I listened to much of the Chilcot inquiry today - and twittered like a tweeting fool as I got angrier and angrier. And not just because the questions I wanted asked (see previous blog) were not being asked. But to recap the day…

It took no time at all for Blair to start reinventing history - even recent history. The Fern Britton interview was dismissed as if he had simply been careless with his choice of words, even with all his great experience of the media. And the panel failed to press him on this as they failed to press on so many other lines of inquiry - one can only hope that their inscrutability is masking a stinging report when it finally gets published, however many months away that is.

Then he was off, running the show virtually, making mischief with 9/11 when one thing we do all know is that prior to the invasion there was no link between Saddam and global terrorism. And once again he was allowed to get away with it.

The dossier and its presentation was raised - but Tony swatted this away as an irrelevance - and he quoted some totally spurious statistics on how little this had been raised in parliamentary questions - as if that was a sensible measure of anything! And again they didn’t question this at all.

The excuses kept coming: he complained that many were pushing him to move more quickly to war - yes, we know who those people were, and they were mostly in Washington. In the afternoon when it got onto the reasons why the aftermath was such a disaster, it wasn’t that the planning was cavalier (or non-existent)it was apparently because they had not anticipated the role that Iran and Al Qa’ida would take. And it was not our troops that were responsible for the thousands of civilian deaths each month, three or four years after the invasion - no, that was all down to the insurgents. (At this point in the proceedings I have to admit my tweets were becoming rather colourful).

But the panel were getting more assertive and I think they did succeed in getting Blair to make a few things clear that he may regret. For example:

•  When the discussion got onto the subject of the legal advice, Sir Roderick did establish that Blair had had ‘informal’ views from Lord (Peter) Goldsmith throughout, and was therefore aware that his view was until March 2003 that war could not be legal without a second resolution, or at least a determination of the security council. He also established that throughout this period preparations were proceeding for war, and he kept pressing Blair that it would surely have been better to know that these preparations were not going to be wasted if, as Blair reiterated, no action would be taken if deemed illegal. So it was quite clear, as I read it, that Blair relied throughout on the US legal view, and therefore must have been in a position come February 2003 where he absolutely had to get “Peter” onside, so the idea that Lord Goldsmith was not put under the most extreme pressure, through Jeremy Greenstock, Jack Straw, and ultimately the White House lawyers, to alter his viewpoint, is stretching credulity to the limit.
• They also established that the “sofa style” cabinet was a reality. At one point today Blair said something along the lines of “well, the cabinet, all they wanted to know was if it was legal or not, they didn’t want to be bothered with the details”.
• And I think it was plain to everyone that despite his refusal to admit he was wrong and that the planning was rubbish, the section on the aftermath clearly showed that he and his government were culpable for the terrible chaos that followed the fall of Saddam. He must surely realise, even if he cannot admit it, that the reason so many hundreds and thousands of Iraqis died, was the complete and utter breakdown of security, and this was a direct consequence of the lack of proper planning.

But the thought I was left with more than any was Blair’s continued protestation that it was a “judgement”a “decsion” that he had had to take, and that he had formed a view that it was impossible to take any risks with Saddam. And my answer to him is this:

I don’t believe you, Mr Blair. If you had thought about it rationally, you would not have simply considered the risks of not taking military action, but you would have considered the very real risks of taking that military action, which may be more evident now in hindsight, but were there beforehand too, and many of us shouted them from the streets of London, or across the floor of the House. It was clear to many of us that there were alternative strategies; that there was a huge risk to our standing in the world, especially to the Muslim world; that it would be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism and Al Qa’ida; that it would distract us from Afghanistan. I don’t think I heard you mention any one of those risks today Mr Blair. And yet I know you are an intelligent man, so I am afraid I cannot credit that you did not consider them at the time. So I am left with just one conclusion, that you decided that the best course of action was to follow George Bush wherever he led, and that caused you to be selective in the advice you wanted to hear, be it legal or intelligence advice, and that you then let this position colour everything else that followed. As Ming Campbell said at lunchtime - if you had been honest about the intelligence you would not have carried parliament.