What will Sir John Chilcot do should Tony Blair’s memory prove unreliable?

Where will the inquiry into the how and why of the Iraq war stand if the former Prime Minister, echoing Ronald Reagan during the Iran-

Contra hearings, just “can’t recall”?

Mr Blair, always a fan of his own omniscience, is unlikely to be so blatant. The chances are that he will take cover, as so often before, among the serial inconsistencies of his several accounts of the war’s origins. But should he prefer a mute defence, how could Sir John respond?

Not with any legal sanction. Not, certainly, with a charge of contempt. The inquiry has no legal standing, will deliver no enforceable verdicts and is conspicuous for the absence of jurists among its five distinguished members. Sir John’s post-mortem may “apportion blame” – who’ll give me odds? – but it will not call the cops. And it will not tell us whether the war was legal or not.

The government did not want this inquiry. Then, as though heeding some Whitehall ancestral memory, it attempted to have all proceedings held in camera. Now, in place of a forensic investigation, we have a former member of the 2003 Hutton team – two coats; guaranteed perma-white – holding the fort until all suspects have fled the scene.

I’m cynical, obviously. This is, first, because the competence allowed to Sir John’s panel is the default position of the British state when the difference between known facts and the official position becomes surreal. There’s a problem? There will be “a full inquiry”.

Secondly, there are those known facts, or what mad Donald Rumsfeld called known knowns. The Iraq narrative is established. As Bob Woodward wrote on the first page of his impeccable 2004 book, Plan of Attack, George Bush was demanding a revised Iraq war plan from Defence Secretary Rumsfeld barely two months after the Twin Towers. He did not ask for reasons.

Mr Blair was in attendance at the presidential ranch in Texas in April 2002, and offered his support for war, according to Whitehall documents leaked subsequently. That summer, nevertheless, the Prime Minister told the Commons that no decision had been taken. Yet in September Mr Blair was at Camp David and assuring Mr Bush that (according to Mr Woodward’s interviews with the President) “he would not have to go it alone”.

And so on. At that time, while war was plotted, the British Parliament and the British people were being told that all roads led to the UN. Some within Mr Blair’s own circle were raising the idea that an attack would be illegal. In the course of 10 days in March 2003, nevertheless, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, managed to reverse his learned opinion on that score. Why? It would probably be handy to have a lawyer around to put that question to a lawyer such as Lord Goldsmith. Sir John has preferred a brace of historians, a former ambassador and a fellow former civil servant. Even Blair the barrister will not face a barrister over a crucial matter of legal opinion.

When expensive QCs are fielded in supermarket planning inquiries it seems odd, if that’s the word, to overlook them now.

Perhaps an amateur can help. International law encompasses a vast body of work, but in matters of war-making, the position can be summarised roughly. Thus: war is legal if, obviously, you are under attack, if an attack against you is being prepared or if you have the sanction of the UN.

Hence, in the Iraq plot, “pre-emption”; hence the WMD fabrications; hence the British attempts to wring a resolution, any sort of useable resolution, from the UN. Hence, in short, the wholesale abuse of intelligence – Sir John could well ask why the spooks rolled over so easily – and the lies.

This is, or ought to be, serious. The pre-history of the Iraq conflict strongly suggests, for one thing, that Mr Blair misled the Commons more than once. His need for secrecy and falsehoods has also been used to explain the catastrophic lack of planning for the invasion and its aftermath. People died, in other words, because the Downing Street inner circle could not admit, before the shooting started, what they were up to.

That should keep Sir John busy. No doubt, as he insisted on opening the inquiry yesterday, he intends to be “impartial, objective and fair”. No doubt he will “expect” witnesses to be truthful and “accurate”. But he will still exclude the public and press whenever he believes that “national security”, that favourite old catch-all, might be at stake.

What prevents Mr Blair from declaring that his every word has security implications? If history is any guide, he only has to “believe it sincerely”. That will also remain his excuse, no doubt, for the drive to “fix” intelligence around policy where WMD were concerned. He meant well. He believed. Who deserves to be indicted for that?

A real judge would give you your short answer. Sir John’s main task ought to be to separate two propositions. One involves cock-up, the other conspiracy. The first, apparently already a favourite with Sir John,

suggests that “mistakes were made”, nothing more, and that the inquiry’s task is, therefore, to establish if “lessons” can be learned. That established, the public can go back to sleep.

The second possibility is more dangerous to all concerned, not least because another war still rages in Afghanistan with feeble justification. This points to a conspiracy dating to Mr Bush’s election and before to achieve regime change in Iraq – another ambition disavowed repeatedly by Mr Blair – on any pretext, at whatever cost and by any means necessary.

Will Sir John pursue the allegation? I would be astonished. It would mean laying Mr Blair open to the possibility of charges at The Hague, or it would involve actual proof, finally, that the many contradictory claims made by our former Prime Minister since 2003 are grounded, each and every one, in fact.

He would need to withstand actual cross-examination, in other words. But if he and others in his administration are not to face that overdue ordeal, what will Chilcot have been worth? Another coat of whitewash drying slowly on the carcass of Mr Blair’s reputation as the years slip away?