Iraq Inquiry: Chilcot says invasion 'not last resort'

Media captionSir John Chilcot: "There are many lessons in the report"

The UK did not exhaust all peaceful options before joining the invasion of Iraq, the chairman of the official inquiry into the war has said.

Sir John Chilcot said military action at the time "was not a last resort".
He also said judgements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "were presented with a certainty that was not justified" and post-war planning was "wholly inadequate".
Sir John was speaking ahead of publication of his report at 11:35 BST.
His 12-volume report on the Iraq War comes more than seven years after the inquiry began.

Sir John said he hoped future military action on such a scale would only be possible with more careful analysis and political judgement.
Sir John Chilcot told the BBC his report would criticise individuals and institutions.
He said he hoped it would help answer some questions for families of the 179 Britons who died between 2003 and 2009.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to face fresh calls to apologise from political opponents of the war and the relatives of those who were killed during the six years UK troops were based in Iraq.
The report, described as "an absolutely massive task" by Sir John, has been handed to Prime Minister David Cameron and will be available online on the Iraq Inquiry website once Sir John has finished making a statement setting out its findings.

What was the Iraq War?

The US, which led the intervention in March 2003, lost 4,487 service personnel in the war. Figures about Iraqi deaths vary from 90,000 to more than 600,000.

Media captionJames Landale on the background to the Chilcot inquiry

The war, which lasted about six weeks, ended Saddam Hussein's 25-year regime in Iraq, but the aftermath unleashed years of sectarian violence that has killed thousands since then.
The worst attack happened last weekend when so-called Islamic State militants - who control swathes of Iraq and Syria - launched a suicide bombing in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing more than 250 people.

The key points of the report

Sir John said he believed the report - which is 2.6 million words long - was a "reliable account" of the decisions that led to the UK's involvement in the war.
Asked what the main lessons were, Sir John said there would be recommendations on political decision-making, diplomacy, the gathering and presentation of intelligence and military planning.

Media captionThe key moments from the inquiry

"The main expectation that I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavour on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgement being applied to it.
"There are many lessons in the report but that probably is the central one for the future."

Build-up to the war

Momentum in Washington towards taking action against Saddam Hussein quickly began to build in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in the US, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
The US and UK were part of an international coalition which invaded Afghanistan, regarded as a "safe haven" for terrorists, in late 2001 to rid it of the Taliban.
In January 2002, President Bush named Iraq as part of what he described as an "axis of evil" in what he said was a "war on terror" against al-Qaeda and other groups.
The Iraq Inquiry has focused heavily on a series of meetings between President Bush and Tony Blair, including one at his Texan ranch in April 2002, about Iraq and what promises were given by the prime minister about British support in the event of military action.

Intelligence and Blair/Bush memos

The then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to commit British troops to the invasion, following a vote authorising military action in the House of Commons, was one of the most controversial foreign policy decisions of the past 50 years.
Mr Blair was one of more than 100 witnesses to give evidence to the inquiry, appearing before the panel twice, and the report will include details of declassified Cabinet papers, intelligence assessments of Iraq's weapons capability and private correspondence between Mr Blair and the then US President George W Bush relating to the conflict and the basis for the military intervention.
The panel had had to "assemble, assess and analyse" 150,000 government documents - many of which would otherwise have remained secret for 30 years.
The former prime minister has faced accusations that he agreed in principle to support US military intervention in Iraq as early as April 2002 and that he "exaggerated" and "misused" intelligence about Iraq's WMD capability - denied by Downing Street at the time.
Mr Blair has, on numerous occasions, defended his decision to commit British troops, saying he would do so again in the face of what he said had been a serious threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
But he has since "apologised" for what he has said were deficiencies in the intelligence about whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and its capacity to use them.

Families' reaction

The relatives of British troops and civilians killed in Iraq are being given access to the report prior to its publication although some are boycotting the occasion believing it will be a whitewash.
Sir John told the BBC the relatives had been "very much in our mind" throughout the process and had been "invaluable in helping to shape the report and where it would lead".

Media captionReg Keys explains why he wanted Tony Blair to listen to him after his son died in Iraq.

Media captionValerie O'Neill, who lost her son in the Iraq war, wants answers from the then PM Tony Blair

"I have been very conscious from the start that the families have high expectations and wish to know the truth of all that happened, in particular where their relatives were affected.
"I hope they will feel when they see the report that the broad questions they have in mind will have been, if not resolved, answered to the best of our ability.
"But the key point I would like to make is by revealing all the base of evidence we have, they can see our conclusions and why we have reached them but they can make up their own minds on the basis of the evidence."

UK military fatalities

Full details of the 179 British servicemen and women who died
Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in Iraq four days before his 21st birthday, told BBC Radio 5 live it had been a "grubby little war" and he believed Mr Blair had misled Parliament and the public.
And Karen Thornton, whose son Gunner Lee Thornton died in 2006 after being shot while on patrol in Iraq, told BBC Radio 4's Today that she wanted Mr Blair to face war crimes charges if it was proved he had lied.
"I think the people who lied should be held to account for what they have done," she said.
"They are responsible for the deaths of so many people."

The legality of the war

Arguments have raged since 2003 about the legal basis for the invasion although it is not clear whether the inquiry - whose specific remit was to give an account of what happened and to offer lessons for the future - will make a judgement on the issue.
The then attorney general Lord Goldsmith advised Mr Blair to seek explicit UN authorisation for military action but when diplomatic efforts failed informed him that intervention was lawful on the basis of previous UN resolutions on Iraq relating back to the 1991 Gulf War.
Sir John insisted criticism would be levelled at key figures where it was merited on the basis of a "rigorous" assessment of the evidence.
"We didn't set out to criticise individuals from the outset," he said. "We are not a court or a judge and jury.
"On the other hand I made very clear from the start when I launched the inquiry that if we came across things which deserved criticism, of individuals or institutions, we would not shy away from making them and indeed we have."

Post-war planning and the aftermath

Much of the report is expected to focus on the post-war planning for the governance of Iraq, originally undertaken by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, and how well equipped British troops were to oversee the large area of southern Iraq around Basra.
Many of the witnesses to the inquiry, including former ministers and military commanders, were highly critical of what they said were failures in the Ministry of Defence to provide the necessary resources and equipment and the UK's general deferral to the US in key areas.
Mr Blair has acknowledged there were shortcomings in post-war planning and a failure to anticipate the years of sectarian violence and bloodshed that ensued following the dismantling of the Iraqi army and other institutions.
Sir John said there would be no "hanging back" in the report and that although witnesses were not required to give evidence on oath, there had been no attempt to "cover up, hide or duck the issues".

Political reaction

The report will be released shortly before Prime Minister's Questions at midday and will dominate the exchanges between the party leaders.
David Cameron, who voted for the war while he was a backbencher, will then make a statement. Jeremy Corbyn, who was an implacable opponent and was one of nearly 140 Labour MPs who opposed the decision to go to war, will then reply for Labour
The SNP, which also opposed the war, said it wanted to know whether Tony Blair had supported the invasion "come what may", adding that those who failed in their duties must be held accountable for their actions.
"We have to understand how it was possible to go to war on the basis of a lie in the first place and then ask ourselves who was responsible and how do they face the responsibility," said Angus Robertson, the party's leader in Westminster.

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Wednesday, July 6, 2016