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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."
Also at Marketplace.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:40AM
The scare tactics used to convince the US population that war was "necessary" included the idea that Hussein had nuclear weapons, and that he could deploy them in about 40 minutes.
A simple who's who search prior to the war showed that Hussein no longer had a nuclear weapons program. All his scientists were scattered around half the world. Many were in academia, others working in "innocent" research, while yet others were entirely outside of the nuclear weapons world.
Without any security clearances at all, one could locate almost every member of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Unless one supposes that some uneducated military personnel took over everything, no one could believe that Hussein had an ongoing nuclear weapons program.
The rest of his WMD? Well, Hussein lacked the dehydration techniques necessary to give his weapons an extended shelf life. Again, prior to the invasion, knowledgable people were saying that any bio or chem weapons found would be deteriorated to the point of uselessness. Idiots in government responded with the idea of mobile chemical weapon laboratories.
The war was never justified by the reasons offered. The invasion of Iraq was an adventure, plain and simple. There was no necessity.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 07 2016, @04:46AM
The scare tactics used to convince the US population that war was "necessary" included the idea that Hussein had nuclear weapons, and that he could deploy them in about 40 minutes.
No, it was that Hussein had chemical weapons and that he had drones and missiles for deploying those chemical weapons. If he had nuclear weapons (or even a credible threat that the US was willing to acknowledge in public), that probably would have prevented the invasion or at least given it a relatively high likelihood that nuclear weapons would be used during the course of the invasion.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:24PM
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/here-are-50-despicable-things-george-w-bush-did-before-and-after-911/ [rawstory.com]
“We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” he said.
I'm looking for the actual speech - haven't found it yet . . . .
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/ [cnn.com]
Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
I listened to Bush give one speech in which he turned up the scare tactics. His thing was, Hussein could launch a nuclear missile in 40 minutes. That speech marked the height of Bush's paranoid fear mongering, and it went hand-in-hand with those forged yellow-cake documents. The Brits were stroking American fears, and we were stroking theirs. The two "intelligence" communities knew better, but Bush and Blair had that mutual masturbation thing going on, and cameras were on them - NOT on the intelligence people.
It seems that virtually everybody in the world has forgotten about Bush's claims of nuclear capabiility.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 07 2016, @08:48PM
It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.
So no claim that Iraq had nuclear weapons at the time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday July 07 2016, @10:07AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:26PM
It seems that I heard something about that, at some point, but I don't remember very clearly exactly what I heard. And, of course, I certainly didn't document anything - it's all there on the internet somewhere, if you know how to search for it.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 08 2016, @01:21AM
There was no necessity.
All these pet theories are nice and all, but I'm sure Mr. Murdoch would disagree. The only person that can settle the mystery of why the war happened is Maury Povich. We are talking about sociopaths here, and they are that crazy.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..