Bush hasn’t read Chilcot report, but says world better off without Saddam

Blair’s cabinet agreed to invade Iraq, if Saddam Hussein did not accept a final USA ultimatum to leave within 48 hours, in March 2003.

Retired civil servant Chilcot said his report was “an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day”.

Mr Twigg, who voted in favour of invasion in 2003, said responsibility for the murder of “so many civilians” lay with “Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and its offshoots, and, of course, ISIS”.

“The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong, the aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined”.

“We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory”, said John Chilcot, the inquiry’s chairman, in a speech presenting his findings.

Former prime minister John Howard has responded to the Chilcot report into the war in Iraq, maintaining his decision to send Australian troops into the conflict was justified at the time.

“It is true that I took a decision, and I stand by that decision, that we should be right alongside America in dealing with these decisions post-9/11 and that included the issue of Iraq”.

It revealed that the former prime minister had told his USA counterpart, George W. Bush, that he was ‘with you, whatever’ regarding military action in Iraq and deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by dictator Saddam Hussein.

The hugely anticipated Chilcot report offered a damning verdict on Britain’s role in the US-led war, detailing the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and inadequate preparation for the occupation.

“They fought in the defining global security struggle of the 21st century against the terrorism and violence which the world over destroys lives, divides communities”, he said.

“I can regret the mistakes and I can regret many things about it but I genuinely believe, not just that we acted out of good motives, and I did what I did out of good faith, but I sincerely believe that we would be in a worse position if we hadn’t acted that way”.

Mr Little said the Iraq invasion sparked regional instability, and created a power vacuum that had now been filled by Islamic State.

I have no reason to disbelieve what he’d said.

Col Mansoor, a key American strategist and critic of the invasion, said the UK’s refusal to back the action would have “given the Bush administration some pause” and slammed the flawed intelligence that led to the decision.

O’Connor said terrorists killed my brother, but “in that sentence of terrorists, I include Mr Blair”.

‘In the years that have gone by there’s been this constant claim that we went to war based on a lie, ‘ Mr Howard said in Sydney on Thursday.