"PRESCOTT IRAQ INTELLIGENCE DOUBTS"

That was the curiously ambiguous headline that appeared in newspapers and things like the BBC website following Lord (Help Us) Prescott`s turn at the Chilcot Inquiry the other day. As ever with Prezza, things can be read in different ways. Did it, for example, suggest that there were doubts about Prescott`s intelligence concerning the issue of Iraq? Did it mean he had doubts about the intelligence of Iraq? But it seems the headline was meant to declare that Prescott, as Deputy Prime Minister, himself doubted the veracity and adequacy of the intelligence reports submitted to the Cabinet before the war on Iraq was declared.

If so, then it seems curious and somewhat inept for Prezza not to have expressed those doubts more forcibly than he did at the time, although we must remember that we were subject not to the will of Parliament or the considered and collective view of a united Cabinet but rather to the informality of a sofa government which, in anyone`s language, is no way to run a railroad. Prezza thought that the intelligence reports may have been little more than `tittle-tattle.` And this admittedly Prezza-esque assertion sits uncomfortably alongside a whole string of inadequacies laid before the Inquiry by a succession of witnesses including Army chiefs, the head of the Security Service at the time, the then head of the UN Weapons Inspectorate, leading ex-civil servants and others in high office.

Now I admit I might be biased in my view of this whole affair but, for the sake of the families who have suffered on all sides and for the reputation of the country, I hope those responsible for taking us into a war of dubious value and legality will eventually get their cummupance. Even though my breath is not being held on that score, I do hold out some hope that the Chilcot Inquiry will deliver a dispassionate, accurate and truthful account.

The signs are encouraging. The Inquiry has been conducted more openly than Gordon Brown ever thought it should and the questioning has, by and large, been incisive and relevant. Chilcot says he is still on track to deliver the Inquiry`s final report by Christmas. I hope it turns out to be the report which puts Hutton firmly in its place and provides a memorable Christmas present for those, like me, who felt utterly cheated by the way in which Blair, Bush and their cronies acted in our name. I suspect Mrs. Kelly might feel a little exoneration is due too.