Lack of Intelligence

Sir David Omand testified at the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday and what should have been a good day for our Intelligence Services descended into farce.

Like something out of a John Le Carre plot, Omand described the construction of the infamous Iraq dossier that was 'sold' to the public as the reason why invading Iraq was legitimate and fitted with UN Resolution 1441, was just a series of colourful assertions.

The grim hope that all of us will now be convinced that Tony Blair and his Ministers were absolutely convinced that WMDs existed with deadly and immediate capability along with vast chemical warfare factories, seems to be evaporating. The picture that is emerging is that each person called before the enquiry is carefully covering their tracks and trying to detract us from the real chain of events. There is a systematic plan to park the Iraq dossier as just a bit of Joint Intelligence doodling and that no one really believed that a) it would be taken so seriously, b) it would presented as the reason why war was required and c) that the Prime Minister's preface would be taken as gospel. There is also the aura being created that the Weapons Inspector Team was some kind of clown act being teased by Iraq like a pantomime scene, 'He's behind you' and when they look there is no one there.

It's all very quaint and relaxed - Alistair Campbell was polished and as credible as ever. The chilling undertone is that these people created a myth and caused a war that has destroyed lives and cost fortunes. Yet they make it sound as though it was all a bit of fun and that really Saddam Hussein was bad so we should not get hung up about the dossier or the war. Right won in the end.

Well, there is a serious outcome of trivialising all this. The question now must be asked, if the dossier, Al Qaeda connections, The Axis of Evil and the WMDs were all a myth, just how much should we all believe about Iraq at all?

I can feel another enquiry coming on that will prove nothing and condemn no one. So how many lives have to be lost before anyone cares why we started a war that has stirred up Islamic extremism that will last for generations?

The answer is plain to be seen. It doesn't matter when us Christians and Westerners cause it - because we are the 'good guys'.