Noting that Blair looked a broken man on live television – gaunt, hoarse and haunted – columnists wrote that for all his defence over the years and particularly after the Chilcot report, Blair will not be able to shake off his Iraq war legacy for the rest of his life. The committee determined Saddam Hussein did not pose an “imminent threat” in 2003.
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Mr Blair added: “I understand that people still disagree but at least do me the respect, as I respect your position, of reading my argument”.
Judgments about the danger of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction “were presented with a certainty that was not justified” by the underlying intelligence, Chilcot said.
It said he “overestimated his ability to influence USA decisions on Iraq”, and it released memos Blair sent to then-President George W. Bush.
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.
Mr Blair told Today he had not “made some irrevocable decision to go to war” at that point.
“Now we live in perpetually with the spectre of terrorism and racial strife, visited upon us by his prejudices and lack of judgement” Mr Keating said.
However, the findings released by Sir John Chilcot yesterday, did not actually confirm that military action was illegal.
Ms Bishop said the decision was based on the best information the government had at the time. “I did believe it, and one of the reasons for that was because Saddam Hussein had used these weapons against his own people”.
The former prime minister was revealed to have told then US President George W Bush “I will be with you whatever”, eight months before British troops were sent into the troubled country in 2003.
‘I recall very well at the time Kevin Rudd [who was then Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman] urging us to continue to support the United States. “I believe I made the right decision and the world is better and safer as a result of it”. “I may be completely wrong about that”.
Meanwhile Mr Blair said if he was put in the same situation again, he wouldn’t hesitate to invade Iraq.
The families could now launch a civil suit against Mr Blair. “They were not challenged, and they should have been”, he said.
Bacon said Blair seemed like a “lost” person despite his “strident” tone during the press conference, “He doesn’t seem to know where he is at”.
“I am not going to be harsh about Tony Blair, he has destroyed his own reputation”.
She said his Labour government had done some “amazing things”, but “their reputation has bled to death in the sands of Iraq”.
The 2.6-million-word report is an exhaustive verdict on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, nearly 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Public policy expert William Galston of the Brookings Institution told VOA Wednesday that he agrees with the report that the worldwide community had not yet exhausted all other options to eliminate the Iraqi threat.
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.
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In his 2.6 million-word report into the UK’s most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War, Sir John said Mr Blair was wrong to claim that the risks of instability following the invasion could not have been known in advance.
