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The 6-year-in-the-making Chilcot Report into the Iraq War has been published
The inquiry commissioned by the British government into the Iraq War, covering the decision by the UK government to support the US, the preparation for the war, how the war was conducted, and how the aftermath was handled up until 2007, has been published.
The report contains 2.6 million words and is organized into 12 volumes.
In his speech at the publication ceremony, Sir John Chilcot stated that "We have concluded that 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."
Opponents of the war hope that this report will allow legal action to be taken against Tony Blair, however legal experts have expressed that this will not happen.
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the UK Labour Party, is expected to apologise on behalf of his party's involvement (although he personally voted against the war), while Alex Samond, former leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, may propose that Blair be impeached, which amounts to a gesture that would prevent Blair from ever taking office again.
Chilcot Report: Tony Blair Rushed Britain Into the Iraq War
The results of an inquiry about the British rush to enter the Iraq War have been released:
NPR's Lauren Frayer says that the 6,000 page report that came out of the John Chilcot led investigation, found that the Britain rushed to war before all peaceful means were exhausted. She filed this report for our Newscast unit:
Protesters yelled 'Tony Blair war criminal!' outside Britain's parliament. An investigation has concluded there was 'no imminent threat' by Saddam Hussein when Prime Minister Blair decided to invade, alongside the U.S.
It also reveals secret communications nine months before the war in which Blair told President George W. Bush, 'I will be with you whatever.' "Blair decided to invade before all the evidence was in, the report says. Families of the 179 British troops who died in Iraq are weighing lawsuits. "Blair issued a statement in his defense, saying he made the decision to go to war 'in good faith.'
Mr. Blair knew by January 2003 that Washington had decided to go to war to overthrow Mr. Hussein and accepted the American timetable for the military action by mid-March, pushing only for a second Security Council resolution that never came, 'undermining the Security Council's authority,' the report concludes.
The report is likely to underline in Britain the sense that Mr. Blair was 'Washington's poodle,' the phrase widely used by Mr. Blair's critics at the time. The report says the lessons from the British government's conduct are that 'all aspects' of military intervention 'need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigor,' and decisions, once made, 'need to be implemented fully.'
The BBC quotes Kadhim al-Jabbouri, a man who became a symbol of Iraqi anger after swinging a sledgehammer at a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein, as saying "Saddam has gone, and we have one thousand Saddams now. It wasn't like this under Saddam. There was a system. There were ways. We didn't like him, but he was better than those people. Saddam never executed people without a reason. He was as solid as a wall. There was no corruption or looting, it was safe. You could be safe."
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:07AM
Correct. The US wanted the oil and they wanted to not stand out and thus get UK to join them, not to cooperate. The first objects that were secured were oil fields. So the objective is clear. The question is what the people of the UK gets out of this? cheap oil? reliable oil deliveries?
Iraq and other Muslim countries perhaps need a dictator to make the society work? Something for Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Libya?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:27AM
Nooo. Not supporting the war at all, but there were good damn reasons to secure the wellheads first. Look up Red Adair, and fighting oil well fires.
Securing the oil fields first is a result of the Gulf War where Iraqi troops deliberately set fire to the fields. Once started they can be extremely difficult and dangerous to stop. You think it took 6 months to put out that single oil well fire because of general incompetence?
So they secured the oil fields first due to precedence set by that same army to destroy them when retreating/losing. Considering the massive cost of putting out the fires (in terms of lives and money), I don't exactly blame them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:50AM
The US wanted the oil
Think about it. Iraq supposedly has proven reserves of around 140 billion barrels of "proven reserve" right now. If that oil magically teleported itself onto the oil markets and was sold at the price it would have commanded in the middle of the last decade, sure you could clear several times what the US was spending on Iraq. In the absence of such, you just don't have that much value in controlling Iraqi oil aside from stabilizing the world oil markets.
It always strikes me as bizarre that people speak of the oil, when the money the US burned on the invasion and occupation was considerably bigger. The captive revenue stream of US federal taxes is much bigger than the oil production of Iraq.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @03:00AM
You are right, during 2002 a barrel of oil averaged about $25 in 2015 dollars. [inflationdata.com]
But you are also wrong in that the cost of the invasion was born by taxpayers while the profits of any oil extraction would go to the corporations who have lobbyists to convince to do things like invade.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 07 2016, @04:40AM
while the profits of any oil extraction would go to the corporations who have lobbyists to convince to do things like invade.
And considerably higher profits were to be had from war profiteering which including considerable oil extraction but which went well beyond just that.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday July 07 2016, @10:00AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by dak664 on Thursday July 07 2016, @04:14PM
Immigrants.