The most revealing thing was how little he understood about the situation on the ground.

• Wilmshurst: An ovation for witness of principle
• Blair: Denounced as liar and murderer
• John Rentoul: Another act in the Leader’s Tragedy
• Leading article: The truth on trial

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Leading article: The truth on trial

As much as with Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands, Britain’s role in the Iraq conflict has been personally identified with Tony Blair. He often referred to it as “my decision”, and did so again in his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on Friday. Yet one of the important themes emerging from the inquiry is the extent to which the Iraq war was a collective enterprise.

This newspaper, which opposed the war more strenuously and consistently than any other, has always tried to avoid the simple view of the decision-making process as that of an over-mighty prime minister riding roughshod over a supine Cabinet and a feeble House of Commons. Mr Blair was the principal architect of British policy – even if the original mover of the invasion was George Bush – but he was not an absolute monarch.

It ought to be one of the functions of the Iraq inquiry report, which Sir John Chilcot said on Friday that he hopes to publish at the end of this year, to name the other guilty parties. Sir John did say at the outset that his committee “cannot determine guilt or innocence”, but he went on to say: “We will not shy away from making criticisms where they are warranted.”

The inquiry has heard more than enough evidence to know that criticisms are warranted. In particular, the new information about the way in which the legal case for war was constructed has vindicated the stance taken by The Independent on Sunday from the start.

This was not Mr Blair’s responsibility alone. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary; John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee; Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6; Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell, at No 10; they all played their part. But Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, and Lord Goldsmith, Attorney General, were two of the main villains of the piece. Mr Straw, who returns for a second session at the inquiry next week, seems to have regarded it as his job to insulate No 10 from the lawyers in his department, knowing that all 27 regarded military action in Iraq as contrary to international law. Once Mr Straw had lectured his own lawyers on how he knew the law better than they did, and had been proved right in the courts when he disagreed with the lawyers at the Home Office, he turned his attention to writing a long letter to Lord Goldsmith.

Apart from the risks inherent in these activities, they also present virtually insolvable conflicts of interest with customer relationships, conflicts that simply cannot be escaped by an elaboration of so-called Chinese walls between different divisions of an institution.

By PAUL VOLCKER, Op-Ed Contributor, January 31, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA 10 days ago set out one important element in the needed structural reform of the financial system. No one can reasonably contest the need for such reform, in the United States and in other countries as well. We have after all a system that broke down in the most serious crisis in 75 years. The cost has been enormous in terms of unemployment and lost production. The repercussions have been international.

Aggressive action by governments and central banks — really unprecedented in both magnitude and scope — has been necessary to revive and maintain market functions. Some of that support has continued to this day. Here in the United States as elsewhere, some of the largest and proudest financial institutions — including both investment and commercial banks — have been rescued or merged with the help of massive official funds. Those actions were taken out of well-justified concern that their outright failure would irreparably impair market functioning and further damage the real economy already in recession.

Now the economy is recovering, if at a still modest pace. Funds are flowing more readily in financial markets, but still far from normally. Discussion is underway here and abroad about specific reforms, many of which have been set out by the United States administration: appropriate capital and liquidity requirements for banks; better official supervision on the one hand and on the other improved risk management and board oversight for private institutions; a review of accounting approaches toward financial institutions; and others.

As President Obama has emphasized, some central structural issues have not yet been satisfactorily addressed.

A large concern is the residue of moral hazard from the extensive and successful efforts of central banks and governments to rescue large failing and potentially failing financial institutions. The long-established “safety net” undergirding the stability of commercial banks — deposit insurance and lender of last resort facilities — has been both reinforced and extended in a series of ad hoc decisions to support investment banks, mortgage providers and the world’s largest insurance company. In the process, managements, creditors and to some extent stockholders of these non-banks have been protected.

A year in, we have learned that all the conciliatory rhetoric won’t cut it. But a president with a big megaphone and large legislative majorities has more powerful strings to pull, no matter what happened in one special election in Massachusetts. If he can’t get a working government, at least he can shake things up in November.

By FRANK RICH, NYT  Op-Ed Columnist, January 31, 2010

HANDS down, the State of the Union’s big moment was Barack Obama’s direct hit on the delicate sensibilities of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The president was right to blast the 5-to-4 decision giving corporate interests an even greater stranglehold over a government they already regard as a partially owned onshore subsidiary. How satisfying it was to watch him provoke Alito into a “You lie!” snit. Here was a fight we could believe in.

There was more to admire in Obama’s performance as well. He did not retreat into the bite-size initiatives — V-chips, school uniforms — embraced by an emasculated Bill Clinton after his midterm pummeling of 1994. The president’s big original goals — health care, economic recovery, financial reform — remained nominally intact, as did his sense of humor. In a rhetorical touch William Safire would have relished, Obama had the wit to rush the ritualistic “our union is strong” so it would not prompt the usual jingoistic ovation.

Good thing, too, since our union is not strong. It is paralyzed. Many Americans were more eagerly anticipating Steve Jobs’s address in San Francisco on Wednesday morning than the president’s that night because they have far more confidence in Apple than Washington to produce concrete change. One year into Obama’s term we still don’t know whether he has what it takes to get American governance functioning again. But we do know that no speech can do the job. The president must act. Only body blows to the legislative branch can move the country forward.

The historian Alan Brinkley has observed that we will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress — and therefore government as a whole — has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education. The gridlock isn’t only a function of polarized politics and special interests. There’s also been a gaping leadership deficit.

In Obama’s speech, he kept circling back to a Senate where both parties are dysfunctional. The obstructionist Republicans, he observed, will say no to every single bill “just because they can.” But no less culpable are the Democrats, who maintain “the largest majority in decades” even after losing Teddy Kennedy’s seat — and yet would rather “run for the hills” than accomplish anything.

Pakistani Taliban leader ‘dead’ Military yet to confirm state TV report that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in drone attack. Hakimullah Mehsud – dead or alive? Pakistan: Heading to civil war? Pakistan, another bloody year? Profile: Pakistani Taliban

China renews US arms-sale warning Further harm to relations foreseen if $6.4bn weapons package for Taiwan goes ahead.

Poor response to climate deadline Just 19 countries have sent letters of intent to UN before January 31 “soft deadline”.

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US halts Haiti medical evacuations

Yemen rejects Houthi truce offer

US bolsters Gulf missile defences

Video

Gaza residents denied eye treatment

Palestinians on the verge of blindness have been blocked from getting vital health care.

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Donate Now: 1-877-99-HAITI in US/Canada,

 or go to www.hopeforhaitinow.org