A common theme uniting the current British and American political debates on the disastrous outcome of the war in Iraq is that both states have lacked rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of how it has gone so wrong. The Labour government has now let it be known that it wants to see a high-level inquiry into the war - but only when British troops are withdrawn and only after it defeated a motion demanding an immediate investigation in a narrow Commons vote.
President Bush is fighting a desperate rearguard battle to prevent a Democratic majority in next week's congressional elections by saying this would represent a victory for terrorism. He is equally concerned by the prospect that a Democratic majority would dog his final two years in power with a powerful investigation into the war.
It is extraordinary that the two executive powers responsible for such gravely mistaken decisions should have been subject to so little direct political scrutiny of their record. Wars of choice, as this one is, must be justified by trustworthy and informed judgments. Parliamentary systems are meant to test their validity by critical interrogation; but party majorities and cross-party consensus about the decisions to go to war have frustrated that purpose.
The Labour party supported Tony Blair's decisions on Iraq. This has made it much more difficult for MPs to register their growing dissatisfaction with the course of the war - notwithstanding that the Conservatives also supported the decision. It took an initiative by the Scottish and Welsh nationalists and an opportunistic switch of position by the Conservative leadership to open the question up as it ought to have been much sooner.
The Bush administration justified the Iraq war as a necessary response to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, in addition to its assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Both positions are now known to be false. But the public realisation that this is so, now driving US public opposition to the war, has owed all too little to a scrutinising Congress. In fact, the US public was ill-served during this whole episode by a Congress and national media made compliant by war psychology and fear of terrorism.
Mr Bush's enthusiastic endorsement of these themes in the final days of the midterm campaign demeans a much more informed public opinion. John Kerry yesterday apologised for his ill-judged joke which implied that US soldiers need little education to serve in Iraq, but not for opposing its basic policy thrust.
There is still room for a swing in the final days of campaigning, but it will be a big surprise if the basic disenchantment with the Iraq war running through it changes significantly in the Republicans' favour. Mr Bush's conduct of the war deserves much more determined congressional investigation. The US public interest would be best served by a result which broke with the Republican majority's adamant refusal to mount it.