LONDON: The default response of an opposition party is to call for a public inquiry, but we’ve finally reached a political crisis to which this remedy can’t easily apply. Calling for a public inquiry into Tony Blair’s failure to call a public inquiry into the July 7 bombings or CIA overflights would at least have the merit of reducing British politics to the Alice in Wonderland level towards which it has often seemed to be heading recently. But, unfortunately, it would be even more inherently doomed to failure than most political initiatives.

However, the paradox of opposition anger at Blair’s failure to appoint a judge or civil servant to peer over his spectacles at those in the know about terrorism and rendition is that, until now, the decision to submit a tricky political issue to outside judgment has been viewed as a cynical exercise in delay.

Failure to take this cynical action invites the cynical assumption that the government has something terrible to hide. It probably has; governments have things to hide like squirrels with nuts to bury. But there is a strong case for arguing that the lack of public inquiries into 7/7 and the US’s prisoner airways is not much of a political loss. The history of such investigations suggests that a grandee in half-moon glasses would struggle to uncover the truth and that any conclusion they produced would immediately be rejected by anyone who held a different opinion.

The Warren commission report into the murder of President Kennedy served a short-term purpose in restoring national equilibrium, but the vast report was clearly wrong about the real story. In the same way, the official 9/11 report, though highly praised at the time and even shortlisted for literary prizes, can now be seen to have missed vital detail about the protection agencies’ knowledge of the hijackers before the attacks.

The English shelf of the tribunal library also favours length over content. Scott on arms to Iraq is honourable and thorough but no villain is ever dragged centre-stage. Hutton on Kelly, the government and the BBC was ridiculed when, after vast expenditure of time and money, he reached a finding inconvenient to most of the media.

—Dawn/The Guardian News Service