To start with, Butler was carefully handpicked to investigate Britain's pre-war intelligence on Iraq's WMDs. He is a man who has spent his entire career attempting to smooth the business of government, not disrupt it.

What was at stake then, and now, is the country's reputation as an advanced European nation that rarely errs. Since the despicable action by the Tory government of Anthony Eden in 1956 against Egypt, Britain struggled foot-and-nail to re-establish itself in the world as a prosperous and peace-loving nation.

Apart from a short-lived, muscle-flaunting exercise by Margaret Thatcher's government in the South Pole at the height of the Cold War, Britain was seen as a well-intentioned power for the good of the world stability, development and peace.

But this image was turned upside down when Blair took the decision to side with a half-mature American president and his neo-conservative-led administration, and go to war on false information and wrong intelligence.

Despite his clearance by the Butler report, and before that the Hutton enquiry, Blair will go down in history not as a great reformer but as a warmonger who believed in achieving greatness by being in the shadow of a superpower.

Upon taking office in 1997, Blair aspired to become "a Thatcher", but after his Iraq adventure the best he can look to be remembered as is an "Eden". Blair has lost a unique opportunity to further Britain's standing as a leading nation in Europe and in the world. In the process, he also lost some talented individuals, like cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clair Short.

When Butler was spotted for the job, he realised that by damning Blair he would damage the establishment even further. To him, clearing the prime minister from any wrongdoing was a way of salvaging the nation and its various institutions, particularly the intelligence service apparatus.

During 37 years in public administration, Butler rose to become perhaps the ultimate establishment insider, eventually serving as head of civil service under three different prime ministers - Thatcher, John Major and Blair.

In fact, when he was appointed to lead the inquiry in February, he was dismissed by some critics as being too much of an establishment figure.

Educated at Harrow School, a favourite of the rich and well-connected, and then Oxford University, Butler joined the Treasury as a junior civil servant in 1961. Rising steadily through the ranks, he became Cabinet Secretary - head of the entire domestic civil service - in 1988, a post he kept until retirement a decade later.

Butler has in the past looked into similar matters but failed to satisfy. His judgement was called into question during the 1990s when he was investigating a pair of former Tory MPs, Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken, who were accused of corrupt practices.

Butler found little wrong with their conduct - only to be publicly proved very wrong when Hamilton resigned from the government for accepting money from Harrod's owner, Mohammad Al Fayed, for asking questions in parliament, while Aitken was jailed for perjury. After his retirement, the grey-haired Butler was made a peer and became head of one of Oxford University's colleges.

Surprise choice

Despite his pedigree, Butler was a surprise choice for the investigation. "Many expected him to side with the government," Paul Kelly, a lecturer in politics at the respectable London School of Economics, said.

When he was called by Tony Blair to offer him the job, Kelly said: "He is definitely an establishment figure but he's very sensible and cautious ... (and) will be aware of the longer-term reputation of government."

Indeed, this is what Butler did: Government/Establishment first. In his report, Butler was very lenient while dealing with the misleading intelligence that was provided before the war. Britain's spy services emerged less bloodied and battered than their American counterparts.

Compared to a devastating indictment of United States intelligence by a Senate Commission two weeks ago, the conclusions of Butler report last week into British intelligence information gathering and dissemination were relatively restrained.

In examining what went wrong, Butler highlighted crucial mistakes, including the claim that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain could deploy WMDs at 45 minutes' notice. In his report, Butler apportioned no blame for the quality of the intelligence and the way it was used.

By contrast, the Senate panel placed the blame squarely on the US intelligence, citing a "combination of systemic weaknesses, primarily in analytical trade craft, compounded by a lack of information sharing, poor management and inadequate intelligence collection".

While CIA Chief George Tenet stepped down weeks before the US report, the Butler-led British inquiry voiced support for the appointment of John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as a new chief of MI6, the agency responsible for intelligence gathering.

This could explain why Butler, and before him Hutton, let Blair of the hook. Nevertheless, the Butler report confirms that the prime minister's attack against the BBC for revealing the cover up of the 45-minute threat is totally unjustified.

The BBC was right and one hopes that Butler's findings would restrain Blair's government from committing a historic mistake by changing the BBC's structure.

Mustafa Arif is a former president, Foreign Press Association in London. He can be contacted at maref@gulfnews.com

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