Blair goes into battle over Iraq

To the disappointment of many, however, there was no apology. This is hardly a surprise when the former Prime Minister believes so ardently that the 2003 invasion was the right thing to do. Mr Blair is a conviction politician. While his repeated dictum that he went to war because he thought it "the right thing to do" antagonised many, who thought it simplistic or unjust, none of his critics has been able to offer any credible proof that he was lying.

What Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues extracted from Mr Blair were varying degrees of regret and recognition about some of the mistakes that were made. In doing so, this took in one of the harshest lessons of the conflict. In spending so much time trying to persuade the UN and parts of the Labour Party to back the coalition, there was a shameful neglect of planning for life post-Saddam Hussein – something which had terrible consequences for British and American soldiers, and also the

Iraqi people.

The spotlight for these mistakes must not be shone on Mr Blair alone, however. With the notable exception of Robin Cook, who resigned with speed and with honour intact, and Clare Short, who did not quite manage either, the Cabinet of 2002-03 failed to ask the right questions.

The decision by Lord Goldsmith to alter his legal advice has become the focal point for those who complain about the bypassing of Cabinet government, but the colleagues of the then Attorney-General must ask themselves why they did not inquire more about the quality of intelligence, post-war planning and the commitments made to George W Bush.

Had they done so, Mr Blair's wishful claims that the intelligence picture on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was "detailed, extensive and authoritative" might have been exposed sooner. The 45-minute claim, which in reality applied merely to battlefield weapons, and not long-range missiles, was similarly untested by the Cabinet.

Ministers may like to present themselves as victims of Mr Blair's sofa-style of government, but their silence made them complicit in its shortcomings. There was one bold way to register their unhappiness, as Mr Cook showed, but they refused to take it.

Similarly, the UN was not sufficiently inquisitive about the evidence used by Britain and the US to argue for the existence of WMD. The failure to find them weakened Mr Blair but, on its own, came nowhere near to ending his time in office.

While many Britons had objections about the Government's use of intelligence, they recognised that Saddam was a bloodthirsty dictator who had used traditional and chemical weapons to kill his own citizens and those of his neighbours in the Middle East, as he did in the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

His continual defiance of the United Nations could not be ignored.

It is these facts that the former Prime Minister will always rely upon for his defence of Britain's most controversial foreign engagement since Suez. Those against the Iraq invasion will never accept that Saddam's violent history was justification for war, but Mr Blair offered an exhaustive defence.

The inquiry's findings may satisfy few but, ultimately, a telling judgment will be the state of Iraq in a decade's time – and whether its citizens have a brighter future.