Justice for all.

Listening to Sir John Chilcot present himself to the heads of the various parliamentary committees regarding his long drawn out Iraq report in which Tony Blair was taken to task for not only taking the country to war without the blessing of the security service charged with discovering the existence of Saddam Hussain's chemical and biological capacity, or the Attorney Generals lack of legal opinion to rule out the Prime Ministers decision to go to war without proper parliamentary scrutiny. 

One is struck by the high diplomatic intellect that Chilcot displays as he balances his words with a seemingly fair disposal of the raw blame when it is the modern politicians natural process,  "to criticise and crucify". Measured language instead of the use of vitriol, an attempt to find a reason for an action instead of a demand for blood.

Was regime change such a bad thing, "questionable",  what was woefully negligent was the refusal to weigh up the consequences,  of ignoring the potential turmoil amongst  the dissident groups which make up Iraq, mostly religious, to co-exist without strong government. Tipping Shia against Sunni, a conflict centuries old has led to the dismemberment of the Middle East. Conflict of almost inhuman debasement, where the image of the opposition is so distorted it rules out any sort of compromise.
Chilcot is one of those civil servants who have practiced the art of compromise all their lives and it is a revelation to listen to the measured tones one is almost hypnotised by the sheer plausibility of an analysis in which no fish are actually caught and those brought under scrutiny are let off with a warning and are safe home in bed before we wake up to what has happened.
The investigation, if that is what he undertook was wrapped around with so many caveats that no one was compromised or given much of a verbal roughing up. It's not the way we do it when our own are concerned. Like the Eton Wall Game the origins of what these lads are up to is mired in tradition and tradition is maintained at all costs. The law is for those lower down the ranks and even if we pride our self that in theory "no one is above the law" we know that in our heart of hearts that is a fallacy.
It was a good little earner for Mr Chilcot and his merry band, whilst it lasted (7 years)  and one would wish that the British solders now pursued by the relatives of the IRA or the representatives of the terrorist organisations fighting in the Middle East would get such a sympathetic hearing.