Iraq enquiries

The long-awaited umpteenth inquiry into the war in Iraq got underway last week. This one, we are assured by Sir John Chilcot, will be different, this one will be completely independent – which is presumably why there is a one-minute delay between what’s said and what’s actually broadcast – they’re checking for bias towards the truth.

So bold is the reach of the Inquiry they aren’t even redacting bad language. On the Inquiry website (which is really excellent) there is a disclaimer under the video footage that says “Warning! This video contains mild swearing”. As if an Inquiry hearing evidence about atrocious violations of human rights needed a parental advisory sticker.

Each week the Inquiry website helpfully lays out the names of the witnesses, times of their evidence and their specialist subjects – sort of like Mastermind. Next week Sir John Scarlett’s specialist subject is “Intelligence” – I can’t help but notice his is one of the shorter evidence sessions.

Oral and written transcripts are available of some of the evidence sessions. The written evidence carries the following disclaimer:

The session transcripts are uncorrected. The final versions will be uploaded in due course.

It is unclear whether this ‘correction’ relates to spelling mistakes or policy mistakes. I suppose the whole point of the inquiry is to correct one enormous policy mistake so it must relate to grammar. Although I am rather taken by the idea that someone might go back to the evidence later and write in the margins “What Sir Christopher Meyer meant to say was…”

One of the first to give evidence last week was Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the then-British Ambassador to the UN, who described the Iraq war as “legal but of questionable legitimacy”. Sort of like getting a parking ticket outside a doctors surgery – you know you shouldn’t be parked there but you weren’t planning on being gone very long.

So what exactly is the difference between ‘legal’ and ‘legitimate’? Errr… very little indeed, it’s possibly the most pointless argument of semantics I’ve heard since “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. I guess in many ways the Iraq war was like a child born out of wedlock in the 1950’s – all the paperwork was in order but that didn’t disguise the fact that one party had disowned the whole project and it was frowned on by society generally. But the repercussions of this mistake will be felt for many years to come and it’s debatable whether this semi-public inquiry will solve anything much – it’s not a truth and reconciliation commission.

There is only one matter of semantics that I would like answering right now – the difference between an ‘enquiry’ and an ‘inquiry’. According to my dictionary, an enquiry is “an act or instance of asking or seeking information”. Why can’t we have one of those?