David Milliband: now right, but not apparently sorry...

It was a Saturday in mid-July. The sun beat down upon middle England out of a clear blue sky on the sort of day which usually sees Englishmen unveil a dress sense to horrify Frenchmen, Italians and, in truth, anyone with an eye for fashion. Barbecue and cold beer weather or, for those with a more genteel disposition, a glass of something red and full-bodied. And there I was, in a suit, heading for something best described as the political equivalent of LinkedIn for people who really don't need a computer or social media.

Ditchley Park is a country house and estate north west of Oxford and about two miles from Charlbury, and is probably best known as being the home of the Ditchley Foundation, an organisation with a goal of advancing international learning and to bring transatlantic and other experts together to discuss international issues. It is, if you like, a garden party for the great and the good with a lecture attached.

It would be fair to say that this is not my obviously natural territory, but given what Ros does, it is hers, and where she goes, and they'll have me, I go too. The main attraction, a speech by David Milliband, billed as being his last major political intervention before going to take up his new role as CEO of the International Rescue Committee in September.

The entertainment came in two parts - a formal speech and a question and answer session. The speech has already been published by the New Statesman, and covered by the press. The Q&A session was, and will remain to some degree, off the record - I cannot believe for one moment that it won't be leaked, such is the world we live in - and I will respect that injunction, although I wouldn't say that it was particularly revelatory.

His speech was about intervention by the 'Great Powers', in particular with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. He noted;

Iraq and Afghanistan have occupied American and other western troops for longer than World War 2, at enormous not to say inordinate cost, human, financial and political. And the longer we have been in these two countries, the less clear it has been not just who has won or even is winning, but also what winning looks like. Alliances shift, local politics intervenes, recent promises are trumped by old hatreds, my enemy’s enemy turns out to be mine too.

And yet, given that he was Foreign Secretary from 2007 until 2010, he seemed remarkably coy about his responsibility, both individual and collective, for what happened in both theatres. He had, however, drawn four lessons;

• clarity and legitimacy in post-conflict power sharing arrangements needs to be front and centre in any diplomatic or military endeavour overseas 
• without the support of regional actors fragile states can never be stabilised 
• mobile terrorist groups add a whole new dimension to instability in fragile states through their ability to hijack local grievances 
• the phrase “war on terror” had the dangerous consequence of uniting under a single banner a series of disparate and sometimes localised grievances, so language is important 

Now, to be honest, I'm not that impressed. In 2006, I was designing an American policy for intervention - multinational, supported by the United Nations or the appropriate regional body, backed with prior congressional approval and with stated objectives - and I didn't have an entire bureaucracy behind me.

In fairness - and I'm a pretty fair person, usually - it was a well-constructed speech, awash with interesting points, most of which merited further development but never received any, the sort of speech that is interesting but, when pondered over afterwards, leaves you wondering what it was he actually said.

But for me, his most interesting, and somewhat depressing, comment, seemingly almost slipped in was this;

Ten years on, Saddam is gone, and the Kurds are safe, but the country is afflicted by violence and fissures. The overall reckoning is strongly negative. There were no WMD, and if we had known that in 2003 then there would have been no justification for war.

Well, David, that's fine as far as it goes, but if you recall, there were many saying just that in 2003. You, and your colleagues of the time, ignored that view, doctored your evidence, and used it to justify intervention.

It would have been nice if you could have found it in you to apologise...