Former British Ambassador Brian Barder writes to the Guardian:

Lord Bingham’s authoritative declaration that the attack on Iraq was illegal raises very important questions and you are right to call for an inquiry (Time for a full inquiry, Leaders, November 19)…

… Any inquiry also needs to establish an authoritative interpretation of the UK’s formal "explanation of vote" on 1441, explicitly disavowing any "automaticity" in the resolution. This was widely assumed at the time to mean that 1441 did not imply authority for an attack without a further council resolution. If it didn’t mean that, what did it mean? Did other council members agree to drop the explicit requirement for a further council "decision" in exchange for an assurance by the sponsors of 1441 that it would not be taken as authority to use force without a further decision?

These may sound like unimportant technicalities, but we need definitive answers to them if we are to be able to judge whether our own elected government committed a war crime.

Just say we do find that the invasion of Iraq was a war crime. Then what? How to assess the individual responsibility of each government member?

The Nuremburg Trials give us some helpful guidance. At the main trial (there were in fact numerous trials) there were 24 accused, of whom 12 were sentenced to death and ten executed by hanging (Borman was convicted in absentia, and Goring committed suicide).

An eyewitness account of the executions – grim reading.

Using these excellent precedents the following probably would be hanged:

Tony Blair:            Prime Minister, author of the Iraq invasion

John Prescott:      Deputy Prime Minister

Jack Straw:          Foreign Minister

Clare Short:          International Development Minister (resigned from government only after the invasion)

Geoff Hoon:          Defence Minister

John Scarlett:       Head of Joint Intelligence Committee

And assorted top UK military personnel who led the attacks.

At Nuremburg Hitler’s Minister of Economics, Walther Funk (sic), was sentenced to life imprisonment but released on health grounds in 1957. So Gordon Brown (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) might escape the noose, although given his intimate role in funding the Iraq invasion and in the New Labour project some people might reasonably clamour for his execution too.

In other words, it should be a busy and productive day at the gallows.

And British politics would be rather different thereafter.