ABSTRACT
Liberal International Relations (IR) scholars have long claimed that 'publicity' is constitutive of a distinctive way of war and peace. According to Doyle, for instance, one of the 'pillars' of the liberal democratic peace is a 'republican representative democratic government' in which legislators and public opinion restrain the executive from acts that contravene the interests of the electors. This chapter offers a different understanding of the British practice of publicity and secrecy and its relationship with security. The chapter discusses an anecdote from the Iraq Inquiry, in which Tony Blair tried to refer to a document that, although anyone could download it from the Internet, could not be publicly acknowledged. Blair's discomfiture at the Iraq Inquiry was taken by some as an indication of political secrecy for private gain by crooked statesmen who wished to prevent the inquiry from releasing a public account of how the state went to war.
