Good morning, and welcome to the final day of the Iraq Inquiry. Well that’s not quite true: today’s evidence marks the conclusion of the ‘narrative,’ the breakdown the panel wanted to establish of what happened when in Baghdad, Basra, London and Washington between roughly 2001-2009.
Almost all the witnesses to date – be they diplomatic, military or civilian – were people charged with carrying out policies and intructions that had been decided upon by their political masters. From next week we’ll also begin to start hearing from the politicians (and members of their innermost circles, eg Alastair Campbell next Tuesday) who took those decisions and created those policies.
Our final witnesses on the narrative then will be talking about ‘Negotiating the UK military exit’ and ‘UK policy towards Iraq in 2009.’ First up is Peter Watkins who was the MoD’s Director General of Operational Policy between 2008-09. Then it’s a tag-team of John Jenkins (FCO Director, Middle East and North Africa) and Frank Baker (FCO Deputy Director, Middle East).
Evidence from 10h00, live Tweets at twitter.com/iraqinquiryblog as ever…