Tony Blair faces calls for Iraq War legal action after Chilcot Report

Many commentators have always been calling for Blair to stand trial for his role in the Iraq war, but the Chilcot Report itself was inconclusive on the legal question of whether war crimes had been comitted.

The report also found the former British Prime Minister exaggerated the danger posed by Hussein, committed to war before all diplomatic solutions were exhausted, sent ill-prepared troops into battle, and had no viable strategy for the aftermath of war. “In my view, in my judgment, at the time and now, the world was and is better off without Saddam Hussein in power”.

Andrew Wilkie, the newly-re-elected independent MP for Denison, resigned in 2003 from his role as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments in protest against the Australian government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq, arguing military intervention was not justified and intelligence was misrepresented by politicians.

While Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott said that Mr Blair’s reputation had “bled to death in the sands of Iraq”.

If Hussein had been in power during the Arab Spring in 2011, Blair said, “I believe he would have tried to keep power” in the way that Syria’s President Assad has done.

But while Tony Blair argued the war was “the right thing to do”, Sir John’s report shows the call for intervention was based on “Mr. Blair’s determination to stand alongside the USA”.

But he was withering about Blair’s choice to sign up to a military plan drawn up in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by the U.S. president, George W Bush, and his neo-con team.

Blair said he took responsibility for “mistakes in planning and process” identified by the report, and felt “more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know” for the grief of those whose loved ones died.

The report stated that military action at the time “was not a last resort” and the then Iraq leader Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to global security.

“But I also think you put prime ministers in these positions to take decisions and to take them in what they believe to be the best interests of the country”.

She made the comments in response to Sir John Chilcot’s report into the conflict, which yesterday laid out a damning assessment of Mr Blair’s decision to join the USA in the invasion. “But obviously I can’t say what is the right type of equipment to use on the battlefield”.

Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the invasion has said the UK was “pushed” into entering military action too early by the US.

But Howard said Chilcot found the government had not doctored the dossier or pressured intelligence agencies to do so.

He said previous inquiries had not been far reaching enough and had wrongly placed all the blame on intelligence agencies.