Iraq inquiry light on documents

Hard to judge the Iraq inquiry on its first day.

Sir Roderick Lyne seemed like a man on a mission with some sharp questioning of witnesses. Baroness Prashar suffered what looked like a bit of a put-down from Sir John Chilcot after she asked the former FCO top lawyer about France’s legal view.

The inquiry certainly doesn’t measure up very well with the Hutton inquiry on document disclosure. There were about 20 documents released to the world on the first day of the Hutton inquiry – everything from internal MoD memos to the first sight anyone had of Alastair Campbell’s diary.

Many more came out in the succeeding days. Sir William Patey, now our man in Riyadh, referred to a two-page Iraq policy options document he drew up in 2001 but you don’t get to see it. It included regime change as an option but dismissed it on the grounds it was probably illegal.

Sir John Chilcot gave us a map of Iraq no-fly zones from 2001 and a list of UN resolutions, both already in the public domain for many years. Pity. And I’m not sure this is going to change.