What We Know Now

This chapter discusses the information provided by the Hutton Report and the Butler Report concerning the bases of the British government's decision to join the U.S. in overturning Saddam Hussein for his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It suggests that nothing revealed in the reports could bring an agreement to whether British Prime Minister Tony Blair was right in his decision, but those who have read the reports could surely conclude that the government, the intelligence services, and the BBC fell short of what have been expected of them at a time when Britain was on the brink of being taken into a war. It discusses the similarities between the Iraq War and the Suez Canal conflict.

Lessons for Governmental Process

This chapter examines the governmental process lessons that can be learned from the Hutton and Butler Reports. Though the Hutton and Butler inquiries were directly concerned with aspects of the Iraq saga, they had interest and significance reaching beyond the Iraq issue. This chapter explains that the inquiries prompted questions about the place of such investigations in British constitutional practice and that the unfettered access to information given to the investigators yielded an extraordinarily close and revealing portrait of how contemporary government at the centre of the British system has been functioning.

Accuracy, Independence, and Trust

This chapter examines the issues of accuracy and trust involved in the Hutton Report. It explains that Lord Hutton's interpretation of the events surrounding the death of David Kelly led him to focus on a range of accusations and counter-accusations. The British government and the BBC had accused one another of inaccuracy and of making partly untruthful claims. This chapter suggests that though many of the documents disclosed in the Hutton Report rely on procedures that help secure accuracy, some of the people quoted in the report made claims that turned out to be inaccurate and they also dispensed with procedures that are important for securing accuracy.

The Lightning Flash on the Road to Baghdad: Issues of Evidence

This chapter examines the positive legislative and governmental impacts of the Hutton and Butler Reports. It describes how Lord Hutton worked by assessing the evidence in terms of charges made and how Robin Butler and his colleagues worked like contemporary historians by reconstructing reality from documents and oral evidence. It suggests that the Hutton and Button Reports could lead to a significant and enduring shift in the balance of power between the Executive and the Legislature.

The Hutton Inquiry: Some Wider Legal Aspects

This chapter examines the legal aspects of the Hutton Inquiry. It suggests that the Hutton Report is not of great legal significance and that though it was criticizes it was not extreme example of the danger or risks of involving judges in political controversy. The chapter contends that the controversy surrounding the Hutton Report has less to do with the law relating to freedom of information than to the culture of secrecy that has now been more extensively canvassed by the Phillis Report.