Last July David Cameron announced a judicial inquiry into Britain's alleged participation in acts of torture and rendition in the years since 9/11, though he also said that it wouldn't begin until the current round of civil lawsuits had been resolved. The emphasis, he implied, would be on Britain's role in condoning or assisting foreign agencies rather than on our own independent behaviour. There were (and are) already two other inquiries taking place, one into the death in British hands of the hotel worker Baha Mousa in September 2003, and another into incidents that occurred in May 2004 at a British army base north of Basra, while a third inquiry has been requested on behalf of 102 other Iraqi citizens.

LRB 18 November 2010 | PDF Download