Bush cycles with vets as review blasting Iraq War released

He said it’s hard to explain the report which included 2.6 million words and took nearly 7 years to finish, but he made the key points very clear.

Families of the 179 British troops who died in Iraq are weighing lawsuits. “I thought of our alliance with America and its importance to us in the post 9/11 world and I weighed it carefully with the heaviest of hearts”.

A British inquiry into the Iraq War was to deliver its long-awaited report yesterday, with critics of the US-led invasion hoping it will condemn former Prime Minister Tony Blair, while some families of slain soldiers fear it may be a whitewash.

Today Mr Kilfoyle said he had “not read the report, obviously” but from reports he believes it “confirms what we have always known”.

In his damning report on the Iraq war, released on Wednesday, Sir John Chilcot slams security agencies such as MI6 over major errors in their intelligence gathering and assessments.

Visibly emotional, Mr Blair looked close to tears as he took “full responsibility” for any mistakes in Iraq, but he maintained a strident defence over the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Mr Campbell, who served as director of communications and strategy for ex-prime minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, had denied any spin, despite claims of chemical and biological weapons later emerging to be false.

A former Australian army chief on Thursday warned Australia against “blindly going along with” the United States after an inquiry was critical of Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war.

The inquiry was set up in 2009 by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was under pressure for a public accounting of the conflict.

The much-delayed inquiry report contains major criticisms of Tony Blair’s decision to commit United Kingdom forces to take part in the conflict “before peaceful options for disarmament” had been fully exhausted.

But it revealed that in July that year – eight months before Parliament approved military action – the PM committed himself in writing to backing the USA president over Iraq, telling him: “I will be with you whatever”. “But in March 2003 there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein”. Basically what Chilcot said is they did sex up the case for war.

But he was defiant on the central decision to go to war, saying: “there were no lies, Parliament and Cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war, intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith”.

Detail of a declassified handwritten letter sent by Blair, to Bush.

Mr Cameron said: “I think you’re absolutely right that providing the correct military equipment is an absolute obligation on government and I think huge steps forward have been taken in the last few years to make that happen”. After referring to the opposition he was facing back home, Blair says, “At the moment, oddly, our best ally might be Russian Federation!”

The one man who did apologize to them directly was Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn. Members on all sides who voted for military action will have to take our fair share of the responsibility.

However, Peter Kilfoyle had led the biggest backbench rebellion against the Blair government up to that time when he and 121 other Labour MPs defied the whips to try to thwart the war even in the face of hostility from their parliamentary colleagues.

“Our focus is on trying to get a political transition in Syria, trying to defeat Daesh (the Islamic State group) in Iraq and Syria; trying to help Prime Minister (Haider al-)Abadi make the necessary political and economic reforms he knows he needs to make in his country”, he said.