Commenting on words exchanged between Blair and Bush at Camp David, US later that year, the Chilcot report adds: “Although at that stage no decision had been taken on which military package might be offered to the US for planning purposes, Mr. Blair also told President Bush that, if it came to war, the United Kingdom would take a significant military role”.
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“Mr. Blair knew by January 2003 that Washington had chose to go to war to overthrow Mr. Hussein and accepted the American timetable for the military action by mid-March, pushing only for a second Security Council resolution that never came, ‘undermining the Security Council’s authority, ‘ the report concludes”.
Outside the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London – where Sir Chilcot delivered a summary of his report – more than 100 protesters shouted: “Blair lied, thousands died!”
“If I was back in the same place, with the same information I would take the same decision because obviously that was the decision I believe was right”, Blair said.
The inquiry also said the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “presented with a certainty that was not justified” by Mr Blair’s government. “I really don’t”, he said.
“The bottom line is that this Government doesn’t trade the lives of young New Zealanders for a war it doesn’t believe in”, she said at the time.
Mr. Blair did not establish clear ministerial oversight in planning and preparation for the war and his post-war efforts in Iraq “never matched the scale of its challenge”, the report concluded.
“I knew it was not a popular decision”.
“My heart goes out to the families whose loved ones were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq”.
The former British leader’s legacy as a three-times election victor for the center-left Labour Party has been overshadowed by years of accusations that he had lied to exaggerate the intelligence case for war.
Launched in 2009 and finally released on July 6, 2016, the report asserted that the U.K agreed to go to war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein before peaceful options had expired and based on insufficient intelligence, Business Insider reports.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully has not read the report and isn’t talking about its findings or decisions made by other governments.
On Thursday, The Sun newspaper’s front page carried the headline: “Weapon Of Mass Deception” while also referencing a secret memo of support that Tony Blair sent to American President at the time, George W Bush, saying “I’ll be with you whatever”.
Blair told Today he had not “made some irrevocable decision to go to war” at that point.
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General Tim Cross – the most senior British officer involved in planning the war – said former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would not listen either to the United Nations or the UK about the aftermath of the invasion.
