The national media (newspapers) launched an immediate attack and thrashed Blair’s reputation following the Chilcot report on the Iraq war.
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Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair remained adamant that the world was a better place for the removal of Iraq leader Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
He said: “I felt that at the time, the British felt it at the time, I think the Prime Minister felt it at the time, that the Americans pushed us into going into military action too early”.
Blair “certainly misled us into believing that this [the Iraq war] was for a just and right cause”, he also said.
“The Chilcot report is a detailed overview of the steps Tony Blair’s Government took to make the case to invade Iraq”, she said.
“We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory”, it said.
A U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation a decade ago found prewar intelligence failings and concluded that politicians had overstated the evidence for weapons of mass destruction and ignored warnings about the violence that could follow an invasion.
Former Australian prime minister John Howard speaks during a press conference in Sydney, Australia, July 7, 2016.
“This is an extensive report and it is important that we learn the lessons of history or we are condemned to repeat them”.
Tony Blair has expressed “regret” that he did not challenge intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction but insisted he still believed he was right to overthrow the Iraqi dictator.
You can read a more in-depth analysis of Chilcot’s 13 key points onThe Guardian and the full report can be viewed here.
Sarah O’Connor, 43, hit out at the former prime minister as he faced up to the threat of legal action following his decision to take Britain to war in Iraq in 2003.
He went on to suggest that despite the “terrible consequences” of the invasion – which, as he had been warned, saw Iraq plunged into a bloody sectarian civil war – the British-US military intervention had not been in vain.
He noted that United Nations arms inspector Hans Blix has maintained that the United Nations sanctions regime “was not as weak as was represented, and was not in eminent danger of crumbling, that the inspections regime was very robust, and that Saddam couldn’t have done anything major without being detected or without expelling the worldwide inspectors”.
He also announced that he will respond in detail to the criticisms later on Wednesday. “I really don’t”, he said.
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“They fought in the defining global security struggle of the 21st century against the terrorism and violence which the world over destroys lives, divides communities”, he said.
