PM expresses frustration over date for Iraq war report while Tony Blair’s office denies he has had anything to do with the delay

Sir John Chilcot has announced that he is to publish his long-awaited report into the Iraq war in June or July next year, giving government officials up to three months to carry out national security checks on its findings.

Chilcot delayed by need to bolt down criticisms of Blair and co Read more

The further wait for the report’s publication prompted David Cameron to say he was “immensely frustrated” on behalf of families who lost loved ones in the war after the former civil servant said he would complete his work seven years after Gordon Brown set up the inquiry.



In his letter to the prime minister, Chilcot said the text of his report – expected to run to more than 2m words – should be finalised in the week of 18 April 2016. He then promised to hand the document over to officials, who will be allowed to conduct national security checks before its publication which should take place in June or July.

Chilcot pre-empted criticism of his decision to allow officials to clear the report by saying it was necessary to avoid an inadvertent breach of national security and to ensure there had been no breach of article two of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), the right to life.

In his letter, Chilcot said: “National security checking is distinct from the process of declassifying material for disclosure in the inquiry’s report. Its purpose is to ensure that the government’s obligations under article two of the ECHR and for the protection of national security will not be inadvertently breached by publication of the inquiry’s report as a whole.

“The inquiry will obviously seek to ensure no such breach might occur, but I entirely understand that a checking process is necessary and is normal procedure in inquiries which have considered a large volume of sensitive material, as we have.”

Tony Blair’s office denied that he was the cause of the delay. The former prime minister’s spokeswoman made clear that he replied in August this year after receiving documents in January from the Chilcot enquiry as part of the Maxwellisation process in which witnesses who are to be criticised are given a right to reply. The documents sent to Blair were understood to have run to thousands of pages.

Blair’s spokeswoman said: “Tony Blair has always wanted the inquiry to report as soon as it properly can and he looks forward to responding to the inquiry’s report. Mr Blair also wants to make it clear that the timetable of the Inquiry and the length of time it will have taken to report is not the result either of issues over the correspondence between him as prime minister and President Bush; or due to the Maxwellisation process.”

Cameron made no attempt to hide his irritation. Speaking at the conclusion of the Northern Future Forum in Reykjavik, he said: “I am immensely frustrated by the slowness and amount of time it has taken. I am not frustrated on my own behalf. I am frustrated for the mums and the dads who lost loved ones and who want to know what happened and why it happened and want to make sure that the lessons are learnt.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir John Chilcot. Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Cameron played down the significance of the vetting of the report on national security grounds. He said: “On Chilcot, we will follow absolutely the required method of responding to independent inquiries, where they arrive on the government’s desk. There is a very brief bout of national security checking that has to be carried out.

“When we had the Saville inquiry – which was an even longer inquiry into Bloody Sunday – I think it took two weeks for my office to make sure that was turned around and published. I’ll publish it as quick as I possibly can. I know how long people have waited, they don’t want to have to wait any longer.”

Iraq war inquiry to be published in summer 2016 - Politics Live Read more

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blair and Bush in Northern Ireland in 2003. Photograph: Luke Frazza/AFP/Getty Images

Chilcot has been involved in a lengthy wrangle with two successive cabinet secretaries, Gus O’Donnell and Sir Jeremy Heywood, over the publication of correspondence between Blair and George W Bush.

This focused on whether Blair provided undertakings to the US president in the runup to the Iraq invasion in 2003 – around the time of his visit to Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002 – that Britain would join US forces. Blair has always said he gave no definitive commitment to the US and actually succeeded in putting pressure on the White House to seek UN authority in the autumn and winter of 2002.

Heywood, who feared that release of the correspondence might harm communications with future US presidents, eventually agreed to some limited publication. This paved the way for a the Maxwellisation process.

Jeremy Corbyn, who is planning to issue a formal apology on behalf of the Labour party for the Iraq war, said: “I hope it is the whole story; I hope stuff hasn’t been left out of it, I hope we are not still negotiating with Tony Blair and George Bush as to what’s got to be included in that report. We need to know what happened, we need to know why it happened, we need to know who made the decisions and we never need to make these kind of catastrophic mistakes again.”