It seems that your glass is half empty, Hangarshuffle, while mine is half full. I don't dispute at all your take on this country, the war, or the inquiry chairman, but we don't live in a steady state society and it is the direction that we are going in that counts.
I doubt if such an Inquiry would have been set up in my time, and if it had been would it have been pure whitewash. The trouble that Chilcot has is that such a whitewash is no longer acceptable. Of course, we won't get the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but we will at least get some of it (a great deal of it perhaps).
Without wishing to drift this thread too much or climb onto a soapbox, much the same happened with Hatton-Cave and Lord Philips. Neither of them pleased all of the people all of the time, indeed I consider both of them to have failed in their duty, but their reports are a step in the right direction. The VSO's that issued illegal RTS's, hounded and condemned juniors who would either not comply or who were picked out as scapegoats, or those who tried to cover up such actions, never suspected that they would be challenged and their decisions reversed.
There is much that is rotten in this State, but at least we are now prepared to done gas masks and poke around into its murky depths. Perhaps Chilcot should have been more aggressive in his investigation, but at least he has investigated and hopefully will have something to say that will make the interminable wait by the loved ones of those who died worthwhile. We shall see...