Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted and at a time when “there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein”, the Iraqi leader, the report found.
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“I believe I made the right decision and that the world is better and safer as a result of it”, he said.
Thirteen years after British troops crossed into Iraq and seven years after the inquiry began work, Sir John Chilcot will deliver his verdict on the UK’s most controversial military engagement of the post war era.
General Tim Cross – the most senior British officer involved in planning the war – said former U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, would not listen either to the United Nations or the UK about the aftermath of the invasion.
Blair faced hostile questioning from national and worldwide media, who said his assurances to former US President George Bush had amounted to a “blank cheque for war” and that he had abandoned diplomatic channels too easily.
Hundreds of protesters gathered at London’s Queen Elizabeth II Centre upon the release of the report.
Sir Jeremy said he felt Mr Blair had wanted to wait longer before taking military action.
“The report. will not change anything – all this is empty talk”, said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
Key findings included that the United Kingdom committed to war before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, that the certainty of the intelligence with regards to potential weapons of mass destruction was misrepresented, the circumstances of deciding the legal basis for war were “far from satisfactory” although Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had indicated a legal basis, and that Iraq policy was based on “flawed intelligence” with assessments that should have been challenged but were not.
“There were no lies, parliament and cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war. The intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith”, said Blair, who was prime minister for Labour from 1997 to 2007.
“Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power”, Bush’s spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement.
Judging the legality of the invasion was not in Chilcot’s remit, but he said the process of deciding the legal basis for war was “far from satisfactory”. “Military action at that time was not a last resort”, he said.
But Blair, whose legacy as a three-times election victor for the centre-left Labour Party has been overshadowed by years of accusations that he had lied to exaggerate the intelligence case for war, said the report vindicated his “hardest, most momentous and agonising decision”.
It will also look at the equipment supplied to British troops, amid claims they were not given adequate protection, and the preparations for the occupation which saw Iraq descend into a bloody civil war in which tens of thousands – some estimates say hundreds of thousands – of civilians died.
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He added that there was “nothing” in the Chilcot report to indicate “deliberate deceit”.
