again interesting.... (taken from another site)....
Chilcot correspondence underlines Wikileaks allegation.
Correspondence from the Chilcot Inquiry appears to confirm that the committee's secrecy protocols exposed by Wikileaks go further than the Inquiry has admitted. The recent release by Wikileaks of US diplomatic cables implied that secret promises were made by the Brown government that the Chilcot Inquiry would not do anything to embarrass Washington.
Following the Wikileaks revelations, the Chilcot Inquiry said in a statement "The Iraq Inquiry is independent of the British government. The protocol, agreed between the Iraq Inquiry and the government, allows for material to be withheld from publication if publication would damage international relations or breach the third party rule governing non-disclosure of intelligence material."
Now correspondence released by the pressure group Reinvestigate 911 shows a bizarre U turn by Chilcot which suggests the secret undertakings go much further than this. Reinvestigate 9/11, supported by international lawyers and other experts, wrote to the Inquiry asking why they were not asking any questions about the 9/11 attacks, even after the attacks were cited by Blair as a major element of the decision to invade Iraq.
Initially it was claimed that the unprecedented and spectacular attacks succeeded because Al Qaeda was a vast and powerful organisation funded with billions of dollars. Now it is widely recognised that the attacks succeeded mainly as a result of failures of communication between US agencies and failure in the summer of 2001 to heed the many warnings of impending attacks. In the words of the 9/11 Commission chief Thomas Kean, 9/11 "could have and should have been prevented".
Reinvestigate 9/11 wants Chilcot to ask Blair whether he tasked MI6 to check the official 9/11 story coming out of Washington and if he did what they concluded. The Inquiry declined, writing that 9/11 was only relevant "insofar as it bears on the decision to invade Iraq".
Reminded that Tony Blair repeatedly told the Inquiry that a key element in the decision to go to war in Iraq was that 9/11 had changed the "calculus of risk" they sent a short note stating that they would not investigate the causes of 9/11 or the US investigation into the events. (Chilcot note attached).
Ian Henshall of Reinvestigate 9/11 said "They appear to have misunderstood our point entirely. Chilcot's bizarre and contradictory responses to our submissions cannot be justified by this protocol. We suspect this is because the promises revealed by Wikileaks are wider than they admit. We are asking them about Blair and the UK government. Whether or not Blair conducted a review is not a third party matter. Are they seriously suggesting that it would damage international relations to ask the Foreign Office for an independent assessment of the claims coming out of the Bush White House? If so we may as well subcontract the whole place to the US State Department.
"We are in Iraq and Afghanistan because US agencies failed to prevent 9/11 and the Bush government preferred to go to war rather than face up to this incompetence. After Blair's testimony on the 9/11 attacks this is at the heart of the Chilcot Inquiry.
"British soldiers, their families and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are entitled to feel angry. We hope that Chilcot will tear up any illegitimate promises he has made and start asking questions about the 9/11 attacks."
Notes
Attached: this press release, letter from Chilcot Inquiry, RI911 response to Chilcot' letter
In summer 2001 when the Chilcot terms of reference begin, warnings were flooding into the White House. The FBI criminal division, under its new Bush appointee Michael Chertoff, was ordering FBI officers off the case for reasons that remain unexplained. Some reports suggest that Israeli intelligence agents were also on the trail of the presumed 9/11 hijackers. Four Israelis seen filming the collapse of the Twin towers were arrested by local FBI officers but released on the orders of the White House.
Chertoff went on to become Homeland Security chief presiding over the New Orleans disaster. He now sells body scanners for airports which have never been properly tested for radiation risk and led to an outcry over the Thanksgiving holiday. The machines were ready but their public introduction followed the incident of the failed "Christmas bomber". It has never been explained how the Christmas bomber came to be ushered onto his US bound plane or why his visa was not revoked after he was identified as a potential terrorist. Media reports quoted unnamed sources as saying it was all a mix-up but a State Department official told the Homeland Security committee they had been asked by of an unnamed section of the "intelligence community" to leave his US visa in place.
Henshall comments: "Chertoff was a defence lawyer for terrorist suspects before he took over the FBI role. He was in charge of the FBI when they closed down three 9/11 related investigations, he was in charge of the FBI investigation after 9/11 and now he has made a fortune out of what looks like a contrived event. When will the US media wake up?"
Reinvestigate 9/11
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.reinvestigate911.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">www.reinvestigate911.org</a>
info@reinvestigate911.org
01273 326862
We will support any new investigation of the 9/11 attacks so long as
*it is run by uncompromised people with a range of opinion including those inclined to disbelieve the official 9/11 story,
*it has full legal authority to demand immediate access to any evidence and any witness it chooses
*it follows the evidence wherever it leads
*it is given all the resources it requires to carry out its investigation