Britain’s 2003 Iraq war was “illegal”, the country’s former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was Prime Minister Tony Blair’s deputy when United Kingdom joined the US-led invasion of Iraq, said on Sunday days after a long-awaited inquiry report slammed UK’s role in the conflict.
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A motion being tabled by Tory David Davis accusing the former Prime Minister of deceiving MPs has been backed by Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP.
While the long-awaited Chilcot Report, released earlier this week, issued a damning verdict on Tony Blair’s involvement in the British decision to invade Iraq in 2003, did we really need to wait seven years to realise this?
The Chilcot report makes it clear that Blair and his allies misrepresented and over-stated the intelligence case, which is precisely what Blix said to Blair before the invasion was even launched.
Labour MP Dame Margaret Beckett, who was in the Cabinet at the time of the vote on the war, added: “The people behind this contempt motion were always going to use the Chilcot report for their own ends”.
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 global opinion”.
“Blair comes out of it funnily enough looking a bit better than other people because what we have meant to do through the whole Chilcot process and particularly today is to hold Blair up as singularly responsible for the disaster of the Iraq war”, Brendan O’ Neil told Radio Sputnik.
Sir John reached several damaging conclusions, including that the decision to go to war had been taken before peaceful options had been exhausted.
The report also found that: “The government’s decision to contribute a military force to a US-led invasion of Iraq inevitably increased the risk that more service personnel would be put in breach of the harmony guidelines”.
Mr Corbyn said that he had yet to see the text of the motion.
It comes after Lord Prescott, the deputy prime minister at the time of the 2003 invasion, claimed the Iraq War was illegal.
“As the deputy prime minister in that government I must express my fullest apology, especially to the families of the 179 men and women who gave their lives in the Iraq war”.
Meanwhile, a cross-party group of lawmakers said they would seek next week a vote declaring Blair in contempt of parliament for misleading it in the run-up to the decision to go to war. He has also indicated he will “stand with” bereaved families who are considering legal action against Mr Blair. In fact, I think there are some strong streaks of anti-democracy in some of those demands that Blair should be dragged to The Hague. They were reportedly allowed to see the Chilcot Report before it was unveiled.
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He said a modern version of impeachment – contempt of parliament – if passed on a parliamentary motion “would require the former prime minister to stand at the bar of the house as the indictment was read out”.
