23 June,2009 08:06 AM IST | | Khalid A-H Ansari
With the British government yesterday preparing to make a humiliating U-turn in the Iraq War Inquiry following a storm of protest from senior political, military and intelligence figures, former prime minister Tony Blair will probably have to be questioned at open hearings.
It is now generally believed that the former prime minister took the extraordinary step of protesting that a public appearance at the long-awaited inquiry could turn it into a "show trial".
Last week, PM Gordon Brown announced that the inquiry would be held in private, but was forced to open up its terms after pressure from various quarters, including ex-prime minister John Major and peers from all parties.
Ministerial sources have indicated that Brown is preparing to accept parts of an Opposition motion to be debated tomorrow that the inquiry "should wherever possible be held in pubic".
Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary during the Iraq War, has already said that he would be prepared to give most of his evidence in public.
Blair, the architect of the 2003 conflict with then US president George W Bush, is the focus of calls to appear.
He is expected to be questioned at the Inquiry over fresh evidence suggesting that he was aware that Saddam Hussein might not have weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraq conflict is considered one of the most significant and controversial episodes in modern British history.
A total of 179 servicemen and women lost their lives, along with thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of allies.
Meanwhile, the British media has been scathing in its criticism of Brown and Blair.
Saying that "transparency matters", The Observer newspaper said in an editorial last Sunday that the plan to conduct most of the inquiry in secret is "profoundly wrong". It asks that Brown should let Iraq be the test of his "openness".
A columnist in the Sunday Express says, "The prime minister's thinking is often dark, devious and tortuous and his decision that the inquiry into the war should be held in secret was a depressing example of this."
He goes on, "How Gordon Brown ever thought that it would be acceptable for such momentous and tragic events to be analysed in secret by five hand-picked grandees with no power to subpoena witnesses, no power to apportion blame, none of the evidence given under oath and the results of the inquiry to be kept secret until after the next election is inexplicable."
Stunned by the furious reaction to his proposals, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has retreated, except for the fact that material that puts national security at risk should be withheld. He has also conceded to a key opposition demand that witnesses can be made to swear on oath to tell the truth.
In a devastating comment, former Head of Defence Intelligence Air Marshal Sir John Walker said, "There is only one reason that the inquiry was to be heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this government."
Meanwhile, Rachel Cook, a columnist for the Daily Mail has revealed that Tony Blair has been writing a book since he stepped down as prime minister in 2007, for which he has been paid an advance of u00a34.6 million
(Rs 36.64 crore).
Cook calls Blair "utterly unrepentant, a stranger to self-doubt and still insisting his conscience is clear".
u00a0
Thatcher recuperates
On the subject of former British prime ministers, Baroness Thatcher, who underwent an operation for a broken arm, is likely to remain in hospital for longer than expected.
A spokesman described her condition as "comfortable" and said she was resting.
The 88-year old former prime minister broke her arm in a fall. She has suffered several health scares and minor strokes in recent years.
u00a0u00a0 '''''''''''''''''''
Meanwhile, Britain's economic woes continue. John Hankswor-th, head of macroeconomics at PricewaterCoopers LLP has revealed that the UK is experiencing the biggest rise in pu-blic debt since World War II.
"We will still be running an annual budget deficit of u00a397 billion in 2013-14 and net public debt will be almost u00a31.4 trillion by the end of that year," he said.
