Iraqis dismiss it as “aimless soul-searching”. Macaulay might have called it another of those “periodic fits of morality” that the public find so ridiculous. Yet, the lacklustre Gordon Brown’s courageous promise that “no British documents and no British witnesses will be beyond (the) scope of the inquiry” into the Iraq war that opened in London on Tuesday will deserve even higher praise if it is carried to its logical conclusion to establish responsibility for what the Daily Mail called “the illegal toppling of Saddam”. The Mail might have added “and murder” to toppling.

An ethical conclusion in London can set a precedent for Washington where the bigger guilt lies. Unfortunately, Brown’s own responsibility will probably end before Sir John Chilcot, a career diplomat, and his four colleagues present their report. But the terms of reference strike at the secrecy that customarily shrouds governance and which we take for granted in India. It’s all right producing a report on Kargil that is reckoned a triumph, but the quality of democracy would have improved immeasurably if five independent investigators had similarly been allowed access to documents and witnesses after the 1962 debacle. It might have helped to exorcize the ghost of Neville Maxwell’s slur on Jawaharlal Nehru’s forward policy and also given us a better understanding of what China is upto today.

Britain did not suffer similar ignominy in Iraq but revelations about the how and why of the invasion could be more demoralizing in the long term than physical setback. It is bad enough for the prime minister of the time, now living on his sparkle and making money hand over fist as he nurses global ambitions, to be shown up as a dedicated liar. Though Tony Blair told parliament that he received “detailed, extensive and authoritative” intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, the intelligence community had actually told him their information was “limited, sporadic and patchy”. By pandering to George W. Bush’s paranoia, Blair betrayed the sense of history that impelled Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister, to speak of Britain’s “status in the world based on the righteousness of its actions”. He turned the old joke about Britain being the 51st state of the United States of America into reality without demanding any of the assurances and guarantees that even Margaret Thatcher would have done.

Much of this was already known. Six years of fighting and insurgency in Iraq, two British parliamentary inquiries, Lord Hutton’s investigation into the death of the scientist, David Kelly, Lord Butler’s into the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion, and relentless media campaigning left few stones unturned. The titled high mandarins testifying before Chilcot are only crossing t’s and dotting i’s. What still remains obscure, however, is why Blair swallowed hook, line and sinker the Bush fantasy that invading Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein was essential for the peace and tranquillity of the Western world, and how he sold this to his party, parliament and the press. Robin Cook, the foreign secretary who ruffled South Block’s feathers, bravely refused to be taken in and made a spirited speech denouncing the war. Clare Short, too, quit the government in protest. But no one else, not even Brown, dared even squeak. Labour politicians feared losing their jobs; Tories are always game for teaching uppity natives a lesson.

Yet, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia confirmed on the first day of the inquiry that the invasion had nothing to do with Iraq’s supposed nuclear arsenal. Bush hankered to oust Saddam from the moment he was elected in November 2001 even before he discovered a justification in the aim “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people”. Condoleezza Rice warned that “nothing will change” in Iraq until Saddam was gone. Others proposed arming the Iraqi opposition. According to a former chairman of Britain’s joint intelligence committee, the US was “scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda”. It sounded “like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam”. The “drumbeat” of war became stronger as the Pentagon emerged as the dominant force.

This is the most sinister aspect of the crisis. History was changed, a country destroyed, cities devastated, thousands of people killed and millions others plunged into suffering (including Iraqis who were tortured and murdered in detention centres like Abu Ghraib) because no one could check an obsessive megalomaniac. Bush may be India’s friend, but Nero lives in everlasting infamy for less. Chilcot’s inquiry is not, however, concerned with Bush’s criminal hallucinations; it focuses on Britain’s role. Even then, its remit is limited. Chilcot’s is “not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry”. He cannot determine guilt or innocence. Only a court can do that: “No one is on trial”.

A marked difference from our Shah Commission, which had no doubts about guilt before proceedings even began. Chilcot’s warning that members of the public would be thrown out if they disrupt the proceedings is another point of departure. Members of the public at the Shah Commission were welcome to be as disruptive as they liked, providing it was on the right side. J.C. Shah himself dissolved in mirth when a government witness mocked a minor Emergency loyalist called Tamta as “Tamater”!

But this inquiry also suffers from serious drawbacks. Though Brown was forced to concede public hearings instead of the private proceedings he preferred, his government will censor the final report. No member has military experience, proven inquisitorial skills or electoral credentials. One of the panel’s two historians once burbled that Bush and Blair could “join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill”. The other provided the five tests for military intervention that Blair cited to back his action. As a former private secretary to John Major, the third member is as much a member of the establishment as Baroness Usha Prashar, who chairs the Judicial Appointments Commission. Perhaps it’s to live down this charge that Chilcot is urging ordinary members of the public to give evidence and wants relatives of soldiers who were killed in Iraq to ask questions.

So far so good. But will the inquiry get to the heart of the matter? It’s known that the British foreign office, too, contemplated “regime change” but abandoned the “option” as illegal. Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, did not think regime change “a legal basis for military action.” Foreign office pundits regarded the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan greater threats to the peace: Iraq could be contained through sanctions. At least sanctions were imposed by the United Nations; the “no flying zones” that Britain and the US forced on northern and southern Iraq enjoyed no legality save waffle about common law authorizing governments to act in their discretion to avert humanitarian catastrophes. This was victor’s injustice even before victory.

Like Bush, Blair didn’t talk of regime change to start with. “Our purpose is to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,” he said. MI6 did not think there were any to disarm. Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector, told Blair so to his face. But witnesses confirmed that Blair assured Bush during their tête-à-tête at the latter’s Crawford ranch in April 2002 — nearly a year before the invasion — that Britain would support military action “to bring about regime change”. Books, papers, leaks and reports show how documents were crafted, evidence fabricated and words twisted. Brown’s assurance about Chilcot’s mandate means that both he and Blair can be called upon to testify. That commitment must be kept if this inquiry is to sustain respect. War crimes are not for Radovan Karadzic alone. Impeachment did not end with Robert Clive. The burden of the future bears down on Chilcot as he steers a careful path between whitewash and witch-hunt. Washington is watching.