Ed Balls rattles No.10 by backing ‘open’ inquiry into Iraq war

The schools secretary threw No.10 into a panic when he suggested in a TV interview that his "personal view" was that the Iraq inquiry should be accessible to the public.

As former military and intelligence chiefs criticised the secret nature of the investigation, the Prime Minister's spokesman said his view had not changed and that Gordon Brown wanted to publish the Iraq report in as full a form as possible, disclosing all but the most sensitive security material.

He said: "Our objective here is to get to the truth and have an effective inquiry so we learn the lessons.

"You can only do that by being in a position where people are able to speak frankly and candidly and can be questioned on sensitive national security material."

Mr Balls told ITV's This Morning: "If you're asking my personal view, I'd prefer it to be as open as possible."

He also said he was confident Mr Brown "looked into this in great detail" before making a decision, but that it was important for generals, officers and ministers to feel they could give "very open" evidence.

The minister later insisted he was in favour of allowing the public to give evidence to the inquiry, rather than making it fully public.

Mr Balls also suggested Tony Blair failed to examine the case against Saddam Hussein closely enough.

"We ought to have tried for longer and harder to get [Saddam Hussein] to open up," he said. "We should have taken longer to find the evidence."

Today General Sir Mike Jackson joined former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald and former intelligence bosses in urging Mr Brown to listen to the public's desire for more openness.

A total of 179 British servicemen and women have died in Iraq since the conflict began in 2003.

General Jackson, head of the Army during the invasion, said he would have no problem in giving evidence in public.

He said Mr Brown's decision to hold the proceedings in private fed "the climate of suspicion and scepticism about government" and that he ought to consider requiring witnesses to give evidence on oath.

"I do not see why it could not have gone for a halfway house with sessions in public and then having private hearings when it comes to intelligence," he told The Independent.

"They do have to look at the intelligence Blair used in the run-up to the war ... which at the end turned out to be fool's gold."

Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former head of defence intelligence, said: "There is only one reason that the inquiry is being heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this Government. There are 179 reasons why the military want the truth to be out."

A serving senior officer who was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan said: "One thing I do remember is how urgent procurement orders were delayed and delayed because the Government wanted to pretend it was still following diplomatic channels.

Sir Ken said Mr Brown's decision was "a depressing indication that he hasn't yet grasped the damage these events cause to the relationship between the public and their government".