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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: tejek who wrote (540858)	1/5/2010 11:51:41 AM
From: Road Walker	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 1575036

Blair to face Iraq war inquiry, big demand for seats By Michael Holden Michael Holden 55 mins ago LONDON (Reuters) – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will make his hugely-anticipated appearance before an official inquiry into the Iraq War in late January or early February, the inquiry team said on Tuesday. And such is the demand to see Blair's appearance that the inquiry will hold a ballot to allocate public seats, while a third of the 60 or so available spaces will be allocated to families of soldiers who died in the war. Blair, prime minister for a decade from 1997, ordered 45,000 British troops to take part in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, a move critics say broke international law. He is also accused of deceiving the public over claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). No such weapons were ever found, and in a BBC interview last month Blair said he believed it would still have been right to oust Saddam even if he had known Iraq had no WMDs. The comment added to the public desire to hear Blair give evidence to the five-man Iraq inquiry team which is examining Britain's role before, during and after the conflict. "There has been considerable interest from members of the public wanting to know how to get a seat for this particular hearing," said John Chilcot, a former British civil servant who is chairman of the inquiry. "Given the potential demand, we recognize the importance of providing people with certainty about whether or not they will be able to get into the hearings." Blair will spend an entire day answering questions. In his recent interview, he said he understood the opposition to the Iraq war and the anger of some of families of those who were killed. Chilcot has said the inquiry was not a trial but would make criticisms where warranted. He has defended his team from criticisms that they had been too soft on witnesses and that the inquiry would be a whitewash. The inquiry has heard from senior civil servants and military figures who revealed that Britain had received intelligence in the days before the invasion that Iraq had dismantled its chemical weapons. An official dossier to justify war in September 2002 said Saddam could launch WMDs within 45 minutes. Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations also told the inquiry he thought the invasion was of "questionable legitimacy" while other witnesses have criticized a lack of preparation for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Blair's successor Gordon Brown will not appear until after parliamentary elections due by June so the inquiry remains outside of party politics. (Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Keith Weir and Robin Pomeroy)

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