The Chilcot Inquiry

The Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq War might, after all, get to the truth.

Seven years on and 3 inquiries later, at least Chilcot has the remit to ask the right questions.

Labour’s spin champion, Alistair Campbell, bludgeoned his way through his interview last week, but he’s in serious trouble over the dodgy dossier.

We now have the evidence and the witnesses to show, beyond doubt, that the dossier Tony Blair put to Parliament was “sexed-up”. This is critical as it proves Blair at best grossly exaggerated the threat and at worst lied.

Campbell defended his former boss loyally, but Tony Blair’s interview with Fern Britton before Christmas gave the game away: Blair admitted he would have wanted “regime change” in Iraq, even without weapons of mass destruction. He never said that to Parliament or the British people before the war.

So we await Tony Blair’s appearance.

All this is not to say the Inquiry has been a model of holding a Government to account.

Having sat through a few sessions of the Inquiry and been critical of the restrictions imposed on it by Gordon Brown, I remain worried that the questioning of witnesses is not robust enough. They need a lawyer cross-examining.

Plus why isn’t Gordon Brown appearing before the Inquiry before the General Election? He wrote the cheques for the war – and indeed may have failed to write the cheques for better equipment for British troops. As Campbell admitted, Blair would have spoken frequently to his Chancellor about the decision to go to war.

It would be yet another outrage if this Prime Minister doesn’t come clean before the election.