Drawn curtains for some, fiction for others.

Whatever its limitations the UK is at least having an official inquiry into the Iraq war. The US is not but are implored to "look forward". Glenn Greenwald on the issue.

British political news has been consumed for the last several weeks by a formal inquiry into the illegality and deceit behind Tony Blair's decision to join the U.S. in invading Iraq. Today, Blair himself is publicly testifying before the investigative commission and is being grilled about numerous false claims he made in the run-up to the war, not only about Iraqi weapons programs (his taxi-cab-derived "45-minutes-to-launch!!" warning) and Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, but also about secret commitments he made to join the U.S. at a time when he and Bush were still pretending that they were undecided and awaiting the outcome of the U.N. negotiations and the inspection process.

A major focus of the investigation is the illegality of the war. Some of the most embarrassing details that have emerged concern the conclusions by the British Government's own legal advisers that the invasion of Iraq would be illegal without U.N. approval. The top British legal officer had concluded that the war would be illegal, only to change his mind under substantial pressure shortly before the invasion. Several weeks ago, a formal investigation in the Netherlands -- whose government had supported the invasion -- produced the first official adjudication of the legality of the war, and found it illegal, with "no basis in international law."

Lots of links in the article to follow.

Tony Blair has appeared at the inquiry. A response from Craig Murray.

Blair just said "You would be hard pressed to find anyone who in September 2002 doubted that Saddam had WMD".

It wouldn't have been that hard. If he had asked members of the Near East and North Africa Department of the FCO, the Middle East experts in the FCO's Research Analysts, or in the Defence Intelligence Service, he would have found absolutely no shortage of people who doubted it, whatever position No 10 was forcing on their institutions.

One of the many failures of this Inquiry has been a failure to ask individual witnesses before it whether they personally had believed in the existence of any significant Iraqi WMD programme. I know for certain that would have drawn some extremely enlightening answers from among the FCO and probably MOD participants.

Blair seems to have preferred the opinions of taxi drivers.

Jack Straw warned Blair:

A “SECRET and personal” letter from Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, to Tony Blair reveals damning doubts at the heart of government about Blair’s plans for Iraq a year before war started.

The letter, a copy of which is published for the first time today, warned the prime minister that the case for military action in Iraq was of dubious legality and would be no guarantee of a better future for Iraq even if Saddam Hussein were removed.

It was sent 10 days before Blair met George Bush, then the US president, in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. The document clearly implies that Blair was already planning for military action even though he continued to insist to the British public for almost another year that no decision had been made.

Lord Goldsmith has given evidence on why he changed his mind about the legality of the war:

The inquiry heard that Lord Goldsmith sent a draft of his legal advice on the war to Mr Blair on 14 January 2003. It revealed that he still believed that military action would be illegal without further UN authorisation, despite the agreement of resolution 1441, which put further pressure on Saddam Hussein. "The Prime Minister accepted that it was for me to reach a judgment and that he had to accept it," he said.

However, the five-page draft caused consternation inside No 10 and was immediately sent to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary at the time, and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, then Britain's ambassador to the UN, who began to convince the peer to change his mind. Sir Jeremy told Lord Goldsmith that the signing of resolution 1441 meant that no further UN clearance was needed. Lord Goldsmith was also lobbied by Mr Straw, who wrote him a long memo on 6 February in which he told the Attorney General that he had failed to understand "both the negotiating history and the wording" of resolution 1441.

However, Lord Goldsmith said that the "most powerful" influence on his thinking was a secret meeting in Washington on 10 February with senior US government lawyers and George Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. During the briefing, he was persuaded that French negotiators, the main opponents of the invasion, had admitted privately that military action could go ahead without further UN intervention. He also said that US negotiators had been ordered to ensure that a second UN resolution would not be necessary before invading Iraq.

"Sir Jeremy on his own had some good points. He moved me in my mind, but he didn't quite get me there," he said. "It was a combination of Jeremy Greenstock, Jack Straw and what happened in Washington." Lord Goldsmith admitted that the US team could not present much evidence that their French counterparts had conceded that military action could go ahead. "I wish they had presented me with more," he said. "At the end of the day, we were dependent on their view." He said it would have been impossible to ask the French directly what they thought the resolution had meant. "You cannot have the British Attorney General being seen to go to the French and ask them 'What do you think?' The message that would have given to Saddam Hussein about the degree of your commitment would have been huge," he said.

Influenced by Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice???!!! Perhaps he really wanted to believe.

Self delusion was rampant in the corridors of power.