5 revelations from Chilcot’s damning report into the Iraq war
RT News | July 6, 2016
http://on.rt.com/7ht4

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The long-awaited findings of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the invasion of Iraq by Britain in 2003 were finally published on Wednesday...

t has taken seven years, £10 million (US$ 13 million) and 2.6 million words to investigate whether it was right and necessary for the UK to invade Iraq, and whether the UK could and should have been better prepared for what followed.

RT has identified some of the main points of the report.

Britain chose to join the invasion of Iraq in 2003 before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, and military action was “not a last resort,” the Chilcot Inquiry has found.

The report says there was no imminent threat from Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

“Intervention may have been needed at some point but in March 2003, there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein,” Chilcot says.

The report says then-Prime Minister Tony Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by the Iraqi regime as he sought to make the case for military action to MPs and the public. Blair had disregarded warnings about the potential consequences of military action and relied too heavily on his own beliefs, Chilcot says.

In July 2002, well over six months before the invasion of Iraq, Blair wrote to then-US President George Bush promising him that the UK would be there with him “whatever,” Chilcot says.

He says Britain should not have gone along with US wishes when they did not necessarily match its own.