The stinging attack by retiring UN chief arms inspector Dr. Hans Blix against the American and British governments for the quality of their intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will hurt them. Its timing is particularly awkward for them. The inability of their investigators in Iraq to find any evidence that the Saddam Hussein regime had WMD at the time of the invasion and the conflicting messages coming from Washington and London as to whether they will ever be found have led to a storm of allegations that the invasion was therefore unjustified and that, at best, the two countries’ intelligence services were incompetent in claiming that such weapons existed or, at worst, that they deliberately doctored evidence to suit their political masters, possibly even with their masters’ conniving.

However, it is not an issue that the Iraqis are excited about. Whether or not Saddam Hussein possessed WMD is of virtually no interest to them. As far as they are concerned he is gone — which is good — and the sooner they can get on with running their country themselves the better. It is forces within the US and UK that are pushing the issue. In the US, the criticism comes largely from the Democrats, while in the UK it is from the left of the Labour Party and from the Liberal Democrats.

However, while there are those who would love to think that Bush and Blair deliberately manipulated intelligence reports and lied to their public, this is likely to be a nine-day wonder. In Bush’s case, American public opinion is firmly behind the president and is not interested in the actual justification for going to war. As far as it is concerned, the US won the war, Saddam’s butt was kicked and America is great; end of story. In the UK, the outcry is louder and with a substantial number of people wanting to believe Blair lied. But they are largely in his own party and they dare not stab him in the back on this or any other issue because it would be the opposition Conservatives who would reap the benefit of such open internal party warfare, come an election.

In any event, the congressional and parliamentary enquiries will almost certainly, when they eventually report back, administer nothing more than the mildest rap on the knuckles. They will probably say that some of the sources of information used by the CIA and MI6 should have been better evaluated but nonetheless, given the Baathist regime’s past history of developing and using WMD, the governments had every reason to believe that some WMD were still held by Baghdad and others being developed.

This furor, for all the passions and anger that it will generate among those who want to believe George Bush and Tony Blair guilty, will not sweep them from power — Blix’s intervention notwithstanding.