Chilcot Report Finds that Blair Made Decision to Invade Iraq before All Peaceful Options Exhausted

The UK government released a report by Sir John Chilcot, Chairman of Iraq Inquiry, devoted to the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War. Blair has been criticized for the United Kingdom’s involvement in the conflict that stretched through 2011. The campaign to topple then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on allegations that he had weapons of mass destruction killed 179 British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians.

On Wednesday, the 2.6-million-word report on the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War was released, seven years after it was announced. The long-awaited inquiry by Sir John Chilcot concluded that the United Kingdom under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair made a decision to invade Iraq before all peaceful options had been exhausted, whereas the entire policy on Iraq was based on flawed intelligence and assessments.

 The report concluded that the UK decision to join the war was based on flawed intelligence data and assessments, according to Sputnik.

Blair Defends war decision

Blair defended his war decision and said he firmly believed he had done the “right thing” and that the world was a “better place” without Saddam Hussein, adding the decision to remove Saddam was the “hardest, most momentous, most agonising” of his 10 years in office.

And he insisted he would make the same decision again today if he was presented with the same information..

“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,” he said. “All I’m saying today, because obviously some of the intelligence has turned out to be wrong, the planning wasn’t done properly, I have to accept those criticisims, I accept responsibility for them.”

Leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has apologised on behalf of Labour for Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq, saying it was a “stain” on the party and country.

In a speech in London, he said: “The decision to go to war in Iraq has been a stain on our party and our country but we now have the chance to work together to build more constructive and mutually beneficial relationships with the rest of the world based on cooperation, peace and international justice.”

The new UK report on the origins of the 2003 war in Iraq also show that the United States hastened into the conflict without any overall plan, former First US Army Infantry Division commanding general in Iraq John Batiste told Sputnik.

“The Chilcot report is all about the rush to war when you don’t have a comprehensive plan,” Batiste stated on Wednesday. “We bought the Iraq war hook, line and sinker.”

George W Bush Refuse to apologize for invading Iraq

Former US president George W Bush has refused to apologize for the invasion of Iraq and defended his and Blair’s war decision.

Bush insisted the world is better off without Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in power and said “there was no stronger ally” than Britain when Blair was prime minister.

Bush’s communications director, Freddy Ford, told BBC News: “Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.”

Following the release of the Chilcot Report, Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard on Thursday justified his country’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq War, saying “in the years that have gone by there’s been this constant claim that we went to war based on a lie. There was no lie. There were errors in intelligence but there was no lie…I believed that the decision to go into Iraq was justified at the time and I don’t resile from that because I thought it was the right decision,” Howard was quoted by The Guardian newspaper as saying.

Chilcot Report Findings on Iraq War Confirms Russia’s Stance Right – Moscow

Moscow has been aware of the facts presented in the Chilcot Report on the United Kingdom’s role in the 2003 Iraq War from the very beginning and this information confirms Russia’s position was right, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Sputnik.

“We’ve known that all along. Even during the discussion of this issue in the UN Security Council it was clear that they fabricated facts to convince the Security Council that there were stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and, thus, gain its approval for the military action against the regime of [then Iraq leader] Saddam Hussein,” Gatilov said.

He added that the fact that the information Moscow knew was finally revealed in the Untied Kingdom proved that Russia was right.

Key conclusions of  Iraq Inquiry report

-There was “no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein” in March 2003 and military action was “not a last resort”

-The UK “chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted”

 – Tony Blair’s note to George Bush on July 28, 2002, saying UK would be with the US “whatever”, was the moment Britain was set on a path to war

– Judgments about the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD “were presented with a certainty that was not justified”

-Tony Blair told attorney general Lord Goldsmith Iraq had committed breaches of UN Security Council resolution 1441 without giving evidence to back up his claim

 -Ministry of Defence was “slow” to react to clear need for better equipment and it was not clear whose job it was to do so

 -Planning for post-war Iraq was “wholly inadequate”

 -Blair government “failed to achieve its stated objectives”

 -The legality of the war can only be decided by an international court

Agencies

H.M