An emotional Mr Blair told the nation’s media in a statement he felt, at the time, it was right for the country to go to war.
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“If you disagree with me fine, but please stop saying I was lying or I had some sort of dishonest or underhand motive”, he told reporters, hours after the release of the scathing report.
A former soldier who served in the war said he regrets being part of the invasion. As Chilcot introduced his report at a London conference center, dozens of anti-war protesters with placards reading “Bliar” rallied outside.
The morning witnessed a heavy flow of critical headlines aimed at the former prime minister. Chilcot also concludes that Washington ignored British advice on post-war planning, the control of money from Iraq’s oil and security matters.
‘It’s just worth remembering 250 people died last weekend in one bomb blast in Baghdad.
“The report… will not change anything – all this is empty talk”, said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
The Australian government takes full responsibility for its decision to back the US-led 2003 war on Iraq in the wake of the Chilcot report, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says. “It always bothered me but I believed that the decision to go into Iraq was justified at the time and I don’t resile from that”.
A second vote, the main Government motion, was to use “all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”, and this was passed by 412 votes to 149.
Inquiry chairman John Chilcot laid the blame for this firmly on spy chiefs, clearing Blair’s officials of “improperly” influencing a key intelligence paper published in September 2002.
Today, the former prime minister faces mounting calls to be taken to court for the “terrible” decision of committing British troops to the US-led invasion in 2003.
He said he firmly believed he had done the “right thing” and that the world was a “better place” without Saddam Hussein.
Blair pointed out that a lot of people in the American administration wanted to take military action immediately. But he said that “the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for United Kingdom military action were far from satisfactory”.
“They were misled by a small number of leading figures in the government who were committed to joining the USA invasion of Iraq come what may and were none too scrupulous about how they made their case for war”. “They were not challenged and they should have been”, wrote retired civil servant John Chilcot, who authored the 2.6-million word report. The embattled Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, apologised on behalf of his party what he termed a ‘stain on our party and our country’.
The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, still looms large over British politics.
John Kirby, a spokesman for Secretary of State John Kerry, said the current administration is focused on the current crises in Iraq and Syria.
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In response Mr Howard donned Mr Blair “honourable” and “honest” and said he “genuinely held the views that he expressed and I had no reason to disbelieve him”, before slamming reports that Australia went to war based on a lie.
