We can only truly assess the Iraq war once Chilcot delivers

Sir John's inquiry was supposed to be concluded three years ago but we're still none the wiser about why we went to fight

Observer editorial

When it was set up in 2009 by Gordon Brown, the inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot into how Britain went to war in Iraq was supposed to take a year to complete. Four years later, it appears no closer to drawing to a close, with some wondering whether it will ever report. The inquiry, which has cost £7.4m so far, was designed to examine the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 and its aftermath, and covers an eight-year period between 2001 and 2009. At the heart of the latest delay is the refusal by the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, to release records of some 130 conversations between Tony Blair, his successor, Brown, and then US president, George W Bush.

Included among the records being sought, according to a letter sent to David Cameron and published on the inquiry's website, are "25 notes from Mr Blair to President Bush" and "some 200 cabinet-level discussions", which are also being withheld.

Chilcot is seeking the records to determine at what point Blair committed the UK to military involvement in Iraq, amid repeated suggestions that he promised to back US action in 2002. For Chilcot and, indeed, for the British public this is a crucial moment. Two years ago, Chilcot made clear to Heywood's predecessor, Lord O'Donnell, that disclosure of the conversations would serve to "illuminate Mr Blair's position at critical points" in the run-up to war. It is known, too, that Chilcot has taken a keen interest in both published accounts of that period and in the play Loyalty, written by Sarah Helm, the journalist wife of Jonathan Powell, who was Blair's chief of staff. The play includes a depiction of a telephone call between Blair and Bush in which the prime minister promised to back the US in any circumstances.

The truth of this matters. The apparent misrepresentation of the intelligence over Iraq, and the suspicion that the democratic process, too, was similarly manipulated by Blair and those in his inner circle, has eroded the British public's trust in politics. While the notion that private exchanges between heads of state should be protected is in general a good one, there are circumstances in which that convention is clearly not appropriate.

While the question of how many Iraqis lost their lives is still an open one, the total is generally agreed to be in excess of 140,000. In Britain, 179 families lost members who served in Iraq. Iraq itself remains a violent, politically fragmented and troubled place.

Given what is now known about the way the case was made for launching an arguably illegal war – this country's biggest foreign policy debacle since Suez – Heywood's refusal to release the conversations smacks of a shabby cover-up at worst, or foot-dragging in a moderately more charitable interpretation.

But while Chilcot should be applauded for his efforts to get to the bottom of the affair, it should be noted that he does have options available to him. If Heywood will not release the material requested, Sir John should set his own firm deadline for publication and for beginning the Maxwellisation process, under which those who might be criticised are warned by letter in advance. In doing so, he should warn that, lacking the full facts, he will be forced to draw his conclusions from details already in the public domain, including in memoirs and accounts of the run-up to the war, of how people behaved, what promises might have been made and where culpability resides. Thereby, he can lay down a challenge to those, foremost among them Blair, who could publicly insist, as Brown has done, that his correspondence be released if he believes he has really nothing to hide.

It is already more than 10 years since the events that led to the invasion of Iraq. With each passing year, that period seems increasingly distant, its immediate relevance diminished. Transparency is a pillar of democracy but it is undermined when, as occurred in the Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings, truth is long delayed and bureaucratic.

If there is an urgency, it is because only with publication of Chilcot's report can this generation hope to learn the lessons of that misguided war and how to avoid repeating those mistakes.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/10/chilcot-inquiry-delay-iraq-war