FOUR STARS
SINCE 6pm on August 8, a continuous flow of people, aged from six to 82, has filed into a little shed at the back of the National Museum of Scotland to read the Chilcot Report, published last month - seven years after Gordon Brown announced an inquiry into the invasion of Iraq.
Bob Slayer and Omid Djalili organised the marathon read and, as well as politicians and veterans, many fellow comics have put in a shift with Scot stand-up Cammy Sinclair reading for five hours, dressed as a giraffe. The section read by me and three others deals with reconstruction efforts around May 2005 to June 2006, and the formation of a new government.
Echoing the current Brexit abyss, the consequences of invasion were vastly underestimated and forward planning had been largely inadequate. Four major challenges presented themselves: heightened sectarian conflict, poor electricity supplies, a lack of qualified officials following GW Bush’s purge of Ba’ath Party members and corruption so endemic it lost Iraq $10 billion in one year.
And while you cannot expect a revelation on every page, they are littered with curious facts and nuances. Why, for instance, were three press officers from the right-leaning Adam Smith Institute recruited to oversee the formation of Nouri al-Maliki’s department? A fellow reader’s lips curled knowingly when a section noted how Tony Blair had assured the new PM he could be relied upon to support issues of “communication” (ie PR).
It may be a small act, but there’s value in bearing witness to that documented in this unedifying report. The team think they may be finished with the 12 hulking volumes today and a crowd-funder has been set up to cover its hefty £767 price tag – something waived for bereaved families of service personnel. For them and the 120,000 estimated civilians killed, I say do the whole thing again and again.
Bob’s Blundabus, South College Street, 24 hrs a day (60mins), free, donations welcome. iraqoutloud.com
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