As wholly expected, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has vetoed the publication of the minutes of the crucial Cabinet meetings in March 2003 which led to Britain's involvement in the war in Iraq. The meetings which, principally, tried to determine whether or not the invasion was legal under international law or not.
Despite last month's ruling by the Information Tribunal that the minutes should be published, Straw, who was Foreign Secretary at the time (and therefore a key figure, remember all those awkward pictures of him side by side with Condoleeza Rice?) reckons it's not in the public interest. Hearing that, it's hard not to think about February 2003's anti-war March - the largest anti-war demonstration in British history. The public have never been more interested and concerned about anything else.
His other reasons include the belief that if these minutes are published so soon - just under six years after the meetings took place - then cabinet ministers will not feel that they can discuss the issues of the day freely and frankly. He must be able to do better than that. What other topic of the last 10 years has caused as much debate as the 'war on terror' and the decision to join Bush's modern day crusade? Nothing is emotive, or as serious, as war and no modern conflict has proved as serious or emotive as The Iraq War. It is the biggest political debacle in modern history. To say that releasing these minutes will lead to a deluge of requests about any and everything is such an obvious smokescreen, even for them.
It's not as if there will be a public clamour for the minutes of the meeting which allowed Jack Tweed to spend his wedding night with Jade Goody. On an obviously far more serious level, the cabinet meetings which discussed the more sober aspects of the current global economic crisis are not likely to be requested any time soon. It's not that the public aren't interested. It's just that the behind the scenes wranglings can be predicted a lot easier than those pertaining to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. If the Labour government are trying to appear nonchalant and make it look as if they don't have anything to hide, they are failing miserably. The argument over the legality of the war is likely to go on and on.
In a way, releasing these minutes probably won't change much. Apart from anything else, isn't it obvious that war was going to happen anyway? The die had been cast for a long time, probably since the infamous Camp David meeting in 2002 when Blair wore the infamous 'ball-crushingly tight trousers' (not my words, but those of former ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer.) It seems equally obvious that the job for the Attorney General was to find at least a half decent case for the legality of the war, rather than to determine if it was actually legal. Various memoirs from those in the know (such as David Blunkett and Clare Short) have confirmed that even if the cabinet did have the guts to seriously question Blair, Campbell et al, then they would have been ignored.
So a lot is known. But there are still some crucial pieces of the puzzle missing, even if they only reveal the manner in which the issues were broached. Importantly, if these minutes only contained information that was already in the public domain they would have released them quick, fast in a hurry. So there's got to be something in there. Someone has something to hide, and as of right now, no one is snitching. These sentiments obviously don't only exist on a street level.
But, again, a note of caution. We shouldn't hold our breath. On a really random one, anyone who saw that Channel 4 programme about The Krays (The Gangster And The Pervert Peer, part of the Toffs And Crims series) and the MPs who 'worked' with them would have seen how, even when documents are released under the Freedom of Information act, the most significant parts of said documents - the parts that can actually incriminate guilty parties - are always blacked out. And that is for incidents which took place in the sixties.
But this isn't going to go just go away. I wonder if the principle protagonists are worried? Probably not.
Image: Flickr user CP