They say revenge is a dish best served cold. In the case of Radio 4's Today programme and the almighty row with the government over WMD intelligence, said dish seems to have been cryogenically frozen for the past three years.
But with the BBC this week marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with a range of TV and radio output, Radio 4's flagship news show today took another stab at nailing Tony Blair for the allegedly dodgy intelligence that took the UK into the conflict.
This morning Today wheeled out one of the BBC's big guns, world affairs editor John Simpson, to report that "at least two Whitehall heavyweights, thoroughly informed about the whole business, think the intelligence on which the Blair government went to war in Iraq was wrongly used".
Simpson was referring to Lord Butler, the former cabinet secretary, and "a very senior figure in Whitehall", who had told him "it was one of the great regrets of his career, with the benefit of hindsight, that he didn't challenge how the intelligence was used".
There are echoes here of former Today correspondent Andrew Gilligan's 6.07am report, on May 29 2003, which sparked the BBC's WMD intelligence row with the government.
Whereas Gilligan's broadcast was a live two-way, Simpson's sounded like a scripted pre-record. But Simpson draws pretty much the same conclusion as Gilligan - that Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell "sexed up" the WMD intelligence to help make the case for going to war in Iraq - although he doesn't use such emotive language.
"Everything depended on the government's insistence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was capable of using them, perhaps within 45 minutes.
"The prime minister and his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, gave the very clear impression that this information was firmly based on intelligence which the government had received from MI6, the secret intelligence service.
"But now a very senior figure in Whitehall, heavily involved during the run up to the war, has told me privately it was one of the great regrets of his career, with the benefit of hindsight, that he didn't challenge how the intelligence was used."
Simpson goes on to say that Lord Butler had recently described the use of WMD intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war as "disingenuous" in the Lords - "Whitehall speak for, shall we say, distinctly misleading". And Lord Butler's earlier inquiry into the WMD intelligence "was deeply critical" of how it was used, he adds.
"Though it has to be said that what Mr Blair told parliament was cleared by the intelligence services. The intelligence people told the prime minister they knew very little about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. They admitted, frankly, they hadn't known much about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons work since 1988.
"But when Tony Blair spoke to the house of commons about it, he said the picture painted by the intelligence services was extensive, detailed and authoritative. Simply not justified, Lord Butler now says - in other words, not true.
"Some members of Lord Butler's inquiry seem to have expected that the government would fall as a result of its findings. That didn't happen of course. The Blair government still had such a grip on its backbenches that, as someone involved said, 'even though the knife was handed to them, no-one was prepared to strike'.
"But now, in their different ways, at least two Whitehall heavyweights, thoroughly informed about the whole business, think the intelligence on which the Blair government went to war in Iraq was wrongly used."
Things have moved on, of course, since January 2004, when BBC chairman Gavyn Davies resigned and director general Greg Dyke was sacked following publication of the Hutton report.
Campbell is long gone from Downing Street, reportedly prepping his memoirs. Blair will be following him within a few short months, most likely.
But it feels as though with Simpson's piece Today, and the BBC, may finally have put the matter behind them.
