It was the turn of British ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer to face the timid questions of Sir Chilcot and co. yesterday. Unfortunately, for all-seeing eye Chilcot, Meyer “mislaid” at least four important documents en route to London. Nevertheless, he did manage to drop a verbal bomb in announcing that the inspection process of Iraq’s status regarding WMDs was doomed from the start: “we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun, saying “it’s not that Saddam has to prove that he’s innocent, we’ve now bloody well got to try and prove that he’s guilty”.” Right, even back in 2003 when this investigation might’ve achieved something CIA analyst Ray McGovern admitted the invasion of Iraq was “95 per cent charade.” But then Meyer has a Kelly-esque penchant for woods, so it’s probably best to keep this fifth inquiry as farcical as the rest.

What was the invasion of Iraq if not a ramification of power and manifest destiny executed with the expertly channelled anger of a pissed off Born Again?

As a nation, we’ve accepted, or at least not protested loud enough against, the idea there are some legitimate casus belli, but as laid out during the Nuremberg trials aggression is not one of them. What was the invasion of Iraq if not a ramification of power and manifest destiny executed with the expertly channelled anger of a pissed off Born Again? But Britain and America remain fused in a perpetual game of conkers with America staging “interventions” in over 70 countries since WWII and Britain staying complicit whilst neither offers sufficient aid in the aftermath. Why, when the world is so interconnected that the credit crunch can stop the education of a child in Vanuatu, do we assume that it’s acceptable to continue our appropriation of goods in these countries but as soon as things turn bloody, like Rwanda, we ignore all the socio-political consequences of our exploitation?

Now we’re attempting to redeem ourselves, tentatively owning up to some of the grim truths hidden over the last decade and maybe Blair will even get a slap on the wrist come 2011 when this whitewash of an inquiry is over. But where is Bush in all this? And where’s the aid for Iraqi families we’ve lacerated? A name too conveniently phrased to resist springs to mind: Lynndie England. I like to think of her actions in Abu Ghraib as symbolic of the merge between the two power states and the damage their combined strength can inflict on humanity. She got 36 months. Perhaps the question is: what can this inquiry really achieve? If it’s anything less than rebuilding the homes we’ve damaged, compensating for all lives we’ve ruined and withdrawal from the imperialistic regime of the West, then there’s not a lot of point.