Once a control freak, always a control freak

It seems that far from entertaining himself in the cosseted world of JP Morgan or engaging with the everyday humiliations that pass for life in the Palestinian territories, our former prime minister has made an extraordinary rendition: not one that will take him to Guantanamo Bay or a CIA 'hole' in Romania or Afghanistan, but rather a rendition of being a prime minister in power.
Gordon Brown throws his backbenchers the bone of an inquiry into the Iraq war but insists it will be conducted solely in private, partly to get frank advice, but mainly to keep down its costs by avoiding the hiring of lawyers. The Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday, with cost topping £100m, is regularly cited (but that was never an investigation to get to the truth, more a prevaricating committee instigated as a condition of the Good Friday peace process, that would meander on and on as Northern Ireland slowly healed).
Now Brown has been forced to back down and might even be defeated in the Commons over a motion to hold everything in public and udner subpoena 'whenever possible'. This could all have been avoided, but a certain Mr A. Blair who claims almost £7,000 of decoration work for his constituency home two days before leaving Number 10, demanded that the Iraq inquiry should be in off-limits to the public. There would not be a show trial'. Gordon has no loyalty to Tony anymore, but Peter, as First Secretary of State and the power behind the throne, made it so. Totally private, no subpoena.
In a way, Tony Blair is right. We all know that the decision to go to war was based on mendacity and lies and motivated not by a desire to disarm Saddam Hussein or even help the Iraqi people (as exemplified by the pitiful post-invasion plans), but rather to secure a geo-strategic position in a crucial world arena, get their hands on oil (as testified to by Alan Greenspan, Rupert Murdoch and Alexander Downing, the Australian foreign minister of the time) and juicy post-invasion reconstruction no-bid contracts for firms they sat on the boards of and implement a woolly notion of some kind of democratic domino theory (definitely low on the list as demonstrated by the lack of follow-through, especially when Hamas won elections in Palestine). This inquiry is blood-letting of a sort and will not alter the facts on the ground. There are up to a million dead Iraqis on methodology used by the government for conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Let's not forget how Sir Mike Jackson, former top soldier, put it regarding the inquiry - "179 reasons for holding it in public." Yes, 179 British service personnel have indeed died - being from the West we at least have accurate figures for them.
But this is no show trial where Blair will be forced to recant before being summarily garrotted, his body cremated and his ashes used as tarmac for new roads (vis a 1948 Czech show trial). He would just be asked did he mislead the British people on the reasons for going to war and when he dissembles, will be asked more detailed questions. Blair, with his vigorous religious convictions, would never dare perjure himself. Hence the lack of a subpoena.
So, in effect, Brown has taken a lot of flak because he is beholden to Lord Mandelson for sticking by him (Mandelson is in the sublime position of not having to worry about being elected again, making his support invaluable) and through the old chums network, Blair extends his control freak tendency once more. Friends of Blair will be sniggering at this. They always felt that Brown never gave enough backing to Blair over the invasion of Iraq (the idea of a moral conscience finding a war of aggression repugnant and therefore being less forthcoming in backing it, probably never crossed their little minds). The feel if Brown had been more supportive then Blair could have won a fourth general election and then let a Blairite protege leapfrog Brown into being prime minister. The true Machiavellian nature of Blairism is thus exposed and makes Brown's actions somewhat justifiable. The hollow heart of 'The Project' has eviscerated the Labour grassroots, emasculated the civil and public services and led gaily by its own hubris into the most catastrophic war for the West since Vietnam. The reckoning will come at the general election next year. The only trouble is that will leave the Tories with as large a majority as Blair got in 1997 and 2001. Power tends to corrupt and Blair had, until Iraq, pretty much untrammelled power over his party (despite occasional Brownite griping).
The Iraq inquiry should be open 'whenever possible' and under subpoena. Otherwise the country will never truly have closure.