The delay with the Chilcot report is misunderstood

Indeed, the general election is irrelevant. All the key political figures involved in the decisions have either moved on or are not standing again at the election. One of the first statements Ed Miliband made as Labour leader in 2010 was to repudiate the war. So it is hard to see what difference publication would make to voters’ choices. There are three main reasons for the delay. First, the remit for the inquiry — events from 2001 to 2009 — was too large by embracing the run-up, the war and the bloody aftermath, so covering political, diplomatic, intelligence and military aspects. No wonder, the drafts are said to be approaching a million words. That is an awful lot to digest and consider. Second, much of the material was secret and involved confidential exchanges between governments, notably with the US. It is easy to say that the war was so important that disclosure should come first. But governments cannot ignore current relationships with other countries. If the Blair-Bush conversations were published in full, would President Obama, his successor in 2017, or any other foreign leaders, be as candid with a British prime minister. The outcome is likely to be the disclosure of much more than the critics suspect, or more than many in Whitehall originally wanted, thanks to an agreement brokered by the often misunderstood Sir Jeremy Heywood. There will not be transcripts of the Blair-Bush exchanges but there will be gists and sufficient quotes to back up the inquiry’s conclusions. And full extracts of the minutes of the most critical ministerial meetings, and some international communications, will be published. These negotiations took too long, but that reflects the sensitivities. Third, it is the very robustness of the draft report and its criticisms — the opposite of the tameness originally claimed – that is the reason for the delay. Under long established procedures, those individuals criticised are currently being given the opportunity to respond to what is said about them in the draft report. This is natural justice. But since key passages run to hundreds of pages — and some of the draft was only sent out a few weeks before Christmas. This process takes time; weeks and months, not days. In retrospect, there are many ways in which the process no doubt could, and should, have been speeded up — and the delay has unquestionably undermined confidence in the inquiry. But there are also broader lessons about the nature of public inquiries, as was discussed at an Institute event in the spring of 2013. The key is precision in remit and working. Inquiries need to have tight terms of reference and been given a clearly defined brief, otherwise there is a risk they become sprawling exercises which satisfy no one and disappoint many. The Chilcot inquiry was asked to examine too much, a risk for the prospective investigation into child sexual abuse.