Chilcot's unfinished business

The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has raised important questions about the creeping centralisation of power in the UK

Tony Blair's return from the dead this week, ostensibly to help Labour over the election, raises some interesting questions about his future. There are really three issues arising out of the Chilcot inquiry. The first is what happens if, in accordance with the known facts, the inquiry concludes that Blair committed the UK without consultation to a war in Iraq 11 months before the invasion; played down intelligence briefings that evidence of Saddam's WMD was sporadic and patchy; invented or inflated claims to show that the threat was much greater than he knew it to be; and tried to prevent the attorney general's judgment reaching the cabinet that the war was illegal without a second UN resolution and then leant on him to change his mind? -->-->-->

And a Possible War Crime coming to light in Afghanistan:

NATO admits Afghan civilian deaths in night raid

April 4, 2010 The NATO-led force in Afghanistan acknowledged on Sunday it had killed five Afghan civilians, including three women, during a botched night raid on a home in the southeast of the country in February.

Civilian casualties during operations by foreign forces cause deep anger among Afghans and President Hamid Karzai has called for night raids to be banned. -->-->-->

And new reports coming out:

Afghan women were killed in bungled raid, Nato admits

Nato has admitted that its forces were responsible for the deaths of three women during a botched night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in February.

It had already admitted killing two innocent men in the operation, saying they were shot dead when they came out of their homes carrying firearms.

Snip

Some reports have suggested Nato soldiers tried to cover up the deaths of the women by removing bullets from the bodies. -->-->-->