Anyone who can describe the Falklands as a "fiasco" in the same breath as talking about Iraq is clearly on a different planet!

There is in fact very little in the way of parallels to be drawn between the two. The Falklands campaign is undoubtedly the only British military involvement in the postwar period to be both legally and ethically watertight.

Perhaps we will get the worst of all possible worlds and what happens at all the secret sessions will get leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

There is, of course one major difference between the Falklands War and Iraq:

The Falklands were attacked by a foreign aggressor. In Iraq, we WERE the foreign aggressor. And the reasons given for our involvement as the foreign aggressor turned out to be completely false.

For that reason alone, it does matter and there should be a Public Enquiry. Otherwise we will, with justification, suspect that we are being denied the truth in order to protect Labour's ex and current Prime Minister and all the other members of the Cabinet that authorised the war.

Gordon Brown's announcment was a disgrace. Transparancy in Government - my ar*e. Gordon doesn't know the meaning of the word.

The Tories have always denied that a Foreign Office Minister was in Argentina, negotiating away the rights of the Falklanders on the day that Endurance sailed out of the area.

It's time for that lie/truth to be investigated at the highest level.

I cannot understand why the Guardian lawyers have not thought of drafting a petition to the Committee on Petitions at the EU Parliament in relation to the cover up on judges who have been disciplined? The government have employed a dodgy public interest v public interest to maintain secrecy. The reality is that it amounts to public interest v public authority's interest.

The tribunal was chaired by a new QC who will have his sights set on becoming a judge. He is hardly likely to decide against the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice...

How the public interest test is applied

Donna, I can't for the life of me understand why who was the aggressor has anything to do with it. If the Tories unjustifiably hid behind national security issues for covering up their mistakes in the run up to a war, they can hardly squeal when New Labour copy the tactic.

kardinal, whatever you think about whether Thatcher's war was justifyable or otherwise, it doesn't change the fact that the origins of the war were an embarrassment that Thatcher sought to cover up by holding the Inquiry in private.

The Navy are always warning about threats , why else would they get new kit , and the whole business of deployment prior to the Falklands is a transparent exercise in retrospective face saving . It was a personal triumph for Thatcher , who acted out of conviction and with courage . That is why the left have been flinging mud ever since . I often laugh at the funny way they think anyone cares which way the Belgrano was heading . Its like Thierry Henri …if you lurk on the offside line all game then you are going to get blown up .

I have a theory about Iraq and Blair though. I do not agree that , as Andrew Marr typically informed us in his “History”, Lady T engineered the Falklands to save her political skin. On the other hand it certainly had the effect of super charging her Premiership. Anthony Blair was watching .By the time of Iraq he was in effect sidelined by Gordon Brown and the Labour PLP who were driving the domestic agenda . He was shunted upstairs and tasted the raw meat of ordering the British Army in with great success

I believe the combination of these pressures and the example of Thatcher convinced him that Iraq was a chance for him to regain control of New Labour and rival her as a great world figure . He calculated as did I , that whatever objections there were before would be swept away because unlike with the Falklands ( a fine run thing ) the allied forced had no chance of losing. The WMDs were a weapon not so much against the British people as against his enemies in the Labour Party . The Conservative Party made it quite clear they were backing the US with or without evidence of WMDs . Only the Labour Party \and its constituency were against him.

This is why such extraordinary lies were told and because this is the way New Labour operated ,this time against its own . From the start convention was stretched to the point of criminality. Press seeped into government and Party seeped into the civil service .The fixed conviction was that nothing the civil service said was of say merit .
What I see with the sexed up language, is clear evidence of Press Officers directing areas of policy from which they should be miles distant . I do not need more proof. The lengths Blair was prepared to go to were all about beating Brown. Still conman and egomaniac though he may have been he did the right thing .

Quite what the point of an enquiry is I am uncertain as Brown has virtually owned up since

What a peculiar interpretation of history. By the time of the Falklands adventure Thatcher was miles behind in the opinion polls and the men in grey suits had started to whisper in her ear. On the other hand, Blair, prior to Iraq, was still walking on water, and although he won another landslide afterwards, he was never regarded with any great affection inside or outside the Party after the invasion.

Although I do agree with you that the WMD stuff was designed to hoodwink the Labour Party because the Tories had already signed up to Bush's war whether there were WMD's or not. Something which Hague and Cameron seem particularly shy about now.

Bob, The Franks Inquiry determined there was not necessarily a failure of intelligence leading up to the Falklands War, but a failure to act on the intelligence. It may have appeared that the Thatcher Government was exonerated (such are the workings of inquiries) but if it was why would the ministers, Lord Carrington and John Nott, whose departments would have handled that intelligence, resign? And had it been engineered to save Thatcher would they both have gone so quietly?
The difference now is that, as Donna says, in the Iraq War we were the aggressor and Gordon has promised transparency.
But in the end you are right. All the main players have exited left, taken off their makeup and moved onto another stage.

ifabloke, I repeat, I cannot see any difference between whether or not you were the aggressor if you are investigating events leading up to the conflict.

By the way, Nott and Carrington tendered their resignation at the time of the invasion, not as a consequence of the Franks inquiry. And they both submitted their resignation as a matter of honour (something long forgotten in British politics I'm afraid) because of their complicity in the events which led up to the invasion.

Not all the players have moved on. Brown is still there, and Cameron and others were amongst those Tories who were prepared to back Bush irrespective of the WMD intelligence.

The truth about the Iraq war is probably more subtle than we realise. I expect Bush told Tony 'support me in Iraq and I will give you peace in Northern Ireland'.

Bob, good luck with kardinal, Donna and the others. The fact that we were the aggressor is worth discussing, that's true. But And it makes it more important that this Inquiry is held as publicly as possible. But the loss of life and devastation in Iraq, the knock-on effects in Afghanistan, the collapse in public confidence in politics, etc. etc. already make this absolutely vital.

Anyway, I had a point of my own. You said in your last paragraph that the Inquiry wouldn't change many people's minds regarding the case for war. Possibly true, but are you suggesting it therefore doesn't matter? I hope not. Step 1 of any recovery program being to admit the problem, and all that.

Niels, I think it should be in public too, but I think the fact that people will pre-determine their attitude to the outcome means it won't count for much. It would be nice to think that the Inquiry would change the way we go to war, but I have no confidence in that I'm afraid.

Jeez Bob, are you conegenitively stupid? There is no comparison between the two campaigns. One was prompted by the invasion of British territory by a foreign power. The other was created by a combination of bad intelligence and (IMO) a desire by the British Prime Minister to be liked by the USA. I'd stop short of Blair deliberately "sexing" up the evidence but there really is no comparing the two cases

And I assume, You supported this character-flawed individual in 97? Well you're therefore responsible for the Iraq war - I didn't support him, or the war, but then I read History ..

No, but I can only assume you are particularly stupid because you clearly don't understand the politics of the issues involved. In both cases they are looking at the events leading up to the wars and examining whether the respective governments could have avoided war based on the intelligence (a word you may have to have explained to you) information available. You see, the Tories blamed the intelligence services for them withdrawing any defences from an area where the Argentinians had expressed a desire to invade, despite the Navy insisting they had told the MoD repeatedly about the dangers.

Blair also blamed bad intelligence for his misinformation (or lies as some people may call them). Therefore, it would seem, to everyone other than those blinded by their own stupidity (you can take one pace forward here) that there is a direct comparison.

So... you might read history... but I could read Chinese without understanding it. It doesn't make you clever, it just means you've learned how to read. well there are kids around here aged 4 and five who can do that chum.

When newmainia's political analysis makes you look an idiot, take my advice, it's time to call it quits.

I figure some stuff, especially intelligence related stuff needs to be kept secret, or you will loose the source and maybe tell everyone not to trust you next time you need to find out stuff. Hang people out to dry and others will probably notice and remember.

Also it might let people know ways you got information so they can plug that avenue in future.

The Falklands war and Iraq are very different things. Maybe they are being treated the same to avoid highlighting that?