Two questions for Tony Blair

On Friday former Prime Minister Tony Blair finally will address the Chilcot inquiry, where he will face questions about the Iraq War. The inquiry so far hasn’t uncovered much new information, partly because the British government continues to refuse to make public some of the most embarrassing documents that any serious inquiry would have to refer to. Still, the British papers are full this week of suggested questions to put to the man who backed George Bush’s invasion to the hilt. However technical, these proposed questions will never succeed in getting the slippery Blair to actually come clean about anything significant.

In fact, Blair is inclined to charge that the Chilcot inquiry trivializes the larger questions about Iraq.

He complained to a friend: "It's called the Iraq inquiry, but where are the Iraqis?"

Fair enough, why not put the Iraqis back into the picture? Here are two questions that I propose ought to be put to Tony Blair on this, perhaps the last occasion when he’ll be grilled in public about his decision to invade Iraq. These are questions that, curiously enough, nobody ever seems to think to raise with Blair (or Bush).

1. How many Iraqis have died in the Iraq War?

2. Have you ever attended any of their funerals?