Sir John Chilcot has lost control of the inquiry into the Iraq war, Tony Blair’s former attorney general has said.
Criticising the six-year duration of the inquiry, Lord Morris said the process had ended up adding to the misery of the families of 179 soldiers who died in the war rather than providing them with answers.
He told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was “utterly reprehensible” that the families and injured service personnel had not been given any closure.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he also criticised Chilcot’s handling of the inquiry and the “feebleness” with which his panel had questioned witnesses.
Morris is the latest politician to call for an end to delays in the publication of the report, which was commissioned by Gordon Brown in 2009 and was meant to take a year.
David Cameron has previously spoken of his frustration that he cannot order publication of the report, which has been going through the Maxwellisation allowing those it criticises to respond.
Morris said: “It is quite right to have fairness … but instead they are taking a constipated approach to this doctrine. Chilcot has lost control completely.”
Separately, the Times reported on Friday that army generals including Cameron’s top military adviser, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, would come in for criticism.
While pressure mounts for the report to be released, sources close to the inquiry have claimed there is a Whitehall plot to discredit Chilcot and undermine his report by portraying him as incompetent.
