In a world where people are currently dying in the struggle to achieve the rule of law, Britain's standing depends on it
With Iraq, the last inquiry was always the reason for not calling the next ? but the defence never held for long. Each narrow probe revealed murk that warranted fresh investigation. Thus Chilcot followed Butler who in turn followed Hutton and the various parliamentary efforts. The truth has been painfully extracted one inch at a time, at considerable public expense. Something similar had happened a generation before when the Compton report reached relaxed conclusions about state brutality in Northern Ireland, but nonetheless revealed enough to require the Parker review of interrogation techniques.
The whole purpose of the current inquiry into UK involvement with modern-day torture was meant to be drawing a final line under the darkest chapter of the Blair years ? a once and for all chance, as David Cameron put it to the Commons, "to get to the bottom of what happened". Heaven knows it is a chance to be seized. In a world where people are currently dying in the struggle to achieve the rule of law, Britain's standing depends on it. The cluster of cases concerned include Binyam Mohamed, whom the court of appeal has ruled was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" by the US, and Rangzieb Ahmed who was allowed to travel abroad where he was questioned by British as well as Pakistani agents, before returning home without his fingernails. There are, however, growing doubts about the ability of Sir Peter Gibson's inquiry to establish the truth and reconciliation required.
As the former intelligence commissioner, who had thrice concluded that MI5 and MI6 were "trustworthy, conscientious and dependable", some were always going to say that he was not the man for the job, and indeed it was soon being said that he was being asked to rule that he had himself been "asleep at the wheel" at the crucial time. But Sir Peter is a retired judge who deserved a chance to prove these critics wrong, and his initial terms from the prime minister suggested he had the flexibility to do so.
But now it seems that his work could be so secretive that the torture victims will declare a stitch-up and walk away, leaving the inquiry with little to do except for listening to the tales of the agencies themselves. Equally worrying is the charge that a hidden and circumscribed investigation will fall short of the standards that the law demands in cases where the absolute right not to be tortured appears to have been compromised. Of course Sir Peter has to balance transparency and the reality that the secret services are necessarily secretive, as he is properly aware. But if he bends too far towards the wishes of the security state, the upshot could be yet another inquiry.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/gibson-torture-inquiry-whitewash-editorial
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