The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is so far the most significant event of the 21st century. It has led to the disintegration of the Middle Eastern states established after the First World War. The UK's role in the war, based on false premises and faulty intelligence, poisoned British politics. Two inquiries into the war were widely seen as exercises in whitewashing. The third, chaired by John Chilcot, has been running for six years and is only now limping reluctantly towards publication. Peter Oborne's devastatingly frank presentation of what should be in Chilcot's report is a brief masterpiece of investigative reporting. He shows how the British establishment of all political persuasions has colluded in hiding the disastrous reality of what went wrong, and how it has persisted in its denial of responsibility for the consequences: the rise in Islamist terrorism, a massive refugee crisis and the permanent disorder of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. This is a breath of fresh air from a fiercely independent conservative writer.