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Chilcot report live: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you can ever believe,' says Blair
Chilcot report live: Blair expresses 'sorrow and apology' but mounts lengthy defence of Iraq war strategy
(35 minutes later)
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Blair turns to his attitude to America - which is also criticised by Chilcot.
Blair criticises Chilcot for not considering what might have happened if Saddam had remained in power
He says the attack on 9/9 was like no other. It was perceived as an attack on freedom.
Q: Isn’t it disingenuous to say what is happening in Syria now has no links to Iraq? Some of the Islamic State figures are people held in American camps in Iraq.
He says Britain’s strong relationship with America led to America seeking an international coalition to fight al-Qaeda.
Blair says he is not saying there is no link. But Isis only flourished when ungovernable space opened up in Syria.
He says there should be two pillars to Britain’s foreign policy: a strong relationship with the US, and a strong relationship with Europe.
He says nowhere in the report does Chilcot say what might have happened if Saddam had been left in power.
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Blair says the invasion led to Libya disarming, and the shutting down of the AQ Khan nuclear network.
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Blair criticises the modern “addiction” to believing the worst of everyone.
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Blair says he accepts responsibility for his decision.
But he asks people “with humility” to accept why he did what he did.
He took the decision he did because he thought it was right and because he thought the cost of inaction would be greater.
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14:37
Blair rejects Chilcot’s claim that decision to invade Iraq could have been delayed
Blair says he persuaded Bush to go down the UN route.
That was backed up by the threat of military action.
He says troops could not have been kept on standby for much longer.
Referring to Chilcot’s claim that he undermined the authority of the UN (see 12.09pm), he says it was the failure to uphold UN security council resolution 1441 that undermined its authority.
He says by the time they got to March he faced a binary choice. Delaying was no longer an option.
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Blair says there was no rush to war
Blair asks people to imagine his position. You are seeing the evidence mount up on WMDs; you are considering the possibility of a terrorism attack; and you have a duty to protect the country.
He says there was no rush to war.
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Blair says the fear of the US administration, which he shared, was that terrorist groups would obtain WMDs. The calculus of risk changed after 9/11, he says.
As Tony Blair continues to answer questions, here are the Guardian’s Luke Harding and Ewen MacAskill with their reaction to the Chilcot report.
Saddam’s regime was the place to start, not because he was the only person to have these weapons, but because his record suggested he would be willing to use them.
The final Iraq Survey Group report found that Saddam did indeed intend to go back to developing WMD programmes.
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Here is the full quote from the start of Blair’s address:
Q: You could have said no, and let America invade on its own. Our forces did not play an important part.
The decision to go to war in Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power in a coalition of over 40 countries led by the USA, was the hardest, most momentous, most agonising decision I took in 10 years as British prime minister.
Blair says he does not accept that. Our forced played a big role, he says.
For that decision today I accept full responsibility, without exception and without excuse. I recognise the division felt by many in our country over the war and in particular I feel deeply and sincerely – in a way that no words can properly convey – the grief and suffering of those who lost ones they loved in Iraq, whether the members of our armed forces, the armed forces of other nations, or Iraqis.
And if Britain had abandoned the US at the last moment, that would have been a big decision, he says.
The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined. The coalition planned for one set of ground facts and encountered another, and a nation whose people we wanted to set free and secure from the evil of Saddam, became instead victim to sectarian terrorism.
3.09pm BST
For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.
15:09
Q: You said to President Bush in July 2002 you would be with him “whatever”. That looked like a blank cheque.
Blair says it was not a blank cheque. It was not read that way in America, as correspondence with Colin Powell shows, he says.
And the letter was about going down the UN route. That meant, if Iraq complied with the terms of the UN resolution, there would have been no war.
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15:08
Blair's Q&A
Q: Would you do it again? And what do you say to the families of the soldiers who died who want you to look them in the eye and say you did not mislead them?
Blair says he can look the nation in the eye and say he did not mislead them.
And he cannot say he took the wrong decision, he says.
He says many people disagreed with him. That is their right. There were no lies. But there was a decision. There was a decision to get rid of Saddam Hussein and to stand by America. He says Chilcot came close to disagreeing.
But if you disagree, you have to consider what the alternatives are.
He says decision makers have to take decisions.
If you are not prepared to say what else you would do, you are a commentator, not a decision maker.
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15:04
Blair is winding up now.
He thanks Sir John Chilcot and his team, and pays tribute to the late Sir Martin Gilbert.
We cannot make decisions with hindsight, he says. But we can learn from mistakes.
There will not be a day of my life when I do not relive and rethink what happened.
He says this is why he is spending so much time working to promote peace in the Middle East.
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Blair says he wants to explain what happened.
Blair is now addressing what lessons can be learnt.
His premiership changed completely on 9/11, he says.
He says since stepping down as prime minister he has been studying the origins of Islamist extremism. This is a global problem, he says.
It was the worst terrorist attack ever.
He say he has seen today’s politicians deal with the same problems he faced in Libya and Syria.
He says for more than 20 years the regime of Saddam Hussein had been a source of conflict and bloodshed.
He will publish more detailed proposals in due course.
Saddam ruled with an unparalleled brutality. His was the only regime to have used WMDs. There was evidence al-Qaida wanted to use these weapons. And 9/11 showed they would have used them.
He says the problem is that, in these countries, extremism spreads if there is a power vacuum. That is why in a country like Syria it would be best to negotiate with withdrawal of the regime.
He says it is important to show that the west is not just intervening in Muslim countries.
A different type of military approach is necessary, he says.
He says western countries have a low tolerance of casualties. That means they are reluctant to commit ground forces. But the western troops are best. That means there is a need for a rethink. There might be a case for demanding a different level of commitment, he says.
He says international rules need to be revised.
To combat extremism, a strategy is needed, combining hard power and soft power.
The west has to decide whether it has a strategic interest in fighting Islamist extremism. And it needs to consider what commitment it should make. Blair says his view is that the west should commit to this.
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But Blair says there are two things that he cannot do.
Blair says that if Saddam had been left in power, there might have been an Arab spring uprising in Iraq, with Saddam in power. And that would have created another Syria, he says.
He will not say he regrets getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
He says in 2010 Iraq was relatively stable.
And he will never accept that soldiers died in vain.
Islamic State emerged in Syria, after the uprising started there, he says.
He says they died in the struggle against terror, the defining struggle of our time.
He says at least there is a legitimate government in Iraq.
He says he knows some relatives cannot accept this.
He is not excusing the failures, he says. But he says all decisions are difficult in a dangerous world. And the only thing a decision maker can do is take decisions.
He says the report says there were no lies, and decisions were taken in good faith.
But the report makes serious criticisms, he says.
But he says it is wrong to blame the armed forces.
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Tony Blair's press conference
Blair says he does not accept that it would have been better to have left Saddam in place.
Tony Blair is giving a press conference now.
He would have been strengthened if the US had backed down, he says.
He says he will make a long statement. Then he will take questions for as long as necessary.
He says the decision to go to war was the hardest he took.
He takes full responsibility for what happened, without exception or excuse.
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In the Commons Jeremy Corbyn was heckled by the Labour MP Ian Austin when he was delivering his statement about the Chilcot report. Austin shouted:
Blair says full legal advice should have been shown to cabinet
Sit down and shut up. You’re a disgrace.
Blair says he accepts it would have been better to have given the full legal advice to cabinet.
This has outraged some Corbyn supporters, but Austin does not seem too bothered. He has retweeted this.
But it was not requested by cabinet, he says. And it was not normal to share it with cabinet.
@frankthetank622 @AMoveToTheLeft If you witnessed @IanAustinMP heckle Jeremy & are upset plz report him to rosie.winterton.mp@parliament.uk
Blair says he accepts there is case for sharing it with parliament too.
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Blair says cabinet should have been given an options paper on Iraq
He says the cabinet debated Iraq 26 times before the invasion.
But he could and should have insisted on an options paper being debated by cabinet, he says.
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Alastair Campbell is on BBC News now. He says Tony Blair “was not giving George Bush a blank cheque”. He says there were “no easy decisions on the table”.
Blair turns to the planning for post-conflict Iraq.
He says the deaths of British soldiers and Iraqis weigh heavily on him.
He says the inquiry has identified serious failings. But the inquiry itself could not suggest alternative approaches, he says.
Q: If Blair said ‘I will be with you whatever’, isn’t that a blank cheque?
He says his planning focused on the risks he was warned about: a humanitarian disaster, the use of WMDs and reconstruction problems.
Campbell says Blair was signalling his support, just as he did when he told the Americans in public after 9/11 that he would be with them whatever.
But the main problem was terrorism. This had not been anticipated, he says.
He says Cameron was right to say it would be a mistake to rule out further military interventions.
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In the Commons David Cameron is still responding to questions. Adapting one of Tony Blair’s most famous comments, the SDLP MP Mark Durkan said that this was not a day for soundbites, but today was a day when “the hand of history should be feeling someone’s collar”. Cameron laughed, and said MPs had to take responsibility for their actions.
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Vikram Dodd
Scotland Yard’s war crimes unit is not studying the Iraq inquiry report nor was it given an advance copy by Chilcot’s team.
Critics of the war have claimed it was illegal and may have amounted to a war crime. But there is currently no involvement by UK police, and nothing has been referred to them. In a statement Scotland Yard said: “The Chilcot inquiry has not referred any matters to police for criminal investigation at any stage in their work.”
The war crimes unit is part of Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism command, which when it does investigate cases, works closely with the Crown Prosecution Service
The CPS has published this guide to investigating war crimes, including an email address to refer cases. There may be different opinions about whether anything in the vast report may possibly amount to an offence under United Kingdom criminal law.
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Alastair Campbell, who was Tony Blair’s communications director at the time of the Iraq war, has written a long post on his blog about Chilcot. He welcomes the fact that he has not been accused of “sexing up” the dossier about Iraq’s WMDs. And he says it important to remember that leaders have to take difficult decisions. He concludes:
I am going to leave the final word in this piece to the constitutional expert, Professor Vernon Bogdanor. Last month he gave a long and thoughtful lecture on the Iraq war, at Gresham College in London. It was a calm and cold-headed analysis and merits careful reading. But I was particularly struck by his final paragraph.
‘Of course, with hindsight, all things might have been done differently, but as President Bush said, and on this I agree with him, “Hindsight is not a strategy. Everyone’s hindsight is better than the most acute foresight.” My conclusion,’ said Bogdanor, ‘is that there are no easy answers, that Bush and Blair were faced with an almost impossible dilemma, and that all of us should be very grateful that we were not in their shoes and did not have to make their difficult decisions.’
The Chilcot inquiry panel knows a lot about foreign policy, and about government process. They have been through millions of documents and produced a huge and challenging piece of work. But ultimately, as they recognise, they have never actually had to make the decision they have been examining. Such decisions are the stuff of leadership, which may explain why David Cameron, whose statement I have just listened to as I finish this, seemed to be speaking with considerable sympathy and support for his predecessor. He knows how hard these decisions are. He also knows that there may well be times in the future where we have to put our armed forces in harm’s way once more.
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In the Commons the Green MP Caroline Lucas told David Cameron he and his party should take responsibility for their decision to vote for the war. In his reply Cameron said he did not see the point in going back over old arguments.
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The Labour MP Frank Field says Tony Blair should apologise for the decision he took. Field said:
A considered verdict on the Iraq war will evolve over the next few weeks as the Chilcot report is read fully. What is now clear is the total incompetence of Tony Blair in launching a war and having no plan for the day after the Iraqi regime was overthrown.
That gigantic political error resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, as well as 179 British soldiers. The Middle East has been thrown into chaos. Tony Blair maintains he has nothing to apologise for. If this record is not one which warrants an apology, it is difficult to think what is.
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Here is Mike Hookem, the Ukip defence spokesman, on the Chilcot report:
Blair’s quest for personal prestige on the international stage, the failure of the intelligence community and the failure of MPs to properly research the UN’s reasons for not backing military action led to the UK’s armed forces being condemned to seven years of hell for which they were underequipped and not properly supported.
The report shines a spotlight on the glaring failures of the government to have any kind of pre- or post-conflict planning which would inevitably lead to the rise of another fundamentalist group as we now have with Daesh (Isis).
Each and every one of those involved in taking the UK into Iraq should hang their heads in shame as they have failed both the armed forces and the British people as a whole.
