91Èȱ¬

Ideally I would like to see Gordon Brown answer all the questions fully and honestly, but my expectations are low. It seems that politicians can only give honest answers once they are out of politics. While they are a serving politician they only give prepared responses and generally ignore the actual question that has been asked. I hope the enquiry team pin him down as his "clunking fist" was behind many of the things that went wrong in the Iraq war.

There's an election coming up and knowing what Brown is like and his absolute determination to stay in power, I expect he will lie, blame someone else and then reel off pages of stats to prove his case.

Nothing we dont already know, its all a huge waste of taxpayers money. We should all accept that the war went ahead and have done with it. Hitler killed 1000's, Saddam killed 1000's both were ousted from power, so why are we arguing.

Will the report into MoD spending that was commissioned by John Hutton be taken into account in this inquiry?

Unforunately, all I expect from Gordon's appearance is another lot of lies and trying to pass the buck, with the enquiry committee giving him a pretty easy ride as they did with Blair. It's obvious that Brown was in it up to his neck, yet he'll try to wriggle out by blaming everyone except the very people who made the decisions.

And they wonder why people have no faith in MPs anymore.......

Hello people.

What Mr. Brown, I suspect, will say, will be how he single-handedly defeated the Taleban and found Osama bin Laden and sent him to Wormwood Scrubs. Unfortunately the security company taking him there stopped to let him go shopping and he hasn't, as yet, come back to the van.
He will also say that it was someone else's idea to go to war but that he supported the armed forces by knitting Land Rovers in his spare time.
This man is a saint. yet we don;t all recognise that fact yet.
I think after today, we shall.

"What do you expect from the Iraq inquiry?"

A further shifting of the goalposts for the 'Saddam had WMD/Saddam was gearing up for WMD/Saddam had a sketch of a WMD on the back of a fag packet'justification to invade.

Nothing.
Its a sop to those who feel we were wrong to invade.
The whole idea of the (waste of time) inquiry is to pander to left wing pacifists and make those who had to take the very difficult decision to go to war look bad.

Another waste of time and money the Enquiry will produce nothing worthwhile at all.
It will only produce a bill for the taxpayers.

I am hoping that the inquiry finds enough evidence that at another time and place somebody can be held responsible for the murder and death of so many and that future governments realise that if they want to invade another country they need in excess of 80% of the country supporting them
In this war we seem to have condoned the mistreatment and torturing of prisoners we have helped in this dismantling of the UN and even the recent trporting of birth defects in Iraq it does not matter if the Americans or the Iraqs themselves where the cause we have to accept responsibily

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All we can expect from Gordon Brown is lies, evasion and cover-up. This man has never truthfully answered a question in his life and with a general election looming it is highly unlikely he will start to do so now. Gordon Brown and Phony Blair should be in The Hague answering to the International Court for war crimes and nothing less. They have so far managed to wheedle their merry way through all sorts of questioning and still came out smelling of roses when they should have ended up behind bars and in solitary for life.

PM Brown, please do the rightful and honest thing, and send Blair to the Hague for war crimes.

If you do this, despite what's happened with the UK economy, you'll win by a landslide.

Think about it. Are you a man or a mouse?

There will be more lies from Gordon the Gormless Clown.

I suppose it all depends on what Blair's told him to say.

its all right brown answering questions but could we have him wired to a lie detector machine first otherwise it will be a waste of time

In between the lines we will read that politicians and their aids were misinformed, manipulated, disagreed but kept silent, choose to have nothing to do with it, supported bosses to advance their careers and so on.

What will not be reported is that Tony Blair followed his gut feel honestly but was wrong.

The next time the same will happen.

The chilcott enquire will be a farce, Gordon Brown will lie all the way, anything to save his neck and keep himself in power, but the British people can see through him. Your time is up G Brown call election

False smiles, evasive answers and spin. Another normal day for Gordon.

If it was Iraq's disregard for UN resolutions that prompted the invasion, how come we have never ousted the regime in Israel; who I understand are now in breach of some 50+ UN resolutions.

hypocrisy at its best!!!

I expect he'll avoid the questions, obfuscate, and lie.

And I also expect that the supine "inquiry" team will let him get away with it.

What they need is someone with really sharp forensic questioning skills, like Fern Britton.

Business as usual! Gushing sicerity, blatant obfuscation - and a hugely selective recollection of events that amounts to "prudence with the truth".

Nothing at all! Just more irrational mystic babble!

All these inquiries are a waste of time. We have a system that regularly disenfranchises 30% of the voters, and delivers a government where a simple majority of seats, and a whip system, ensures "strong" government. Most people don't care about either of these things, or they would have voted to change them years ago. Therefore, they can hardly complain if such a government occasionally does things they disagree with. Blair was elected with a thumping majority three times, once after the Iraq War. So, the nation has spoken and we should accept the consequences of that war; it's our responsibility. Inquiries are irrelevant as, in this context, is Brown. He was not PM when the decision to go to war was taken, that was Blair and there is nothing in the system to stop it happening again. If you don't like it, vote Lib-Dem at the next election. They are a bunch of pompous fools led by an idiot, but they will give this country a decent electoral system with adequate safeguards. It's worth having a useless government for four or five years just to get that. After all, most governments in the last 30 years haven't been anything to write home about, and their legacy has been to have us crying in our milk at our impotence. So, change the system!

I expect a large expense and legal bill to emerge from the Iraq Inquiry -nothing else.

Another cover up. Labour took us to war on the basis of lie. Why do people still trust them?

I expect Gordon Brown to tell us how he saved the world single handedly. It'll have nothing to do with the actual question being asked but he'll tell us all the same. It's almost as if he's convincing himself isn't it?

Didn't we have this EXACT same question on HYS a couple of months back? Why not just copy and paste all the answers from that one. They'll no doubt be the same.

I don't expect anything to come of this exercise. Total waste of tax payer funds.

i dont expect anything from this inquiry. Sadly it will be the usual whitewash and the whole thing will just exaborate the pain of those involved, and waste yet more public money

I expect the usual nothing. I will not watch and I would not attend even if I could.
Gordon Brown, together with all nu-Labour Ministers, never answer any question they are asked. Just watch PQs and PMQs. They only give out prepared statements explaining how effective they have been; still are; and will be forever.
Today will be no different. If he cannot admit that "the end of boom and bust" was a lie; and will not admit any part in the nu-Labour recession; why on earth would he admit his part in this dreadful deceipt?

Oh dear, looks like my comment at #21 has gone off to mod-land.

Let's try this instead:

I am convinced that our Glorious Leader will give a fine account of himself, answer all questions with scrupulous honesty, and show clearly that his involvement in the Iraq war was The Right Thing To Do. All we grateful subjects will be so impressed by his performance that we will vote him back into government at the imminent election with the biggest majority in history.

(Not exactly the same thing as I said in #21, but I'm sure it's more acceptable to the mods)

Expectations - from an enquiry with no powers and less teeth? Very Little.

There will simply be more lies to cover up the lies of the past; more obfuscation and no clear responses or new information. Why oh why did we vote them in again in 2005 when we knew then we had all been lied to. Why did the backbenchers show no spine? On top of all these lies we now know of the fraudulent expense claims. Do any of them deserve your vote again?

"A whitewash" it was a deal between two lovers of freedom, Bush and Blair, The reason were many ? but the real one Who knows? only a few people know the real answers.

I recommend comment #16

More lies, deceit, spin, untruths, selective statistics, confusion, and of course extra LIES. I want shot of the lot of them, they are spinless and have no morality at all; and lots of innocent people are dead because of Blair, Brown and Bush; I don't know how they can live with themselves. And I don't know how, as the electorate, we still tolerate them.

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I expect the Inquiry to find NO-ONE responsible and NO -ONE did wrong, I'm surprised those attending are not being given overalls to stop them being covered in WHITEWASH.
Most of the voting public KNOW the war in Iraq was Illegal and the excuses given were all false.

Nothing useful: lies, spin, avoiding the question, deceit, anything but the truth

I expect nothing from Brown. I doubt very much if the enquiry team were even going to bother calling him . Brown probably insisted on being called in order to try and give some semblance of 'being in the know'. Blair will have told him Sweet Felicity Arkwright.

Another waste of time and money. We will hear, yet again, avoidance, spin and downright twisting the truth. This is just a circus to pacify the proles.

I really hope people will look at Brown at this inquiry and see him for what he is. Perhaps then we can at least try to build Britain as a decent country again when he is gone.

Considering there is NO legal requirement for evidence presented to the Chilcott Inquiry to be truthful, the entire circus is a sham designed to allow the criminals involved to claim "I did nothing wrong, I was right and any mistakes were other people's fault".

Given that Gordon Brown's first instinct in response to any question is to lie, he should feel right at home giving his "evidence". He will reel off loads of made up "tractor stats" and leave at the end of the day without a blemish.

What do I expect? Nothing of any value, and a bill at the end of it which will go into millions of pounds.
Such is the arrogance of the British establishment, that it still thinks we - "the great unwashed" - will swallow any old hokum that they conjure up.
The Iraq inquiry was an opportunity to prove to us out here that there may have been dishonesty and double-dealing in the past, but it was being addressed, and the criminals responsible would be getting their just desserts.
So far we have had precious little honesty, and a public show which the early Stalinists would have easily recognised as up - or is it down - to their standards of whitewash.

The whole of human history is riddled with wars and hatred between ourselves. Another inquiry will not stop this cyclic mental state that the human race seems to have to go through every now and then. Yes with hindsight some wars should not have taken place but they have happened and you cannot change history. There will be many if's and but's in this enquiry but nobody will every know what might have happened as you do not get a second chance.

It's a complete waste of time and money. You can not change the past. I am sure mistakes were made, and it could have been handled better, but irrespective of what Britain decided to do the invasion was going to take place anyway, as the United States were always going to go in. The biggest mistake was not planning for the aftermath, as I am sure that if we had gone, replace Saddem with a democratically elected government, and everything had been peaceful, many people would be both whether or not there actually were weapons of mass dectruction or not.
Surprisingly very few people seem to object to us being in Afghanistan, but this is very similar to Iraq.

As has been the case for his entire political career, he will lie to get himself off the hook and into more power. He knows he is about to lose a general election so he will see this as his way of clearing his name and trying to make out he was the voice of reason in the whole affair.

Don't believe the hype as he was the one who decided the armed forces should be underfunded and under-equipped.

My expectations haven't changed since the last few times you asked this question.

I expect lies and deceit, and no-one to be brought to justice for instigating the unlawful killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

And people wonder why the world hates Britain?

The highlights on the main news is enough for me.

I watch 91Èȱ¬ News 24 and Sky News if I am home. As it will hog the news all day, I guess I WONT be watching either channelbetween 10am and 4.30pm.

There are more things going on in the world we need to know about by the 91Èȱ¬ and Sky will use it as a means to rest their presenters and for some of us with a low attention span, to turn over.... or off!

Brown cut the budgets for the armed forces pure & simple because it went against his socialist agenda.

Wrapped up in his own ego about "abolishing boom & bust" he squandered stealth taxes on public sector pay rises & quangos.

While sending our boys into Iraq without the kit to do the job at hand.

The only people hoping that he will say anything new, unexpected, apologetic are the media. Like the rest of the population I will not hold my breath.

Why are we having this enquiry? We know why the government went to war, the fact that they were wrong is irrelevant. The Government just has to trot out the line 'we were told that Iraq had WMD' and that's it, which it is. I did not, and still do not support or believe there was a need to go to war, but this doesn't matter. Government has the right to take us to war if it thinks there is a need. If you do not believe them, as I don't then vote them out at the next election, which did not happen in 2005.

"What do you expect from the Iraq inquiry?"

Lies, lies and more lies! Gordon Brown is a complete stranger to the truth; the lies trip off his tongue so easily, he doesn't know he's doing it.

What is the point of this expensive charade?

I would like the Prime Minister to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. However I don't expect he will. He will twist and turn like a slug making love glorifying in his own slime.....

What I would like is honest answers to the questions as asked. What do I expect? A toothless enquiry headed by a chairman who appears to think he is questioning schoolchildren about playing truant; an enquiry that achieves nothing except a total whitewash;a bill totalling several million pounds for the taxpayer; another load of lies from Brown who, with Blair was up to his neck in the deceit and attempts by him to blame anybody and everybody else (well there is an election looming). The British people have long since given up on being told the truth by anyone in politics.

I think anyone who expects him to tell the truth is naive. Brown is a politician and like all politicians avoiding telling the truth and not answering a question is second nature.

in a word, Liars

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No matter how much the New Labour cabal despise each other, it is obvious that they have agreed a truce over the Iraq Inquiry and will be mutually supportive. No individual in the cabinet or advisory role at the time of the invasion can afford to break ranks and become isolated. Brown and Blair both believed that American military might would achieve a swift victory followed by international acclaim. Brown went along with Blair's ego trip but was determined that the war costs would not derail his economic reputation....British soldiers paid the price for the temporary unholy alliance between two ruthlessly ambitious men. Brown will follow suit from Blair and Campbell and lie through his teeth.

I feel very sorry for the troops and the many others who were killed. Had there been WMD's, the sacrifice would have been justified. But the Labour government got caught in their own deadly habit of spin, there were no WMD's, and it cannot be justified.

So what am I expecting? I am expecting Brown to pretend passionately that he would have done exactly the same all over again, leave the room, and instruct his spin doctors to announce through the media that he is a great leader.

We are now in a situation where Labour think systematic distortion works and is therefore the right way to do government. We will see if the people agree with their rotten philosophy on or around May 6th.

"What do you expect from the Iraq inquiry?"

Smarm, more smarm, and lashings of smarmalade.

"What do you expect from the Iraq inquiry?"

That a great many people will get very uptight about it, that lots of column-inches will be devoted to discussing it, that everyone will feel it's a terribly, terribly important thing, and that in 6 months time we'll have forgotten it ever happened.

As per usual it will be very expensive window dressing exercise to cover up one of the worst decisions taken by any government in living history, no blame will be aportioned, and our brave soldiers will have died for a lost cause (Lions led by Donkeys)!

The usual whitewash.

" Mr Brown said last month that weapons of mass destruction were not the main reason he backed the war - it was Iraq's disregard for UN resolutions."

Yeah, that is called a "Distancing myself from Blair" exercise.
Also, just watch as he trots out the "It wasn't my job to tell the forces what kit they needed, the money was there but they didn't ask".

Whitwash.

I recommend comment #13

The Enquiry is pretty much a waste of Money, it does nothing but pander to the Anti War brigade and the Liberals. The war happened, good or bad.
To spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on this stupidity is nothing if not immoral, when the country is on it's knees and thousands are losing there jobs every day.

What a rediculous question. Gordon will expound 4 hours of inexactitudes and turn the subject round to his private life. There will be no freedom to the panel to ask the questions they want to threfore the whole exercise is a waste of time and money.

I expect nothing but whitewash and lies.

Whatever G Brown says or doesn't say is immaterial. The person who got us into this illegal war (or should I say slaughter of the Iraqi people)was Blair. As the Americans say "the buck stops here"
We, or the International courts will do nothing about it, unlike Radovan Karadzic, so he can continue to make millions on the back of his disastrous tenure as PM of this country.

Happily, what I think we won't see is what the clod hopping fantasists were, and probably still are, hoping for - the secret plots, deep conspiracies, deliberate deceptions, startling revelations etc. So far it's been bleating, peevish, precious, back-covering civil servants and diplomats; the predictable and pathetic Claire Short; the ineffably sad Hoon; and an endless re-hash of all the stuff we already knew.

We're also not seeing the other great hope of a gloatingly expectant right wing media - the final nail in Labour's pre-election hopes via a public crucifixion of Blair. Gordon will do equally well today. No conspiracies here, just massive, difficult, brave decision making - maybe right, maybe wrong (history will decide that, not this premature enquiry) - but the price of power. Someone has to. Real, big boy's politics. Cameron and Hague please note how it's done.

HYS should stop pandering to the hysteria of the chattering classes by allowing discussion on this subject, it is a complete waste of time and energy.
The real questions that need discussion are the views on Europe, unemployment, corruption of our Politicians, and the upcoming election, not this mindless drivel about who did what and why on a subject that matters not one IOTA to today and now.

This is an ongoing show. It might have been planned to bore us to the extent that we lose track of the plot & forget about who is who & who is guilty and/or responsible.

The Iraq war was a tremendously costly diversion - which we are now paying for through the belated attempt to deal with the original problem in Afghanistan.

All those concerned should be asked why they allowed us to be side-tracked.

What to expect? The further enrichment of lawyers. Coming on top of the Saville Enquiry into Bloody Sunday, the £30m expected spend on the MI5/ Guantanamo allegations, its going to be a top earning year for m'learned friends. To what benefit for the rest of us I can not think. Our part is to keep paying the green taxes to fund these otherwise pointless legal shennanigans

What do I expect ?

1) A huge waste of tax-payers' money.

2) Lies (or at best half-truths).

3) Nothing added to the fund of human wisdom.

etc. etc.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the .....spin & porkies.

I expect what we will probably get, nothing. Brown is as adept as Blair in speaking a lot but saying nothing. That is what is wrong with the political system we have today. Most MP's know they are going to get returned at the next General Election so don't even try to answer a question when it is put to them. I hope I am wrong but I can see Brown prevaricating, treating the inquiry with ill disguised contempt, exactly as he seems to treat everyone these days.

Politicians are so deeply disrespected that something must be done to restore trust.

Charging war criminals with war crimes will go a long way to help restore that trust. (MPs not accepting a pay rise would be another, MPs removing access to their own expenses too).

Before people ask what war crimes were committed, I suggest they read up on "War of Aggression". I don't care about the comparisons of saddam to hitler. The invasion of nazi germany was provoked by hitler's invasion of poland, a condition hitler knew would cause war. Iraq was invaded because the was falsified evidence of Saddam having WMDs which were proven to never exist in the first place.

During the nuremburg trials. It was not just the Fuhrer that was held accountable for the initiation of the war, it was everyone in hitler's government. Their role was scruitinized closely.

And like the nazi party was held accountable for the concentration camps. The Labour party of 2001-2010 should be held accountable for being complicit in torturous treatment of prisoners. This is also a war crime. The mere knowing it happens and not doing anything to enforce laws against torture is a War Crime.

Why don't people know about the Geneva Convention?

Could be interesting. Up till now everyone questioned has largely covered for one another.

Brown only appears to care about staying in power so he may well drop someone in it if he feels backed against the wall.

When you ask a dishonest man a question, what do you expect?

I'd like to know why the opponents of the war, who helped Saddam immensely, think they hold the moral high ground. Why the 91Èȱ¬ through impartiality to the wind and turned itself into an anti-war propaganda machine. Why the opponents assume the whole country shares their obsession.

In case they hadn't noticed, Blair WON the subsequent election (just like Bush in the US, and Howard in Australia) - and they were supposed to be all about the war!

What do I expect? Nothing.

I'd like to hear that a recommendation be made to prosecute Brown for manslaughter. As Chancellor he held the purse-strings in respect of soldiers' vital equipment - and those purse-strings were tied very tightly. Soldiers did not get that essential gear and I believe their safety was compromised as a result. Brown needs to answer to that, and the best place is in a court of law, not in a taxpayer-funded demonstration of politicians' evasion.

It has been shown beyond any doubt that as Chancellor Gordon Brown cut the defence spending for helicopters.

That has inevitably cost british lives.

Instead of this "it was not me" deluded denial, I would like Gordon Brown to apologise to the families of the servicemen killed & maimed, apologise to the nation for Labours illegal folly in Iraq & then resign.

If we had any "honourable" members on the front bench they would have removed themselves from high office years ago - but we do not.

We have small time opportunists who wasted the lives of tens of thousands of ciovilians & soldiers to secure their place in "history".

Enjoy your political legacy Mr Broiwn, the shame & the stain of your legacy will be with us causing conflict in the Middle east for decades to come.

I recommend comment #16 as well.
91Èȱ¬ - If you're not going to allow direct recomendations then you have to expect this.

Brown will wriggle his way out as normal. Top military figures have all confirmed that there was insufficient funding for equipment and so many have died as a result of this.

Hours of parliamentary time was wasted on the hunting issue which had nothing to do with cruelty but was based on the usual Labour class warfare against anyone who might in its view be a 'toff', this continues to this day.

Had there been more time devoted to an important national issue and the weapons inspectors allowed to finish their work, many lives might have been saved including that of David Kelly.

It should also not be forgotten that the Conservatives voted in favour of the Iraq war as Blair was economical with the truth.

Gordon Brown is to reply to questions asked of him at a time when he was chancellor of the U K. He was not chancellor of the U N and had no control over the actions of member states of the U N. British people should realise that weapons made to to go to war and made by British Manufacterers,to have been inferior at the time of taking action would have been the fault of the Manufacturer,and not the Chancelor.Inferior vehecles used by the armed forces was it seems the best that Britain had at that time and found to be not up to standard when put into action.Gordon Brown was not a military guide to the army.Armaments inspectors let him down.

Nothing - the horse has bolted and the whole affair is being stage managed thanks to Labour's electoral domination and the current lack of democracy that exists here. However the exercise perfectly illustrates how not to do it and also as a warning to future PMs that in less favorable circumstances they can be taken to task more comprehensively for misleading parliment and the electorate. In future I would insist that enquiries like this are conducted by an elected panel truly representing the people not by political allies.

So we are allowed to slate the Prime Minister but we are not allowed to criticize the 91Èȱ¬.

Gordon Brown was the Yes Man of Tony Blair who in turn was the Yes Man of bossom pal Bush. Justice should not only be done but must be seen to be done.

It's down to who asks Brown the questions and how good they are at their job.

But it has probably all been pre-orchestrated rather like wrestling to look impressive but no-one really gets hurt.

This inquiry to date has best been amateurish. There is little in the way of HARD questioning and those given evidence answer the questions they want and just skirt around the others. You have to question why there are no representatives from the public allowed on the panel or why they have not used professional people to ask the questions.

I would not say whitewash but more ineffectual!!!!!!!!

The 91Èȱ¬ & the public know full well, the inquiry will be a complete whitewash. Blair has the breathtaking arrogance to state he has made the world a safer place by going to war with Iraq. Blair & Bush invited Al Queda into Iraq & Europe the moment they made the decision to invade. The inquiry is a waste ot time & money. The Labour Party should hang it's head in shame, taking us into a war that did not directly threaten our national security & on the absurd assessment Hussein had weapons of such superior technology he could bomb London from Baghdad. And let's not forget, they were ably supported by the Tories, but the Libs did little to counter tihs support. Only member of the media with any guts to challenge Blair was Greg Dyke, & we all know what happened to Dyke. He lost his job!

Large bucket of whitewash to be delivered to the Chilcott enquiry. Like Bliar he will not answer the questions and the enquiry will not challenge him hard. This is a weak and gutless enquiry which will result in the biggest order from Dulux since the Hutton one.

What do I expect?
Far to much media coverage.

Posting # 58 by newageoracle.
Brilliant, concise, eloquent. My exact thoughts in good English, i bow to you.

What do I expect? Lies. Brown lies about everything, from the state of the economy to his involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well the second i get the chance to vote, (next elections) i'll be voting UKIP! A party which is honest lead by Nigel Farage who's not scared criticise and point fingers when there needs to be. Hes video against EU president shows this. Now he got fined by EU parliament for what he said, and told the media in the EU parliament there's no such thing as free speech, just expensive speech which in comparison to what he said, Australia's paraliament is MUCH worse with its criticism, and the House of Commons too. UKIP! Britain needs it's referendum on the EU and the UKIP will give it.

Lies and spin from Brown! Overall, a whitewash!

What do I expect from Brown's appearance at the enquiry? Obfuscation: noun; derived from Obfuscate, verb - to render obscure,unclear or unintelligable.
Can anybody remind me of any statement he has made, in whole or part, on a matter of import, that could not be categorized thus? Oh yes, I forgot ....'the house will join me.....'