Tickets ballot for Blair inquiry evidence hearing

AUDIENCE seats for Tony Blair’s highly-anticipated appearance before the Iraq inquiry will be allocated by public ballot, it was announced yesterday.

The former prime minister will give a full day of evidence to the inquiry into the war at some point in the fortnight between January 25 and February 5.

Because of overwhelming interest from the public, in particular families of troops killed in the conflict, places at the session will be awarded by ballot.

A third of the 50-60 seats available in the inquiry’s hearing room at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London have been set aside for relatives of servicemen and women who died in Iraq.

Places will also be available in an overspill room inside the conference centre for the public to watch Blair give his testimony on a video screen.

The session will be streamed on the inquiry’s website – www.iraqinquiry.org.uk – and is likely to be broadcast on TV news channels.

The exact day when Blair is to give evidence will be announced a week in advance.

Meanwhile, the inquiry heard yesterday that Downing Street closely managed efforts to try to stabilise Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion of 2003.

William Patey, who was British ambassador to Baghdad from 2005 to 2006, said that for the first time in his career he received instructions directly from then prime minister, Tony Blair.

Giving evidence on the first day of public hearings, he said throughout his time in the post he would receive almost daily telephone calls from No 10 urging him to take particular courses of action.

“The politics here demanded instant results,” he told the inquiry.

“The first time I have ever had instructions as an ambassador directly from the prime minister was to help get a constitution that the Iraqis would vote positively for, the formation of a new government, create the conditions for the withdrawal of British troops. It was quite simple.”

Patey said: “They were quite reasonable instructions, provided you realised that they weren’t in my gift or solely inthe gift of the British government.

“There was a tension between the desire for instant results and the realities on the ground. What you could achieve in the sort of timescales that London needed for political reasons – there was a disconnect.”

Patey said that, in particular, he had been under pressure from Downing Street to engage with the radical Shia cleric, Muqtada al Sadr, who was leading an insurgency against international coalition forces.