Inquiries

The Chilcot Inquiry is now the 5th inquiry linked to the Iraq War. Six years after the invasion and despite the withdrawal of British forces, the conflict continues to haunt the British ruling class.

On Saturday April 15, 1989, at an FA cup tie between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, 96 football fans were killed at Hillsborough stadium, Sheffield. This slaughter not only showed the contempt of the football authorities, the media and the police for the working class; it also showed that for the state, its police force is not there to protect and safeguard the masses, but has been perfected to repress them.

During the summer, the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly meant there was no let-up in the allegations, evasions and accompanying documentation on dossiers, intelligence and weapons of mass destruction. Usually the ruling class is quite happy to let politics take a rest during the newspapers’ ‘silly season’: it’s clearly a serious dispute that shows no sign of disappearing. What we’re witnessing is partly propaganda, and partly a very real crisis within the ranks of the bourgeoisie on the right policy for British imperialism. Lies about capitalist peace

Tony Blair and his political allies hoped that the Hutton report would 'draw a line' under all the arguments over the war on Iraq. This did not happen. Critics of Blair's policy of more sustained and closer relations with the US were angered by Hutton's 'whitewash'. Positions are now more strongly polarised and contested. More questions are being asked. More new material is being produced. The Butler inquiry into intelligence matters will provide another arena for opponents of the government's line to continue their combat. There was the well publicised collapse of the court case over the revelation by a secret service employee that the US had asked for British help in spying on certain delegations at the UN prior to the war. Clare Short then detonated her 'bombshell' that Britain eavesdropped on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. By the time you read this there will almost certainly have been further stages in this conflict within the ruling class, flak from Blair's critics, counter-attacks from the government and its friends.