by David Hencke

The inquiry into the Iraq war, which began  under former mandarin Sir John Chilcot, is already under fire for being a “whitewash” and under the thumb of Whitehall.

Leaked documents to the Sunday Telegraph have revealed that Tony Blair had decided to go to war as early as 2001 – long before Parliament was told. The documents also state that troops, just as in the present Afghanistan conflict, were poorly equipped.

Now Tribune can reveal that the inquiry has been captured by the very departments under the most scrutiny for their conduct of the war – the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office.

Sir John has decided that the inquiry staff – who will provide crucial advice and help shape the investigation – will be drawn almost wholly from Whitehall. Nineteen out of the 21 staff will be civil servants. Thirteen of these will be from the MoD, the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office. And the inquiry is refusing to name any of the staff involved, beyond the secretary and two deputy secretaries.

And to ensure journalists cannot pursue this decision, Gordon Brown has exempted the inquiry from the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds it is not a public body.

The official explanation is that the inquiry staff are junior civil servants who volunteered to be seconded and so it is not necessary for the public to know their identities.

But an inquiry by Tribune to the Serious Fraud Office – which has seconded one person to work on the inquiry – seemed to contradict this.

The Serious Fraud Office – while not naming the person – revealed that he is a senior lawyer who has previously worked in the Attorney General’s Office – which is bound to come under scrutiny because of allegations that the war was illegal.

The Prime Minister has made sure civil servants working on the inquiry will not be accountable to government by making them responsible to the independent civil service commissioners. But there are no guidelines from the commissioners on how people should be appointed to work on independent inquiries, so Sir John has been given a free hand to appoint whom he likes.

Dai Davies, the independent MP for Blaenau Gwent, will pursue the matter of just who has been appointed, but Whitehall seems determined to block him.

Whitehall’s grip has also been strengthened by a protocol giving individual departments a veto on publishing documents obtained by the inquiry.

At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg challenged Mr Brown to drop this, but he insisted that the decision was up to Sir John.