Amid the calls for Tony Blair’s head, will we learn any lessons from the Chilcot report?

The Chilcot Commission was, it is worth recalling, Gordon Brown’s version of the EU referendum. Back in June 2009, the skeletal claw of the Iraq War clung grimly to Labour’s ankle: the party could not rid itself of internal recrimination, accusation and counter-accusation, engrained division and lingering bile.

It could not move on. It needed a way out. So, under the faux-statesmanlike cover of producing a marker for history, Mr Brown announced an independent inquiry into the conflict – just as David Cameron has landed us with a national poll on Britain’s EU membership, ostensibly to give the country an overdue say but in reality to tackle his own party’s monomaniacal obsession with Brussels.

It’s healthy and British to view both men’s motives with cynicism – Mr Brown, that strange human cocktail of indecision and rage, was desperate to distance himself from his hated predecessor and, of course, to boot an awkward issue into the long grass ahead of the 2010 election.

Mr Cameron, having failed to win an overall majority in that same election and pressured by the rise of Ukip, perhaps for the duration of his premiership felt unable to resist the impassioned demands of his eurosceptic backbenchers and party members that they finally get their chance to deliver Britain’s own Independence Day.

But while the eternal politician’s art of saving one’s own skin was certainly at play, it’s also reasonable to agree that, just as Britain deserved a forensic investigation into a complex and controversial military adventure in which the outcome did not match the initial aim, the country likewise deserves a vote on its longstanding membership of a complex and controversial supranational institution where the outcome has not matched the initial aim.

Arguments

We will know the result of the latter on June 23 and the former shortly afterwards, on July 6 – the order of scheduling is, of course, entirely intentional. But will either settle the respective arguments?

The EU debate seems only to have inflamed tempers and dramatically tribalised the issue. As with the Scottish independence referendum, a Leave vote will be a once-and-for-all verdict, while a Remain vote will be seen by its opponents merely as victory delayed (this, by the way, is a compelling argument against referendums – they exacerbate existing enmities and decide nothing).

We might expect the publication of Chilcot to occupy different territory: that it will carry with it the satisfying weight of finality. The Commission took evidence over years from prime ministers, cabinet members, civil servants, intelligence officials, diplomats and military top brass.

The report itself runs to a few million words and is said when piled up to stand taller than the average British male. It will have been seven years in the making (lasting almost as long as the war itself), a period during which one commissioner has died and another retired. Although the Commission faces some limitations on July 6, such as only being allowed to publish the ‘gist’ or at best redacted versions of conversations between Tony Blair and George Bush in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, they are relatively few.

It seems one-eyed to argue that the report will not be as close to exhaustive and definitive as we will ever see or might reasonably expect. It will also, surely, be supremely daft to dismiss it on the day either as an establishment whitewash or to claim it represents a savage attack on Mr Blair. It will be neither of those things. That is not its purpose.

Rather, it will be a carefully pieced together, forensic narrative of how Britain went to war and why, as told by all the main players involved.

Memos, advice notes, intelligence briefings, emails and foreign communiques have been scoured. Judgements by those who were empowered to make them have been measured against the information they used to do so. Key participants have been challenged. Were the right questions asked? Were the responses rigorously probed and tested? Could a different path have been followed on this or that occasion? had it been, would it have made any difference to the outcome?

Then, the harder calls. how much weight can be attached to the unknowable? When is it right and fair to criticise? After all, the Commission’s task is not to demonise individuals who found themselves faced with horrendously difficult choices, but to discover what went on and draw conclusions that may help future governments perform better.

I’m sure the report will make some sharp points and leave some bruises. One of the reasons publication has been delayed has been for the ‘Maxwellisation process’ to take place, where those who will be criticised in the final draft are shown that criticism in advance and invited to respond.

I haven’t spoken to anyone on either side of the Iraq debate who expects Tony Blair to have avoided this fate, or similarly the spy chiefs whose intelligence on weapons of mass destruction played such an important role in taking Britain into the conflict and which later turned out to have been heavily flawed.

But let’s be honest: it’s unlikely Chilcot will change many, if any, minds on Iraq. We will see a perfect example of confirmation bias. Those who were against the war will remain so and home in on the bits that back their case.

Those who are still convinced that, despite the messy aftermath, it was worth removing Saddam hussein will doubtless find succour in the relevant passages. The newspapers and the columnists will foam and rant, according to their pre-adopted positions. Twitter will go bananas. Mr Blair, whose lavish post-prime ministerial lifestyle has attracted staggering levels of vitriol, will provide his usual easy target.

As someone who at the time supported and wrote in favour of the invasion, I continue to wrestle with my conscience all these years on. There’s no point in pretending that the war went to plan, although, as Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. There’s surely very little new to say about the terrible post-war chaos other than to fill in some detail.

Rigorous

The dogs in the street know that not enough preparation for the aftermath was done in advance – but then the American neo-conservatives who engineered the war had little interest in reconstruction.

Yes, Mr Blair should have pushed George Bush harder on this aspect, as Margaret Thatcher, with her rigorous eye for detail, might have done – but equally, would she have been as insistent on pursuing UN authority, the lack of which still leads opportunists such as Alex Salmond to demand Mr Blair faces war crimes charges?

Mr Blair could have pulled Britain back on a number of occasions and refused to join the invasion, but the US would have cracked on anyway, with potentially grave consequences for the special relationship and for the broader international compact. Where do right and wrong really lie?

I think I still can’t be sorry Saddam’s in his grave. In 2003, we had the prime minister we had, with his strengths and flaws, doing what he thought was right – indeed, we elected him again in 2005, with another big majority.

We might have had a different PM, with different strengths and flaws, making different mistakes, but we didn’t. hell, we might have had a different president, had Florida’s hanging chads not played so vital a part in the 2000 US election. Who’s to say what that would have meant?

We can chase our tails on all of this for ever. But for all the murky political calculations that led to the Chilcot Commission’s creation, the most important lesson lies in its inherent nobility. It tells you that we in Britain are our own toughest and most rigorous critics; that we hold ourselves accountable for the outcome of our actions and try to learn, so that next time, if we fail, we fail better.

That we care – and that we understand this – is both the price and the strength of our freedom.