At times the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in Iraq since 2001, which opened last week, resembled a gentlemen’s club moved to the sanitised surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster.

On Tuesday, Edward Chaplin, the Foreign Office Middle East director at the time of the invasion, and Sir Peter Ricketts, the top official in the Foreign Office, will appear. Ricketts, a former chairman of Britain’s powerful joint intelligence committee, has already given evidence to the inquiry alleging that officials in London knew even before Bush came to office in 2001 that there were “voices” in Washington calling for Saddam to be removed from power. Ricketts also told the inquiry that, until March 2002, Whitehall distanced itself from regime change. Only one month later, Blair told Bush that he would support military action “to bring about regime change”.

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