Many people have written off the Chilcot as an Inquiry that Gordon Brown delayed far too long, tried to prevent being held in public, chose Chilcot as a Whitehall patsie to run it, selected 5 members as the committee all of whom he was close to as safe pairs of hands, ruled out legal Counsel as a forensic interrogator, and ensured that the report would not be made till after the election. However, despite all that, some highly significant new material is coming out of it. We have already heard Blair tell the BBC, even before he is formally interviewed by the committee, that he would have invaded Iraq anyway even without evidence of WMD and would have found a way to justify the war to Parliament and the public. In other words he had made up his mind to go to war without consulting the Cabinet, Parliament or the British people and now, apparently, without any evidence necessary to justify it. Why? To “hug America close” as Clinton advised Blair in 2000, to maintain the status as America’s main strategic ally (plus of course the oil). We now have it from Alistair Campbell at the Inquiry that Blair wrote to Bush in 2002: “We are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and Iraq is disarmed…..If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there”.

One other significant pattern is developing around the Chilct Inquiry. It has been a string of top Establishment figures – permanent secretaries, MI5/MI6 chiefs, key lawyers – confessing they made grievous errors but also that they were not ultimately responsible: ‘Not me guv’ in the subtlest, poshest tones. Sole responsibility lies elsewhere – where else but Blair himself? But that then leads directly to the biggest question of all. Is Chilcot just an exoiation, a catalyst for an outpouring of sins confessed – a sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission – or is it a serious exercise in holding the Executive and above all Blair to account for one of the biggest crimes in modern times?
Will it go the way of Lord Justice Scott’s Inquiry into arms-to-Iraq in 1994-6 which showed beyond doubt that the Tory government had breached its own export guidelines on a huge scale, but led to no prosecutions? Why, if official inquiries show irrefutable evidence that a major crime has been committed, do prosecutions not take place? The obvious answer is that the Establishment and No.10 moves heaven and hell to prevent it. But part of the answer also is that Parliament, particularly the current Parliament, is egregiously weak and subservient. The Chilcot charade, if it ultimately leads nowhere, is yet another reason, and one of the most important, why parliamentary democratic reform – restoring it to its proper independent scrutinising and decision-making role – is now a burning issue for this country.

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