Today Sir John Chilcot, after seven years of a commission investigation into the British role in the Iraq War, released what has been dubbed the Chilcot Report as he is the chairman of the Iraq Inquiry. You can read the very lengthy Report (index page to chapters). From Sir John Chilcot’s public statement:
We were appointed to consider the UK’s policy on Iraq from 2001 to 2009, and to identify lessons for the future. Our Report will be published on the Inquiry’s website after I finish speaking.
In 2003, for the first time since the Second World War, the United Kingdom took part in an invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign State. That was a decision of the utmost gravity. Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator who had attacked Iraq’s neighbours, repressed and killed many of his own people, and was in violation of obligations imposed by the UN Security Council.
But the questions for the Inquiry were:
- whether it was right and necessary to invade Iraq in March 2003; and
- whether the UK could – and should – have been better prepared for what followed.
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.