Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he is likely to back a House of Commons motion accusing his predecessor Tony Blair of misleading parliament over the Iraq war.
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Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of Blair’s Labour Party, however said the report proved the Iraq War had been an “act of military aggression launched on a false pretext” and was “long regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of worldwide opinion”.
One like Blair with the despotic arrogance to not even consult his Cabinet while disregarding the view of millions who took part in peace rallies around the globe when making the most important post World War II decision on foreign policy matters. That is surely how a parliamentary democracy works.
Asked whether he would back the contempt motion, Corbyn said: “I haven’t seen it yet, but I think I probably would”.
Supporters said that they were hopeful that the motion would be selected by the Speaker John Bercow and that they would build support for the move this week, when MPs are due to spend two days debating the findings of the Iraq Report.
Writing in the Sunday Mirror, he said he would live with the “catastrophic decision” for the rest of his life.
“In 2004, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that as regime change was the prime aim of the Iraq War, it was illegal”, Mr Prescott added. It’s a bit like contempt of court.
“He might have done one of those accidentally, but five?” questioned Davies.
He was challenged about the families of service personnel killed in the conflict, some of whom want him to face trial for war crimes.
Halton MP Derek Twigg has said MPs who voted in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did so in “good faith” and that the USA should take the bulk of the blame over the “appalling mess” of post-invasion Iraq. “The point had not been reached where military action was the last resort”, the report said.
On the topics of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Mr Twigg said United Nations arms inspector Hans Blix had believed that Iraq had WMD, adding that Saddam Hussein had used chemical warfare in the past.
Sir John found that “despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated” and planning for Iraq after Saddam’s removal was “wholly inadequate”.
But he refused to say that he was sorry for the decision to invade.
Prescott blamed Blair for not providing enough documentary evidence to justify the decision for war.
For seven years Mr Blair has had to put up with a most hostile level of Blair-mongering in the media, while he has had to remain silent until the report was concluded – a situation endured by his good friend Sir Cliff Richard, who also had to keep schtum until exonerated.
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A petition calling for Tony Blair to be expelled from the Labour party has received a flurry of signatures in the wake of the publication of the Chilcot report. What won’t be so easily ignored is the Chilcot report.
