Butler report

The report, however, concludes that mistakes were made but nobody is to blame -- a 'very British' conclu-sion, as someone commented soon after it was re-leased.

The Butler report comes on the heels of the US Sen-ate Intelligence Committee report on the same issue. A common strand that runs through the two reports is the velvet-glove approach taken to the conduct of the re-spective governments, while putting the blame for the failure squarely on the intelligence agencies. Blair has even been given a clean chit. While the Bush admini-stration has 'given the dog a dirty name and hanged him', the British are promoting the man responsible for the 'dossier,' John Scarlett, to head the MI-6.

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Perhaps in the US election year, when the ratings of both Mr. Blair and President Bush have declined, a re-demption, through the pronouncements of these committees, limited in scope though it might be, could help these two gentlemen to retrieve some lost ground.

Although Mr. Blair has taken personal responsibility for any mistakes made in good faith in the run-up to war, he has justified using British troops against Sad-dam Hussein in the same breath. Surely Mr. Blair can-not have missed the fact his actions 'on good faith' have cost the lives of at least ten thousand Iraqis, according to official reports, which numbers many more by unof-ficial accounts.

We fail to see Mr.Blair's logic in his continued defiant assertion and insistence that going to war against Iraq was right. We find his logic rather convoluted. If one accepts that the intelligence based on which the war was resorted to, to be flawed, how can the action that stems from that very flawed assessment be right?

Inquiry committees should be used to get at the bottom of the truth, not to salvage governments from their mistakes, whether deliberate or in 'good faith.' Failing to do this will result in loss of credibility of gov-ernments.