“It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments”. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs to over two million words.
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Tony Blair “overstated the case for Britain’s war in Iraq, sent troops into battle under-equipped and did not prepare for the aftermath or the consequences of toppling Saddam Hussein”, says The National.
“The decision was, however, shaped by key choices made by Mr Blair’s government over the previous 18 months”, Chilcot said.
Former US president George W. Bush, the main promoter of the Iraq war during 2003-2011, says he still hasn’t read the Chilcot report which has raised harsh criticisms against his former ally Tony Blair in the UK. “Military action at that time was not a last resort”.
It’s sobering to think that more innocent victims – 250 and counting – were blown up in Sunday’s suicide bombings in Baghdad more than 13 years after Shipley’s Steve Roberts became the first of 179 British service personnel to die in action.
The fact is that the invasion of Iraq and the start of a war that continues to this day, not only did it turbo charge al-Qaida back then, but it created the circumstances for the rise of Islamic State.
Mr Corbyn did not, however, call for Mr Blair to be tried for war crimes, as some had suspected he might. The report stopped just short of calling the war illegal, while not quite calling it legal, either.
The comments by Blair come after a former British ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said Blair wanted a UN resolution and the USA pushed the United Kingdom into military action in Iraq “too early”. “But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties”.
He is sorry, but would do it again – that is, take Britain to war in Iraq.
Instead, Mr Blair said, Iraq had a government “accepted as legitimate, the product of an election”.
Blair insisted there were “no lies, no deceit” in his conduct.
Looking exhausted, his voice sometimes croaking with emotion, Blair described his decision to join the U.S. attack as “the hardest, most momentous, most agonising decision I took in 10 years as British prime minister”.
“It was a controversial decision … to remove Saddam and to be with America”.
“I mean, hindsight is always a wonderful thing, and in hindsight, some of the information that was presented at the time was proven to be incorrect, but you don’t know that – what you do know is is that all you can do is make the decisions based on the information you’ve got…”
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In other news, the Scottish Daily Express reports that the “evil” murderers of toddler Liam Fee have received the longest jail sentences ever handed out to women in Scotland.
