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”. “Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated”, the report’s author Sir John Chilcot said. She said she was “angry” and added “there is one terrorist in the world that the world needs to be aware of and that is Tony Blair”.
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“It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments”. However, during the 2010 Iraq inquiry, he dismissed the notion that political pressure had swayed his advice as “complete nonsense”.
The report is named after the inquiry’s chairperson and former civil servant Sir John Chilcot. Lord Goldsmith commented yesterday: ‘In purely technical terms, legal opinions can differ.
He wanted to go to war even before bringing the issue to parliament.
The inquiry found that “military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point”.
The 2.6 million word report, launched in 2009 as the bulk of British troops withdrew from Iraq, was tasked with investigating the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion and the subsequent occupation.
“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”, Chilcot said.
FILE – President George W. Bush speaks at a campaign rally at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who voted with his party in favor of the war, said those who did so “have to take our fair share of the responsibility”.
Reacting to the findings, Tony Blair expressed “sorrow and regret” over the Iraq War – but insisted that he would do it all over again.
It also highlighted how Blair wrote to president George W Bush in July 2002, the year before the war saying: “I will be with you, whatever”.
“Moving forward from today it’s crucial that we learn lessons. They were not challenged, and they should have been”, he said.
“The very last thing you [should] do is to tell him that you are going to be with him shoulder to shoulder… which is Tony Blair did, of course”.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully has not read the report and isn’t talking about its findings or decisions made by other governments.
√ War preparations “failed to take into account the magnitude of the task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq”.
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Iran, North Korea and Libya were considered greater threats in terms of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons proliferation by United Kingdom intelligence services, who believed Iraq would need five years, after the lifting of sanctions, to produce enough material for a weapon.
