What is the Chilcot inquiry for? In the first four days none of its witnesses has said anything that was not already in the public domain. Not that you would have guessed from the high pitch and volume of media coverage. You probably have to be either a pro-Blair or an anti-war obsessive to recognise each piece of recycled information. But Sir Christopher Meyer, a former ambassador to Washington, happily if privately admitted after his session that he had said nothing that was not in his entertaining memoir, DC Confidential.
It seems surprising that Sir John and his colleagues had not identified the gaps in public knowledge, and called witnesses – or simply asked for papers – that they thought might be able to fill them. Perhaps they are coming to that bit. Perhaps this was just a bit of throat-clearing, a sort of "Previously, on Iraq War Conspiracy Theories...".
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