Gilligan was an arse and there were important errors committed by his bosses. However, the fact that Alastair Campbell didn’t come in for a severe bashing goes to show what a farce the whole enquiry has been.

As for what they were saying of Hutton in summer I will only remind you of what they were all saying about Greg Dike when he was appointed DG portraying him as more blairite than Blair himself… Even the most clued-up journalists get things wrong and foreign correspondents, who most of the time only reflect the prevalent opinion across media, are even more likely to get it wrong..

Since there is no evidence that British politicians invented or sponsored the invention of the WMD claim, the subsequent debate should focus on two questions. Firstly, with no WMDs in evidence, and given the fact that war aims always shift during operations (can you think of any project in which you have been involved that ended up achieving exactly what was set out in the original project plan?), whether we can look back on the war and say it was worth fighting. I think it was, both because of the change underway in Iraq and because of the way it has provided a catalyst for positive developments in other problematic states in the region. Secondly, whether intelligence gathering and processing needs improvement. I think it clearly does, and that as much as possible of that debate should be conducted in public.

Finally, there are lots of decent foreign correspondents, a few very good ones, and a few shameful disasters. Ramos is one of the latter.