Sir John Chilcot, who is chairming the inquiry into the Iraq war. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA
10.49am: Chilcot asks about the "smart sanctions" policy. How did we get there, and what happened in the security council?
Patey says that by March 2001 Britain had reached agreement with the US to narrow and strenthen sanctions. At one stage eggs had been subject to sanctions (because they could be incubated to produce WMD). The Americans and the British wanted to get away from that, by moving towards a "controlled goods list" and tightening border monitoring. The government wanted to "narrow the scope of sanctions and make their implemention more effective".
10.48am: More Iraq inquiry jargon: the NFZ operation. That stands for the no-fly zones.
10.47am: Webb says that "the question of regime overthrow was mentioned" but that Britain was not being asked to support it at that stage.
10.43am: Chilcot asks about "regime change". When did it start to "loom" as an object of US policy.
Ricketts says that the notion of regime change was around when the Bush adminstration took over. "We did hear voices [talking about] arming the Iraqi opposition." But this was not being pushed heavily, Ricketts says. The State Department was in charge.
Patey says that in February 2001 British policy makers were "aware of the drumbeats in Washington" relating to regime change. But Britain's policy was to "keep well away" from this option.
10.41am: They're talking about the Americans now. Ricketts says that from Bush's election until 9/11, the State Department (ie, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State) was in the lead in relation to US policy towards Iraq.
Patey says the State Department was being "given a chance" to see if it could "make containment work".
10.40am: BBC News is still showing the hearing. Sky has given up already.
10.38am: Webb says there were different opinions about the threat posed by Iraq at the time. In Kuwait there was a lot of concern.
Patey talks about the need for "P5 unity".
We're going to have to get used to Iraq inquiry jargon. P5 stands for the permament five - the five permanent members of the UN security council.
10.36am: Webb explains how the arms embargo was working in 2001. "Almost all members of the UN were abiding by it," he says. It was preventing Iraq acquiring "major new weapons systems". But there was "some leakage of parts and components that allowed them to be a bit more effective. They appeared to be flying their aircraft a bit more regularly [than expected]."
10.33am: Ricketts starts with an opening statement saying that by 2001 the various policies in place to contain Saddam Hussein were not working well.
10.24am: The three witnesses introduce themselves. I gave some details about them in my post at 8.42am but they add a few details.
Ricketts says he is now permanent secretary at the Foreign Office. He starts by saying how anxious people within government are to cooperate with the inquiry.
Patey says he is now ambassador to Saudi Arabia. After leaving his Middle East job in the Foreign Office in 2002 he became ambassador to Sudan.
Webb says he is now working in the Cabinet Office on a project on "crisis management". He also says he is on part-time secondment to the Football Association helping prepare the World Cup bid.
This is interesting. Webb also says that, during the time in question, he received a promotion in the MoD after going through a selection process that involved two members of the inquiry assessing candidates - Lady Prashar, who, as First Civil Service Commissioner, was involved in senior appointments of this kind and Sir Lawrence Freedman, who I presume was on the panel as a member of the "great and the good". This disclosure does rather reinforce the impression that the inquiry represents the establishment interrogating itself.
10.21am: This morning the inquiry will focus on "broad lines of policy" relating to Iraq before the way, Chilcot says. In the afternoon the hearing will concentrate on the no-fly zones policy and sanctions.
10.18am: Chilcot is now telling members of the public that, if they disrupt proceedings, they will be thrown out.
10.16am: Chilcot has mentioned the "protocols" for witnesses giving evidence. There are three of them and they are available on the inquiry's website. They explain how the process will work and when witnesses will be allowed to give evidence in private, or anonymously.
10.10am: My 10am post was based on the text we were given in advance. Chilcot is speaking now. He starts with a moment's silence in memory of all those killed in Iraq.
10.00am: Chilcot is about to give his opening statement. We've been given a text in advance. Here are the highlights.
He reasserts his determination to be rigorous and frank - and, where necessary, to attibute blame.
My colleagues and I come to this task with open minds. We are apolitical and independent of any political party. We want to examine the evidence. We will approach our task in a way that is thorough, rigorous, fair and frank ...
As I have said before, we are not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry; and our processes will reflect that difference. No-one is on trial. We cannot determine guilt or innocence. Only a court can do that. But I make a commitment here that once we get to our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms where they are warranted.
He renews his appeal for evidence from ordinary members of the public. This suggests he is trying hard to stop it becoming an establishment-only affair.
We don't want to, and are not, just hearing from the 'official' representatives. We value hearing a broad spectrum of views from a wide range of people and organisations. We want to know what people across Britain think are the important questions. We want to get a range of challenging perspectives on the issues we are considering.
He urges people to be patient. The first round of witness hearings will begin today and run until early February 2010. Then (after the election) he will hold a further round of hearings in the middle of 2010.
We expect to invite back some previous witnesses and, where relevant, call some new ones. What I would like to stress now is that people should not jump to conclusions if they do not hear everything they expect to in the first round of hearings: there will be more to follow.
He says the inquiry will not start considering issues relating to the legality of the war until the hearings in the New Year
And, finally, he explains what he wants to learn from the early hearings.
We want to establish a clear understanding of the various core elements of the UK's involvement in Iraq, and how these developed over time. We will start by hearing from the senior officials and military officers who had a key role in developing advice for Ministers and/or implementing government policy. We want them to take us through the main decisions and tasks. That will give us a clear understanding of the various strands of British policy development and implementation since 2001. We will learn the reasons why particular policies or courses of action were adopted, and what consideration was given to alternative approaches.
9.54am: Ian Drury in the Daily Mail says that Gordon Brown is not expected to give evidence to the inquiry. Iain Dale on his blog says he finds this "incredible".
If [Brown] had stood up to Blair and said no, it is almost inconceivable that Blair could have gone ahead and proceeded as he did.
9.48am: Some 53% of "Westminster insiders" polled by PoliticsHome think the Iraq inquiry will be "sufficiently independent", while 38% do not.
9.44am: Rose Gentle (see my 9.20am post) is on Sky and News 24, giving different interviews, at the same time. (One is a pre-record.) She tells Sky that she thinks this inquiry will be different.
This time the families have been allowed to ask questions. The families have put in a lot of questions. If the questions are not answered, we can always says 'why were our questions not asked?'
9.38am: This is what Michael Howard had to say about the Iraq inquiry on the Today programme this morning.
Tony Blair told the House of Commons that the intelligence he received on weapons of mass destruction was 'detailed, extensive and authoritative'. What he had actually been told by the intelligence community was that the information they had was 'limited, sporadic and patchy'. He translated those words 'limited, sporadic and patchy' into 'detailed, extensive and authoritative' and ... that is a clear example of how he misled the House of Commons and the nation.
"The point about the Chilcot Inquiry is that it has wide points of reference. There may well be evidence that wasn't available to Butler. I hope we get the truth. T
9.20am: Change of plan. The Chilcot inquiry are only letting one journalist per media organisation into the building. I'm going to let one of my colleagues take the Guardian seat and I'm back in the Commons, where I'll watch proceedings on the web feed. There are a few seats for reports in the room where the hearings will take place and there's a separate overflow room next door where reporters can watch a live feed. But apparently there are only spaces for 80 journalists in total and they are massively oversubscribed, particularly because of the international interest. I saw about half a dozen names from Al Jazeera alone on the accreditation list at the door.
I'm not one to make a fuss, but some journalists can get very prickly about this kind of thing and I expect there will be some very angry newspaper writers prowling around Parliament Square soon. Not a good start, Sir John.
And you can't say you weren't warned. As the Iraq Inquiry Digest reported last month, Chilcot was asked when he had a meeting with relatives whether they would all be able to attend when Tony Blair gave evidence. Chilcot told them that he could not give them that guarantee, because there might not be enough room. Rose Gentle, whose son was killed in the war, had a simple response:
We want to be face-to-face with him – get a bigger hall.
8.42am: At last. After six years of fighting and insurgency in Iraq, two parliamentary inquiries, the Hutton inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to the conflict and a long campaign for a full inquiry into the whole affair, which culminated in Gordon Brown having to abandon his attempt to have the evidence heard in private, we have finally come to the day when the Chilcot inquiry is going to start hearing evidence.
Sir John Chilcot, the chairman, is going to open proceedings with a statement at 10am and then we're going to hear from three witnesses this morning on the subject of "UK policy towards Iraq in 2001". They are:
• Sir Peter Ricketts - chairman of the joint intelligence committee 2000-01 and director general political at the Foreign Office 2001-03
• Simon Webb - director general operations policy at the Ministry of Defence 1999-2001 and policy director at the MoD 2001-04
• Sir William Patey - head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office 2001-03
They won't be the most interesting witnesses to give evidence to the inquiry. But today's session will nevertheless be fascinating, because we will be able to start forming a judgment about how rigorous and revelatory the proceedings are going to be.
The hearings are taking place at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster, a large, charmless-but-functional conference centre about two minutes' walk away from the House of Commons. I'm heading off there now. I'll start blogging again once I'm up and running in the press room.
