sl said: Blair had to make a decision, the rest of us don't face these sort of decisions for which we should be grateful .

But that's not quite what happened. Instead of taking a decision, as he could have done (but no future PM would be able to do), he secured cabinet backing and then put the question of war to parliament. To ensure cabinet support he withheld pertinent information, not least the non-war options. Regrettably the cabinet dummies (with the honourable exception of a former foreign secretary, Robin Cook) didn't raise a murmur. And the incompetents who comprise the Chilcot team (I mean that in the kindest possible way; they are simply not qualified for the task) didn't think the point worth raising.

Parliament supported the war simply and entirely because it was misled, as is now widely acknowledged by MPs across all the main political parties.

In his evidence this afternoon Blair put a straightforwardly wrong meaning on UNSCR 1441. No-one on the inquiry team picked up on that, suggesting that none of them bothered having the text to hand. But beyond semantic arguments about the text, there is another fatal flaw in Blair's reliance on 1441, which is this: in order to discourage any risk of a veto, both the UK and the USA in presenting their text to the security council, stated explicitly that it was NOT intended as a war ultimatum.

Specifically US ambassador John Negroponte said: ...this resolution contains no "hidden triggers" and no "automaticity" with respect to the use of force. And for the UK, Jeremy Greenstock said: If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. France in particular had objected to any hint that 1441 was a war ultimatum, and Syria stated that it supported the resolution only on the strength of UK and USA assurances that it was no such thing.

Again Chilcot & Co completely ignored this point.

There is some cause for hope now, however, that some of these issues will be kept in mind when the inquiry report is being drafted. (They also have the option to recall witnesses including Blair, and have already said that Jack Straw will be brought back for further questioning.) It was clear from some of the questioning today, particularly from the two Jewish members ironically (ironic because there was media speculation in advance that they would be biased towards the pro-Israel Blair), that the panel were not impressed by Blair's arguments, notwithstanding the undeniably capable way he marshalled them.

He may well have cause to reflect in due course that his biggest mistake today was his refusal to express a single regret, despite being pressed twice on the point. He could hardly have made it more plain that far from being a last resort, war had been his preferred option all along.