The Chilcot inquiry is too early to really savage Tony Blair

6 August 2011

Apparently Sir John Chilcot is likely to be ‘critical’ of Tony Blair in his long-awaited report into the Iraq war. We know this, or think we know it, because the Mail on Sunday has told us as much, in some detail. How does the Mail on Sunday know? It is odd of the committee to leak its findings, but I suppose that must be what has happened. Perhaps they are gripped by committee-envy, annoyed that other investigative committees have recently stolen their thunder and prominence, and wish to set up some advance publicity for the publication of the report.

For students of establishment inquiries, the Chilcot inquiry is an interesting beast. Official inquiries set up shortly after some appalling catastrophe has taken place — a few months later, say, or a year or so — tend to exonerate all concerned, not least because all concerned are usually still in positions of great power. This was true of the quite magnificent whitewash of the Franks Report into the Argentine invasion of the Falklands Islands, for example, which reported in 1983 (only one year after hostilities had ceased), and scarcely less true of Lord Hutton’s inquiry, which reported to guffaws and general hilarity only eight months after the death of the government scientist Dr David Kelly.

On the other hand, if sufficient time has elapsed then the establishment inquiry can sometimes deliver a hefty, if largely pointless, blow to the people everyone else has for years known to have been guilty, especially if most of them are now dead. The more recent Bloody Sunday inquiry was able, from a distance of nearly four decades (and at the cost of an estimated £400 million, according to Tessa Jowell) to establish a series of facts that everyone had known colloquially for years. The generous view might be that their lordships are aided by the perspective which comes with time passing.

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New Britannia

August 5th, 2011 4:40pm Report this comment

Mr Blair has doen more than any other man in recent history to harm this country. Even amongst his various destructive acheivements, taking the country into such a deadly war on false grounds was particularly odious.

Let us hope he gets the recognition he deserves (a jail sentence).

Charles

August 10th, 2011 9:56pm Report this comment

Seriously - update your picture, sad case of misplaced vanity.

Tariq

August 11th, 2011 3:00pm Report this comment

The mother of all whitewashes is of course the report of the Warren Commission, which worked from drawings, not photographs, of Kennedy's head and torso. And if Oswald was such a crack shot, why did he supposedly fire from behind as the car containing the target was receding? Wouldn't a proper marksmen fire at an approaching target instead?