When the Butler enquiry into the "intelligence" that was used to justify the Iraq was set up, I described it as another pointless enquiry and said that it would not produce the answers we were looking for. I said: "It is designed so that, once again, it can't or won't blame the government." I hate to say, "I told you so", but I did.

The Butler enquiry has come to the conclusion that although the "intelligence" was "seriously flawed" and that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", no one was to blame. That's right, no one. Yes, the dossier Blair used to justify going to war had had the caveats removed, but no one was to blame for that. Yes, the sources of intelligence were unreliable and unchecked, that reliable sources expressing reservations were ignored, but no one was to blame for that.

All of this comes as no surprise at all. The committee was very carefully selected. Lord Butler, who chaired it, was a former Cabinet Secretary, a very senior civil servant who had served Tony Blair. Civil servants always fudge things. They never come out with anything in a forthright, straightforward manner. That's not their job. And Butler really was the insiders' insider. Also on his committee were two members of parliament, one Labour, one Conservative. Both parties had unequivocally supported the war. Then there was another former civil servant, this time one who had worked in the intelligence services. Finally, a retired Field Marshall, Lord Inge. So, here is your independent inquiry team in full:

Right Honourable Sir John Chilcot GCB
Right Honourable Ann Taylor MP
Lord Butler of Brockwell KG GCB CVO (Chair)
Right Honourable Michael Mates MP
Lord Inge KG GCB DL

Like the Hutton report before it, this was designed to be a whitewash and it has been. Tony Blair hopes, as he did with the last report, that this will restore his "integrity" and stop people asking questions about the Iraq war. It won't. We, in Britain, went to war in Iraq on the sole premise that it had weapons of mass destruction that threatened us. It didn't. No matter how many insider reports are commissioned, the buck has to stop somewhere because an awful lot of people have died.