This is a list of witnesses of the Iraq Inquiry, sorted chronologically, who have given testimony to the Iraq Inquiry, a British public inquiry into the United Kingdom's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry, chaired by career civil servant John Chilcot, commenced on 24 November 2009. From November to December 2009, the witnesses were primarily civil servants and military officials including Tim Cross and Peter Ricketts. Following a Christmas break, the inquiry heard predominantly from politicians, including former cabinet ministers, including Gordon Brown as well as Tony Blair, Prime Minister at the time of the invasion. The Iraq Inquiry adjourned in March 2010 to avoid influencing the general election campaign and the last witnesses gave testimony in June 2011. On 6 July 2016 Sir John Chilcot published the report, more than seven years after the inquiry was announced.
November 2009
24 November Sir Peter Ricketts – chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Ricketts gave evidence regarding the buildup to the Iraq War in which he claimed there was a "palpable" threat that Saddam Hussein could have acquired weapons of mass destruction, though he went on to say that nobody in the British government was advocating Hussein's removal at that point. He also told the inquiry that the British government had been reviewing its policies on Iraq as early as 2001, in anticipation of the Bush administration taking power in the USA.
Sir William Patey – head of the FCO's Middle East Department in 2003. Patey offered similar testimony on attitudes towards "regime change", though added that the 11 September attacks "added an edge" to concerns over Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction
Simon Webb – civil servant; policy director at the Ministry of Defence in 2003 Sir Michael Wood – chief legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time of the invasion. Wood would also give evidence in January 2010
25 November Sir William Ehrman – director general for defence and intelligence at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Ehrman gave evidence that intelligence in 2003 suggested that Iraq may not have weapons of mass destruction and that Tony Blair, prime minister of the day had been aware of the evidence when he presented the "September Dossier" to Parliament. However, Ehrman went on to defend the invasion, claiming that Iraq had "flouted" United Nations resolutions.
Tim Dowse – Director of Counter-Proliferation at the FCO, 2001–2003. Dowse testified that most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were believed to have been destroyed in the first Gulf War but claimed there was a "unique threat" posed by Iraq indicating by its previous use WMD
26 November Sir Christopher Meyer – British Ambassador to the United States, 1997–2003. In the course of his evidence, Meyer spoke about a private meeting between Tony Blair and then US President George W. Bush, stating that the first use of the term "regime change" by Blair followed that meeting. Meyer also criticised the process of weapons inspections conducted prior to the invasion and stated that he believed the decision to go to war in Iraq had been made a full year before the invasion at the meeting at the Bush family ranch
27 November Sir Jeremy Greenstock – British ambassador to the United Nations, 1997–2003. Greenstock testified that the invasion of Iraq did not have the backing of the majority of the UK or of United Nations members, going on to opine that the war was of "questionable legitimacy", though it was unlikely ever to be proven illegal. Greenstock also appeared before the inquiry on 15 December
30 November Sir David Manning – foreign policy advisor to Tony Blair, 2001–2003 Manning testified that Blair had lobbied Bush to pursue a second UN resolution but was "willing to undertake regime change if this didn't work"
December 2009
1 December Edward Chaplin – director of Middle East policy, FCO, 2002–2004 Chaplin was highly critical of post-war planning for Iraq, stating that the US State Department had a "touching faith" that its troops would be welcomed in Iraq with an expectation that a democracy would be quickly established, calling reconstruction plans a "real blind spot"
3 December Admiral Lord Boyce – Chief of the Defence Staff, 2001–2003 Boyce claimed that the United States assumed, in 2002, that the United Kingdom would contribute troops for a conflict in Iraq, saying "there was a complete reluctance to believe" the UK would not commit its forces without further efforts via the United Nations. Boyce also attacked the post-war planning conducted by Clare Short's Department for International Development, calling it "particularly uncooperative"
Sir Kevin Tebbit – Permanent Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Defence from 1998 to 2005 Tebbit claimed that the UK's planning for an invasion was "cautious" as policy was to pursue further UN involvement and the British government insisted on parliamentary approval before committing troops. He also stated that the UK's commitment to an invasion was not confirmed "until right at the end"
4 December Major General David Wilson – British adviser to US Army Central Command in 2002 Wilson told the inquiry that British officials were shown the American invasion plans in June 2002 but states he told American officials that, "unless political and legal issues were resolved, [it would be] difficult for the UK to deliver even basic support"
Lieutenant General Sir Anthony Pigott – Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments), 2000–2002. Wilson said the speed with which troops reached Baghdad "was no surprise [...] but that's not the end of the war". He went on to speak of the benefits a joint invasion would bring to relations between the two militaries
Dominic Asquith – director for Iraq, 2004–2006; British Ambassador to Iraq, 2006–2007. Asquith told the inquiry that Her Majesty's Treasury, under then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, refused to allocate extra funds for reconstruction efforts in British-controlled Basra, claiming government departments were told to use existing budgets
7 December Major General Tim Cross – British representative to the Coalition Provisional Authority and later General Officer Commanding Theatre Troops, Iraq. Cross, UK representative to the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (later the CPA) and deputy to Jay Garner at the time of the invasion, told the inquiry that he had urged Tony Blair to delay military action two days before the conflict began, going on to say that planning for post-war Iraq had been "woefully thin" and claiming to have warned that "Iraq could descend into chaos" following invasion and that his concerns were not taken "sufficiently seriously" by the government.
8 December Sir John Scarlett – chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, 2001–2004; Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, 2004–2009. Scarlett was questioned at length about the "September Dossier" and the infamous claim that Iraq could launch weapons within 45 minutes. Scarlett denied that he had been under pressure to "firm up" the dossier and conceded that the dossier should have been clearer that "the 45-minute claim" referred to conventional weapons, not those of mass destruction, though stated that the dossier had been produced in good faith
Sir Suma Chakrabarti – permanent secretary, Department for International Development, 2002–2007. Chakrabarti told the inquiry that civil servants had been banned from communicating with United nations staff in the planning stages of the invasion on order to conceal the military planning, gong on to say that knowledge of Iraq was "rather scanty" due to the absence of diplomatic relations between the UK and Iraq since the first Gulf War
Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge – Commander British forces, Iraq in 2003 (then holding the rank of Air Marshal). Burridge's testimony related predominantly to the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. He claimed to have been told by US Army General Tommy Franks that military action by the United States against Iraq was a matter of "when not if" but that the military campaign was conducted in such a way as to minimise the effect on the country's infrastructure and on civilians
9 December Lieutenant General Sir Freddie Viggers – Senior British Military Representative, Iraq. Viggers claimed that "amateurs" were placed in key roles in Iraq, saying "we've got huge experience in this country – we're not using it and we're putting amateurs into really really important positions and people are getting killed as a result of some of these decisions".
Sir Hilary Synnott – regional co-ordinator for Southern Iraq, Coalition Provisional Authority. Synott was critical of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the body set up to govern Iraq in the interim, calling its planning "deeply flawed" and going on to say that the decision to shut down the CPA came as a "total surprise" and that "the assumption [...] was that the decision was greatly coloured by the imminence of the mid-term elections. The CPA was not winning, best to hand over responsibility for Iraqis and to cease to be responsible for Iraqi sovereignty"
Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb – commander of multinational forces in south-eastern Iraq in 2003; later Senior British Military Representative, Iraq. Lamb compared the CPA to "dancing with a broken doll. It was a lot of effort and your partner wasn't giving you much in return". He said that the foreign forces in the country "held the line" but that the problems that followed "had not been anticipated [and] were not structured or resourced for" and the foreign forces "contained what was unfolding chaos"
10 December Sir John Sawers – foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair; later Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. Sawyers, who visited the United States in January 2001, told the inquiry that American officials were not discussing an invasion of Iraq at that time but that the UK and US concurred that the containment policy against Iraq at the time was "unsustainable"
14 December Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely – Senior Military Representative, Iraq 2004–2005. Kiszely testified that American officials in Iraq refused to admit that they were facing an insurgency, claiming that United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "had instructed that it was not to be called an insurgency". Kiszely told the inquiry that the situation in the country deteriorated after he took up his post as senior military representative. He observed a rise in attacks on coalition and Iraqi security forces, stating that "the rule of law did not really exist in a number of provinces".
Lieutenant General Jonathon Riley – divisional commander of multinational forces in southern Iraq, 2004–2005. Riley defended the decision to disband the Iraqi Army after the invasion, saying that it had effectively "disbanded itself". However, he told the inquiry that "[he] had not [...] expected to be faced with an insurgency" and that the forces "did have to go through a process [of] relearning. And we did it on the job". However, Riley went on to say that new troops arriving in the country were ""much better prepared"
15 December Sir Jeremy Greenstock – British ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 to 2003. Greenstock, who also appeared before the inquiry on 27 November, told the inquiry that he believed the whole campaign in Iraq had been "rushed" and lacked international input, saying "this was clearly too rushed an exercise for the size of the task we found on the ground; a task which some people had been predicting would be as difficult as it was". During the course of his evidence, Greenstock was interrupted by Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, and, for the first, the inquiry went into private session and public broadcasting, on a one-minute delay, was suspended
16 December