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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: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:13AM
I find it a bit odd that in the UK there's quite a strong movement to have Blair impeached but in the US there seems to be no appetite at all to impeach Bush (or any of the others involved).
I wonder why that is?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:20AM
Or treated long term memory in the US. I am not sure which.
Put simply the US, whether due to media, politicians, or puppetmasters is quickly made to forget past transgressions until it is politically, legally, or financially beneficial to shine the spotlight on them once again. For the rich and powerful of this country it is just a circlejerk of one upsmanship, downsmanship, and leveraging things for yourself and your cronies^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGod and Country.
Quite frankly given the Panopticon attitude taking place in the UK I am not sure there is that much practical difference in governance between there and here however.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:28AM
Well, the Labour party seems to have become more liberal, there are more parties in the UK so there is less of a good vs. evil mentality shit show as we have with Dems vs Reps, and there have already been fall guys for the war over here, like Colin Powell. I've also never heard of a former leader in the U.S. being impeached. I do remember (circa 2008) that Obama/DNC quickly quashed any notion that former Bush administration officials would be prosecuted. That could be another failure of the two-party system; the two parties are so mainstream that neither can afford to rock the boat much by listening to their extreme wings, and administrations from both parties are likely to commit some of the same types of crimes anyway (war crimes, warrantless surveillance).
A lot of the same reasons apply for potential war crimes prosecutions, as well as the fact that the U.S. hasn't signed on to the same treaties like the Rome Statute [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:01AM
The logic is basically that once that door is opened, it will be regularly used as a political weapon. Hard to say how true that is. Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow-job instead of something substantial which was a real low point in american politics and nobody has been impeached since (maybe because it was such an invalid use of impeachment). So impeachment of a sitting president might not be a valid analogy for a war-crimes prosecution of a former president.
Plus the bar would be pretty high. The results of his actions are a clusterfuck obvious to all but the most partisan. But his intentions are a lot more grey. The more I learn of the bush presidency the more I believe it was a perfect storm of lack of wisdom and failure of imagination and not anything close to a conspiracy. Even if we made an example out of him, it is unlikely the lesson would be learned by the next fool in office because fools don't know when they are being foolish.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 07 2016, @01:45PM
There is really no bar higher than starting an unnecessary war, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and destabilizing an entire region. If that's not an impeachable, prosecutable offense, then nothing is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:49PM
Name one president, prime-minister, or equivalent that was impeached for starting a war.
Even banana republic cases where the reason was just a pretext for political machination.
I bet you can't.
In the US's case he did not go to war alone. While the president pushed for it, he had the authorization of congress. If you impeach him you gotta take out everybody who voted for it too.
Ultimately your argument is intellectually empty, you are just righteous and reaching for any handy stone to throw. That's great and all, but don't think its anything more well informed than a drunk argument at a bar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @09:46PM
Name one president, prime-minister, or equivalent that was impeached for starting a war.
Rudolf Hess? Franz von Papen? Albert Speer? Hermann Göring? Some others avoided impeachment by taking the coward's way out.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 07 2016, @10:36PM
"Intellectually empty?" No, it is your argument that is morally bankrupt. If you can excuse gratuitous mass murder, then nothing else you might say, no word that passes your lips, has any meaning at all.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:34AM
For nearly a century or more former US Presidents are functionally "retired" here even if they give speeches, they're no longer as involved as the self-important man Envoy Blair has become. Thus any censuring would be a waste of political capital.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @09:42AM
I don't think Blair is important. Wasn't Ginger Spice a UN envoy?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @01:17AM
Initially there was (from the left and disenfranchised), but with the election of Obama, it's harder to justify when the policies never changed. You essentially have both major parties guilty and not enough political clout from outside the establishment for it to gain any traction.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:25AM
In June 2008, Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush in the Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_George_W._Bush [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 07 2016, @03:06AM
It didn't take that long for Kucinich to be forced out of politics by a little redistricting. Wexler doesn't seem to have been forced out; he resigned voluntarily to take another job.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @03:44AM
John Ashe didn't fare so well.