“I made the decision in good faith on the information that I had at the time”.
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That, said Wright, makes Blair a war criminal.
Responding to the findings of the Chilcot report, Colonel Peter Mansoor made the shocking claim that the USA could have invaded Iraq without British involvement.
When asked if it was the case that the former Prime Minister simply wanted to believe in the intelligence on WMDs, Blair said: “It wasn’t that I wanted to believe it – I did believe it”.
“It’s absolutely true, I took a decision and I stand by that decision, that we should stand by America”.
“I did not mislead this country”, he said.
He said he accepted that too many decisions at the time were taken informally, acknowledging that it might have been “better in retrospect” had some of the discussions had a greater “measure of formality”.
“Saddam was himself a wellspring of terror”, he said.
Anti-war protesters rally in central London as the Chilcot report is released. But even if MPs voted to impeach Blair, the result would likely be symbolic.
“I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world”, he added.
“He did not have to allow George W. Bush to blunder into Iraq”, Salmond believes, saying that even though much has changed since 9/11, Blair has “no excuse” for dragging the United Kingdom into the Iraq war.
He also ridiculed suggestions from independent MP and former intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie that Mr Howard, Mr Blair and former USA president George W Bush should face a war crimes tribunal.
The report found that the UK’s decision to support the Iraq war unjustified particularly because one of the major arguments for it – Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – was “presented with a certainty that was not justified”. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 250 people died on Saturday in Baghdad’s worst vehicle bombing since the US-led coalition toppled Saddam.
The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. This failure of intelligence has always been at the centre of Iraq war criticisms.
The Chilcot Inquiry establishes that the evidence was flawed, it was patchy, it was sporadic.
Bacon said the former premier’s statement was a “huge justification” for his decisions as he clearly ignored what had happened in Iraq and what was happening there now.
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“I’m very ashamed that we had to take part in something that was so illegal and so immoral”, said Daniel Taylor, Iraq war veteran. “That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict”, wrote Chilcot.
