Tony Blair is a very lucky man. Lord Hutton has completely acquitted him of the criticism that the September dossier was improperly influenced by political pressure — unless it was “subconsciously influenced” by the desire to please the Prime Minister on the part of John Scarlett and the Joint Intelligence Committee.

There was unsurprisingly jubilation in government quarters at Lord Hutton’s conclusions. But it will not be the final word on many of the big questions of how we got to war in Iraq. If we step back from the detail of Lord Hutton’s findings, we should ask whether it is right to treat one broadcast at 6.07am on the Today programme, after the conflict in Iraq was over, as of equal significance to a dossier that was made available to the public by the Government in order to make the case for war.

It seems to me — despite Lord Hutton’s careful findings — that it remains the case that the Gilligan story was basically true, reflected what David Kelly said to him, and that Andrew Gilligan is guilty of nothing more than sloppy wording when he said that the Government inserted the 45-minutes figure probably “knowing it to be wrong”. The problem with Lord Hutton’s findings is that the whole world now knows that the dossier was inaccurate. We know from evidence given to Lord Hutton himself that the 45-minutes claim was provided by one source who had reason to try to influence British thinking. We also know that the source claimed only that chemical weapons, only capable of being used on a battlefield within Iraq, might be made available within 45 minutes of an order to prepare them, and that the thinking of the intelligence agencies was that Saddam Hussein might use such weapons only if attacked.

We have only to look at the press reports the day after the dossier was published to understand the way in which the PR operation led by Alastair Campbell was exaggerating the threat to Britain from Iraq’s WMD.

In recent statements the Prime Minister has rested his case — that there were WMD — on the intelligence he received. But the truth is that the intelligence was exaggerated. The intelligence agencies thought that Iraq had chemical and biological programmes and probably some capacity to use some chemical weapons within Iraq. The continuing failure to find any WMD confirms that they were wrong in that assessment. But there is no doubt that the intelligence was exaggerated for political reasons. This issue is causing enormous controversy in the US and it has been repeatedly made clear by former security services staff in the US and Australia that the intelligence was exaggerated in order to make the case for war.

But behind all this, and the tragedy which befell Dr Kelly, lie the big questions on which the Hutton report does not comment. It is still clear that our Prime Minister committed himself to support a US war in Iraq before the summer of 2002. He therefore lost the leverage that Britain could have exercised to persuade the US that, since there was no imminent threat from Iraq, we should start with implementing the road map to Palestinian statehood. He should also have insisted that we should work through the UN and exhaust all possible means before resorting to war. This was the proud role Britain could have played — acting as a bridge between the US and Europe and helping to end the central cause of division and bitterness in the Middle East.

Instead it remains the case that the Prime Minister promised us that there would be war only if authorised by a second UN resolution. But he had also promised the US we would be with them. When the Security Council would not support war before Hans Blix had completed his work, he excused his failure to keep his promise on the second resolution by misleading us on the French position. In fact, President Chirac said he would veto any resolution at that time, but would support a resolution authorising war if Dr Blix’s efforts failed. Instead we were repeatedly told that the French had said they would veto any second resolution.

On top of all this, the Prime Minister promised a UN mandate for the reconstruction of Iraq. But when the US refused to allow the UN its proper role in bringing into being an interim Iraqi government, the Prime Minister gave in again and thus failed to legitimise and internationalise the reconstruction process.

Lord Hutton’s findings are important. But I fear he may have over-estimated the nobility of style of the No 10 operation under Mr Campbell’s tutelage. However, I have always taken the view that the central issue in relation to Dr Kelly was whether one considers it legitimate to have “outed” him. There are two views. The first is that Dr Kelly was misused and the power of the state abused to counter political embarrassment. But Lord Hutton took the other view, that Mr Gilligan’s insult was so great that it was legitimate to put Dr Kelly into the public domain. It follows therefore that his criticism on this issue would be confined to the lack of support provided to Dr Kelly during this process.

Lord Hutton does not deal with the big question of whether the Prime Minister was less that honest with his country on the road to war. I am afraid it remains my conclusion that through a series of deceits, half truths, and omissions, the Prime Minister got the UK into a war in support of America which has strengthened al-Qaeda, further destabilised the Middle East and increased the suffering of the people of Iraq.

I have no doubt that the Prime Minister thought he was doing the right thing and still thinks he did the right thing by going to war. The question remains whether it is acceptable for a Prime Minister to be economical with the truth when committing the country to war.

Clare Short was International Development Secretary from 1997 to 2003

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