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| Mandarins and Iraq |
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| Written by Gordon Prentice | ||||||||||||
| Saturday, 29 January 2011 15:30 | ||||||||||||
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Gus O’Donnell tells the Chilcott Inquiry (28 January) the Cabinet should have been told about the attorney general’s doubts about the legality of war against Iraq. What refreshing candour. But why does it take an Inquiry to prise the truth out of the most senior civil servants? Why can’t they blow the constitutional whistle if the rules and conventions of Government are being subverted and Cabinet ministers are too craven and pusillanimous to protest. The mandarins typically wait until retirement before speaking out. By then it is way too late. Lord Turnbull, Cabinet Secretary at the time we went to war against Iraq, believes that cabinet government needs to be nourished and nurtured and that “trends have been identified which in some way threaten this great institution and system, in particular the growth in profile of the prime minister …" Yet I recall the same Andrew Turnbull telling the Commons Public Administration Committee in March 2004: “I think the Cabinet Committee system is pretty much what it always was…. I sat through Cabinet meetings in the Thatcher era. They were not terribly different from what we have now. Indeed, the way Cabinet is working now, there is probably more discussion than there was in the final years of Mrs Thatcher.” In the run up to the war with Iraq Turnbull had the responsibility to ensure the well researched papers produced by the Civil Service were circulated to the Cabinet. We know from Lord Butler, they weren't. (see paragraph 610) Turnbull should have had the guts to speak out then. When he could have made a difference. 
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 29 January 2011 21:39 |
