UK report excoriates Blair for joining 2003 Iraq invasion

The head of Britain’s Iraq War inquiry has released a damning report on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with “wholly inadequate” planning, and ended “a long way from success.”

Retired civil servant John Chilcot, who oversaw the seven-year inquiry, says “the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.”

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, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.

Chilcot says then-prime minister Tony Blair’s government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons with “certainty that was not justified.” He also finds military planning for the war and its aftermath were not up to the task.

“The people of Iraq have suffered greatly” because of a military intervention “which went badly wrong,” he says. But he refrains from saying whether the 2003 invasion was legal, and does not find that Blair and his government knowingly misled Parliament or the British public.

His conclusions are a blow to Blair, who told President George W. Bush eight months before the March 2003 invasion — without consulting government colleagues — “I will be with you whatever.”

The report says Blair went to war to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Britain’s main ally, only to find the UK excluded from most important decision-making about the military campaign and its aftermath.

“Mr. Blair, who recognized the significance of the post-conflict phase, did not press President Bush for definite assurances about US plans,” the report reads.

— AP