Blair on Iraq War report: I acted in UK’s best interests

Responding to the the damning Chilcot report on the UK’s involvement in the Iraq invasion, Tony Blair insists he acted in Britain’s “best interests.”

“Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country,” he says.

Blair highlights there was no “falsification of intelligence,” though the inquiry found the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons “were presented with a certainty that was not justified.”

Blair repeats his contention that it was “better to remove Saddam Hussein” than allow the Iraqi leader to stay in power.

“I do not believe this (Saddam’s removal) is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world,” he adds.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron, responding to the report in parliament, says Britain should “learn the lessons of the report.”

What John Chilcot says about the failure to plan is very, very clear,” Cameron says, according to the Guardian.

“We can argue whether military intervention is ever justified and I think it is, but planning for the aftermath is always difficult. I don’t think in this House we should be naive in any way that there’s a perfect set of plans that can solve these problems in perpetuity – there aren’t,” he says.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn complains that the report took too long, and says the Iraq war fueled a rise in terrorism worldwide.

— Agencies