Professor Sands said he had low expectations of the Chilcott Inquiry. One reason for this was the almost complete lack of reference in the inquiry to any documents at all. The Dutch report published on January 12th had reached four conclusions: the decision for war was taken very early in 2002; the decision was not taken on the basis of credible intelligence; the decision was not taken by reference to legal considerations; finally, the decision was manifestly illegal. Asked by Jon Snow how he would approach questions to Tony Blair, Mr Sands said he would proceed chronologically in 4 parts:

First, and assuming he would have access to documentary evidence at the time, he would ask about the motivation for going to war in Iraq. He would take the former PM through the inconsistencies of his arguments: was it WMD, was it regime change, was it for humanitarian reasons and so on.

Secondly, he would want to question Mr Blair about the intelligence that was available to him in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Thirdly, there were the legal issues. Why, for instance, leave it so late to get legal advice? Specifically, what were the circumstances in which the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith was present at 10 Downing Street on the 13th March 2003, resulting immediately thereafter in the commissioning of a group of individuals to write a revised view made public four days later on March 17th?

Finally, he would put questions about the post invasion consequences. It appeared blindingly obvious there had been no serious post war planning. We know Tony Blair was given advice from his own Foreign Office about the potential civil strife that would follow an invasion. Did he read it? Why did he not bring it to the American President’s attention?

Philippe Sands did not think the Iraq Inquiry was sufficiently robust and independent to achieve the key aims of getting at the truth and helping to rebuild trust in Government -- Christopher Wyld