Iraq Inquiry Digest

The Chilcot Inquiry is already proving a hundred times more interesting than anyone expected. My only worry is that people already view 2003 as ancient history. There is a tendency to think we already know what we only suspected. I was an agnostic on the intervention. I hoped in would work, but worried that it would be a disaster. I still think it is too early to tell whether it was. 

What is certainly the case is that most British journalists failed to hold the government to account at the time. Even at the height of excitement about the Hutton Inquiry, much was missed by those being paid to cover the hearings. Enter Chris Ames, a one man research machine, who has proved by means of the Freedom of Information Act and an assiduous study of the documents, that the intelligence material was moulded by the press operation led by Alastair Campbell and the then head of the Foreign Office media operation John Williams.