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We now hear that the Chilcot inquiry into the reasons we went to war in Iraq has been delayed until after the forthcoming general election. It seems certain to me that this is because certain senior people, particularly Tony Blair, will be vilified in it and it will establish they lied back in 2003. Inquiries like this have a remit: you can report any truth so long as it's not a negative truth.

After the Falklands war there was a inquiry and a senior Labour figure, I can't remember who, said there was "a smell of white paint" about it when it came out - in other words a whitewash. The people at the top are part of a kind of club and they cover each other's backs. No one realistically ever thought Blair and his inner circle would be described as 'liars' by this report when it became public - but because it is likely that the draft report establishes just that the thing will have to be edited again until they can come up with a less severe series of words like 'the reasons were patchy' or 'the reasons were less than fully substantiated prior to the attack' - or some other euphemism - rather than 'the reasons for the attack were dishonest' or 'the people at the top lied'.

So this won't be an inquiry at all, just a case of Chilcot spending ?9m of the taxpayers hard-earned on an investigation that wasn't an investigation at all. Tony Blair will continue to trade off the contacts he made in office to continue to make as many millions of pounds for himself as he possibly can, like he's been doing for the last eight years, and so will all the people who used to be his sidekicks whilst in office.

I wonder what would happen if Chilcot refused to play the Westminster game and actually was planning to publish the report saying that Tony Blair lied. He would probably be visited one evening in his office by some men in suits who tell him they work for a department in Whitehall and that the report calling Blair a liar should not be published for reasons of national security. It is terrible really.

People's views please.

The tories backed the war in Iraq too and voted for it so lets hope they wont be hypocritical when the truth comes out.

This strikes me as illogical, Max. Labour were the government of the day that took the country into war with the dodgy dossier etc.

It is in the Tory government of today's interest to get the Chilcot report produced before the election which is what Cameron has been pushing for. Then if the report is critical of the Labour government he can make political capital out of that.

I hope the amount of information politicians, of all shades, knew in advance of the decision to go to war comes out in the inquiry. That way we will know if Tory and Labour people were voting out of an obligation they felt they had to support America, whilst knowing the dossier was dodgy and whilst knowing the WMD's probably weren't there, or whether they REALLY thought it was right to invade Iraq and oust Saddam in the name of a safer world. I seem to recall the Lib Dems weren't in favour 12 years ago.

I'm not suggesting the delay is a political thing, delayed until after the election in order to help one party or another. It is the fact that it's delayed once again, even if there was no election this year, appears to be being done for the reasons I've outlined at the top - namely the Westminster club, the Establishment, don't like what the first draft likely says - that Blair and his inner-circle lied.

It simply isn't cricket to release a report which vilifies a very senior former politician and those around him in that way. This is the case when the inquiry is headed by a Westminster suit, if a Court had investigated the legality of all this it would have been entirely objective, they would have concluded the same, regardless of whether it was a former PM or a man off the street, and I think that suggests they should have got a Court to investigate the legality of it all. That wouldn't happen though out of fear of what the result would have been. The Establishment: don't you just luv 'em...

I bet Vice President Blair will be in the USA when the report finally comes out. War mongering twat that he is.

Well there is no more "Westminster Establishment" than the Tory government, its owners such as hedge funds and large corporates and its supporters in Westminster .

And they appear very keen to get the report published before May to ensure they can keep the gravy flowing their way at the expense of the disabled, unemployed and public sector workers

Number 6 uses the get out of jail "the Tories voted for the war as well"
Correct me if I am wrong and I am sure one person will but would the
politicians of the time not have voting on the evidence presented to them.
Maybe like a jury do in a court case. (Birmingham 6, Guildford 5)
Case presented for, case presented against. Strongest case wins ?
There was a summing up at the time, evidence for and against.
They voted using the evidence presented.
I think what I am trying to say most politicians would have voted yes or no on
what they were told in Parliament. I sure politicians of all sides voted on facts
presented.

Sorry to waffle on

I started a thread on here a while ago where I asked whether Tony Blair really had a choice over Iraq, I was of the view and still am that there is a chance he felt he had no option but to support the Americans in whatever they did post 9/11. I wouldn't be surprised if up in the two storey flat above 11 Downing Street, where Blair and his family lived, he may have said to his missus Cherie "I don't think this is right but I have to do this as the Americans have always backed us and we will back them in their hour of need". Personal views often don't come in to political decisions, there is such a thing as 'the political game'. Once Tony was in favour many of his senior people, who are very interested in retaining their jobs rather than becoming outsiders, backed the whole thing too. So were decisions made by politicians to back the whole thing made on the evidence? Possibly not. Was it largely about keeping-in with King Tony who, in turn, was trying to keep-in with the yanks? Highly likely.

If Blair really thought he would be vilified in this inquiry report, impossible when you look at how the Establishment operates as I've detailed in these comments, he would probably now be permanently living abroad - never to return. Tony and family living in a mansion in Barbados for ever more, naturalised local citizens there, and no longer Brits.