chose to act in a very dishonest way, and perhaps it might not have even been elected if it had been honest about its policies. It is bringing democracy into disrepute even further, which I think makes voters even more apathetic than they already are. We desperately need a new democratic process.
Gavin Robinson

Perhaps Michael Howard, who proclaims that the Lords must always accept the decisions of the Commons on matters of legislation, could remind us how many times the Tories succeeded in defeating the Labour Government in the Lords, including during the brief period of his leadership?
Jeremy Beecham, House of Lords (Lab)

Population growth and new powers

News that our booming population could hit 11 million by 2039 [October 29] will come as little surprise to anyone who lives, works or travels in the capital. Rapid population growth means the impact of cuts in spending is amplified by increases in demand. We can already see services creaking under the strain, with Tubes and buses overcrowded and our health service struggling to cope with growing patient numbers.

We can’t afford to stand still if we are to meet the demands of a growing population. To address these, we need to see more decision-making and funding devolved to City Hall and London boroughs, which would give us the freedom to mould services to meet the specific needs of Londoners, instead of sticking with national policies.
Len Duvall, leader of London Assembly Group

LU staff must hear our latest pay offer

London Underground is not conducting a behind-the-scenes ballot, nor persuading staff to “ignore union instructions” [October 29]. We are simply informing our staff about the fair deal on offer and listening to their views.

Our offer has been reworked considerably from when the unions balloted their members in June, which is why we feel we need to hear the views of staff. The unions are not only depriving customers of the Night Tube they need but also our employees of a fair pay offer.
Steve Griffiths, chief operating officer, London Underground

Tokyo and London can help each other

During my visit to London, I was struck by the similarities between Tokyo and London and how much we can learn from each other, from city-wide demotorisation to hosting large-scale sporting events with a real legacy.

With Tokyo 2020 we aim to host an exceptional Paralympic Games that inspires the next generation. In five years’ time our city will be barrier- free, accessible and welcoming to all regardless of physical mobility or a grasp of the Japanese language.

I would like to thank those I met in London and we look forward to learning and sharing more.
Yoichi Masuzoe, governor of Tokyo

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