Hutton Inquiry

You could be forgiven for finding the Hutton Inquiry into the tragic death of the weapons expert, Dr Kelly, confusing and tedious. That's what they intend.

Amid the claim and counter-claim, my impression is of the Government and the Intelligence Services creating a smokescreen.

Hutton may be uncomfortable for the Prime Minister and MI6, but I'm sure they prefer it to a judicial assessment of the decision to invade Iraq.

But Hutton is still giving us glimpses of the evidence for that decision.

Revealing glimpses. For it's clear now there was never any hard evidence that Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction. MI6's concern always focused on Iraq's plans to get such weapons.

But no-one in 10 Downing Street believed Parliament would support a war because of partial intelligence about a future intention to build weapons of mass destruction.

So Blair made his final case for war on the basis of Saddam's failure to comply with UN resolutions. But only on the expectation, not the knowledge, that weapons of mass destruction would be found after the war.

That was risky. Increasingly, it looks to have been foolhardy.

So the real battle in Hutton is not between the BBC and the Government over Dr Kelly.

The unspoken battle is over blame for the war - PM versus MI6: was it a gung-ho Prime Minister or an incompetent intelligence service?