Waiting, in a tiny room, for the Iraq inquiry

Waiting for Chilcot inquiry to start. This must be the smallest room used for an inquiry ever. I estimate it is 10m x 10m. I have seen bigger inquiry rooms at a council planning hearing.

The inquiry team have decided to allocate six seats only for the media of the entire country in the inquiry room. There were about 20 members of the public queuing first thing. They are all safely in.

Witnesses will be questioned today in a team – rather like a select committee. 

This format and the eschewing of lawyers makes things less confrontational.

Unlike the Hutton inquiry when documents poured out of government every day the opening taster here is discouraging. We have a specially prepared FCO statement promised and a map of the no-fly zone over Iraq.

Maybe there will be more new stuff soon when the inquiry moves closer to the events leading up to war. Maybe not. The line from the inquiry team is that they will release documents when they “feel it facilitates understanding”.

Related: Chilcot insists Iraq inquiry won’t shy from pointing blame

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