Events | 2010.02.02
Clare Short at the Iraq war inquiry - live
Follow the action as the former international development secretary gives evidence to the Chilcot panel
8.41am: The Iraq inquiry has taken evidence from people who had reservations about the war, and from at least two officials who opposed it wholeheartedly. But until now it hasn\'t heard from anyone who could be described as an outspoken critic of the war. At 10am that omission will be remedied when Clare Short takes the stand.
As international development secretary in 2003, Short reluctantly voted in favour of the war. But she resigned in May that year because she thought Tony Blair had broken the promise he had given her about getting international support for the reconstruction of Iraq.
In 2004 she published a book covering this period called An Honourable Deception? Since then she has become even more critical and eventually she left the Labour party in 2006 to sit as an independent. If she were to re-issue the book now, it\'s likely that the question mark and the word "honourable" would not longer feature in the title.
Some of the press speculation about Short\'s appearance today has focused on what Short knew about Gordon Brown\'s views about the war . In an interview at the weekend Short said that Brown did not oppose the war, but did not support it either.
This is fascinating to me, but I get the impression that Sir John Chilcot and his team are not interested in internal Labour party politics and I\'d be surprised if they want to pursue this at length.
But they are deeply interested in Whitehall process and they weren\'t at all impressed when they heard evidence suggesting Short and her department were excluded from some of the discussions about post-war planning. It should be a fascinating hearing.
It starts at 10am. See you then.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/[...]2/clare-short-iraq-war-inquiry
