UK's Iraq Inquiry report declares Military action was wrong

[.]

Statement by Sir John Chilcot: 6 July 2016
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 neighbors, 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.

We have also concluded that:
• The judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – WMD – were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
• Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.
• The Government failed to achieve its stated objectives

More than 200 British citizens died as a result of the conflict in Iraq and more were injured

The invasion and subsequent instability in Iraq had, by July 2009, also resulted in the deaths of at least one hundred and fifty thousand Iraqis – and probably many more – most of them civilians. More than a million people were displaced. The people of Iraq have suffered greatly.

We have considered the post-conflict period in Iraq in great detail, including efforts to reconstruct the country and rebuild its security services.

After the invasion, the UK and the US became joint Occupying Powers. For the year that followed, Iraq was governed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. The UK was fully implicated in the Authority’s decisions, but struggled to have a decisive effect on its policies.
The Government’s preparations failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilizing, administering and reconstructing Iraq, and of the responsibilities which were likely to fall to the UK.

The UK took particular responsibility for four provinces in the South East. It did so without a formal Ministerial decision and without ensuring that it had the necessary military and civilian capabilities to discharge its obligations, including, crucially, to provide security.
The scale of the UK effort in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge. Whitehall departments and their Ministers failed to put collective weight behind the task.


From 2006, the UK military was conducting two enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not have sufficient resources to do so. Decisions on resources for Iraq were affected by the demands of the operation in Afghanistan.
For example, the deployment to Afghanistan had a material impact on the availability of essential equipment in Iraq, particularly helicopters and equipment for surveillance and intelligence collection.

By 2007 militia dominance in Basra, which UK military commanders were unable to challenge, led to the UK exchanging detainee releases for an end to the targeting of its forces.

It was humiliating that the UK reached a position in which an agreement with a militia group which had been actively targeting UK forces was considered the best option available.

The UK military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success.

We have sought to set out the Government’s actions on Iraq fully and impartially. The evidence is there for all to see. It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day.
There are many lessons set out in the Report.

Above all, the lesson is that all aspects of any intervention need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigour.
And, when decisions have been made, they need to be Implemented fully.
Sadly, neither was the case in relation to the UK Government’s actions in Iraq.
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

 

[Drashid]

In retrospect, it was a bad decision. In the words of Donald Trump, "Saddam was a b*stard, but he was our b*stard". If we wanted him gone, we should have made sure the transition was smooth instead of leaving Iraq to their own devices afterwards.

 

[Beast]

That is why UK Joined China AIIB , defy USA threaten and Brexit. British are sick of American lies and their empty promise which promise only more criminal immigrants entering UK and ruin the nation.

 

[ahojunk]

An Unwanted Birthday Present — Or Why W Was The Worst President In Recent History

07/08/2016 05:23 pm ET |

• Dennis Jett Professor of International Affairs, Penn State University

Last Wednesday, July 6th, was George W. Bush’s 70th birthday and should have been an occasion for celebration. He got a present that he probably would rather not have received, however — the long-awaited report on the British role in the invasion of Iraq. The report offered no real surprises but validated the judgment of those who, like the author of a recent biography of Bush, believe he is the worst president in recent history. It was also a reminder of just how little Americans care about that assessment and its consequences.

The report was the product of the Chilcot Inquiry, a commission headed by Sir John Chilcot, a former British civil servant. The investigation, which took seven years and cost around $15 million, was ordered by then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Its mandate was to examine British actions before and during the war and to determine what lessons could be learned from the experience.

The commission looked at over 150,000 documents, interviewed scores of witnesses and wrote a report that runs 12 volumes and 2.6 million words (four times the length of Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.”) It is for sale for 800 British pounds, which even with the sinking value of the British currency thanks to the referendum voting to leave the European Union, is still well over a thousand dollars.

For those not interested in investing the time and money required to read the report, here are its major conclusions as summarized by the British press:

• military action was not a last resort as the options short of war had not been exhausted;
• there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the threat they supposedly posed was grossly exaggerated;
• the intelligence supporting the need for the invasion and the existence of WMD was presented with a certainty that was unjustified and proved to be almost entirely wrong;
• planning for post-war Iraq was wholly inadequate;
• the war did not achieve its stated objectives and was a failure;
• the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory. (Which is a polite way of saying it was illegal under international law.);
• the consequences of the invasion were underestimated; and
• Prime Minister Tony Blair overestimated his influence with Bush.

At the time, Blair was often referred to by critics as Bush’s poodle because of their close relationship. The report includes copies of Blair’s messages to Bush, which show they were discussing toppling Saddam Hussein a month after 9/11 and that in July 2002 Blair promised Bush “I will be with you, whatever.”

The British lost 179 servicemen in the war, and pressure from their families helped prompt the writing of the report. It cost the lives of nearly 4,500 Americans, but there is little interest in an honest American accounting or even an acknowledgement of its consequences. Republicans want to forget it and most Democrats, who did not have the courage to slow the march to war, do as well. For instance, there is no official estimate of how many Iraqi civilians have died even though a case can be made that Bush is responsible for more of their deaths than Saddam Hussein was. Those that reject that possibility do so out of a desire to avoid thinking about the costs of the war rather than any objective analysis of it.

All the failings of the British government documented by the Chilcot Inquiry are merely reflections of the failures, duplicity and dishonesty of the American government. So happy birthday Mr. President. Let’s hope the report solidifies the notion that even Donald Trump accepts — that the war was as avoidable as it was disastrous. May your place in history (and those of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and Tenet) always reflect that.