Chilcott Enquiry Finally Published

[Tetchytyke]

The key findings so far are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36721645

The main points are:
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.
The judgements about the severity of threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - known as WMD - were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
Intelligence had "not established beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.
Policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence assessments. It was not challenged, and should have been.
The circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were "far from satisfactory".
There was "little time" to properly prepare three military brigades for deployment in Iraq. The risks were neither "properly identified nor fully exposed" to ministers, resulting in "equipment shortfalls".
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 the stated objectives it had set itself in Iraq. More than 200 British citizens died as a result of the conflict. Iraqi people suffered greatly. By July 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis had died, probably many more. More than 1m were displaced.

In short, it was a badly-planned and badly-executed war, delivered for the political expediency of the Government of the time. The military were under-prepared and under-funded, they had no plan as to what would happen when Hussein was deposed, and they had limited justification for doing it anyway.

Sounds remarkably similar to what has happened in Syria and what is about to happen with Brexit.

Still, it's 2,500,000 words to say "we all told you so". It'll be interesting what the next steps are. I can imagine a lot of lawyers taking interest in this now...

 

[miami]

Is David Kelly mentioned at all?

 

[TheEdge]

I'd like to hope a certain Mr Blair is soiling himself right about now. I'm sure he isn't though.

 

[Harbornite]

In case anyone wants to read the full thing (obviously that will take a long time), thrn here's a link to it.


www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-report/

 

[ainsworth74]

Well I'll see you all sometime next year once I finished reading it all

 

[northwichcat]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

Have you spotted something which hasn't yet been covered by BBC News? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your comments and page reference numbers.

 

[Domh245]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

When the thing is 2.6 million words long, if we waited for them to read it all we wouldn't hear from them until next year!

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes I think in this case with the full report being so long it's not unreasonable to ask for members of the public to get in touch with anything they find that hasn't already been covered. It also doesn't mean that they've stopped reading it and if they are going to publish any information in good time they've not really got a choice but to publish before they finish the whole thing!

 

[Harbornite]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

Give them a chance. :roll:

 

[AlterEgo]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

It takes nine days to read. They'll be reporting off the executive summary at this stage.

 

[Groningen]

It is summer; so if one offers to read it and give up his or her holiday. Maybe it is still raining in the UK of Farage's tears.

 

[northwichcat]

It takes nine days to read. They'll be reporting off the executive summary at this stage.

Until some clueless manager says one person takes 9 days means 24 people can do the job in 3 hours. :roll:

I was pointing out the BBC disclaimer as it's unusual not because I expected the journalists to have read the report.

 

[AlterEgo]

Until some clueless manager says one person takes 9 days means 24 people can do the job in 3 hours. :roll:

I was pointing out the BBC disclaimer as it's unusual not because I expected the journalists to have read the report.

Ah right. It certainly is unusual. I'm a PR these days; it will be interesting a week down the line when the full report has been digested. Sometimes the finer detail is more revealing than the summary.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well I'll see you all sometime next year once I finished reading it all

Maybe after you've finished it, you can write up a short summary for us? Say, keep it to 100 000 words?

And next year???? Even if you mean 1 January next year, that would only be about 14000 words a day - or about 30 pages of a typical novel. Surely you can read a bit faster than that?

 

[ainsworth74]

Maybe after you've finished it, you can write up a short summary for us? Say, keep it to 100 000 words?

I'll do my best!

And next year???? Even if you mean 1 January next year, that would only be about 14000 words a day - or about 30 pages of a typical novel. Surely you can read a bit faster than that?

Well I do work for living you know! I've even been known to need to sleep, sometimes eat and occasionally engage in social interactions!

 

[richw]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

I've noticed that addition at the bottom of a majority BBC news articles recently.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Journalists are even admitting they've published news stories without reading the report:

Now why is it that I am not surprised to hear of this....

 

[Busaholic]

I believe a semi-colon should have been used in place of a colon on page 12,856, otherwise I have no comment, because nothing will change as a result of this report, no-one will face prosecution or even lose their pension, lessons will not have been learned and the poor benighted people of Iraq, Syria etc will still be left to their own devices and collective misery. In the meantime parts of Europe (the geographical area) will do their damnedest to replicate mid/ late 1930s mindsets by electing politicians who will pander to the basest instincts of the most stupid and venal, with consequences that will probably last the lifetimes of most people on this forum. And that's without considering the possibility of President Trump.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

One minor thing that did strike me was Tony Blair's comment in his response (my emphasis):

Neither history nor the fierce and raucous conduct of modern politics, with all its love of conspiracy theory and its addiction to believing the worst of everyone, should falsify my motive.

His point about the popularity of believing the worst of everyone is exactly what I've been saying repeatedly in various debates on railforums over the last few years: That too many people these days needlessly assume that politicians, and others who disagree with them are acting in bad faith, rather than accepting that there is a genuine disagreement about what the best approach is.

The ultimate irony was when on BBC News, the BBC showed Tony Blair's speech - including his apology about how things turned out - to someone who immediately said words to the effect that he thought Blair was lying and didn't really mean his apology. That of course perfectly illustrates the very point that Tony Blair was making!

 

[Tetchytyke]

too many people these days needlessly assume that politicians, and others who disagree with them are acting in bad faith

Sometimes there is a genuine disagreement about the best approach, but more often than not it is a dogmatic approach. Look at the junior doctors' dispute: all the experts are telling Jeremy Hunt it's a bad idea, all the junior doctors are telling him this, yet he's the only one who believes it should happen. He's either stupid or disingenuous, and people don't get 1st Class degrees from Oxford University if they are stupid. It's the same with the welfare reform: all the experts were saying it was a bad idea that wouldn't work, the only person pushing for it was Iain Duncan-Smith, and guess what. The experts were right. Once again, IDS was either being malicious or idiotic, and I believe he's many things but an idiot isn't one of them.

 

[TheKnightWho]

Sometimes there is a genuine disagreement about the best approach, but more often than not it is a dogmatic approach. Look at the junior doctors' dispute: all the experts are telling Jeremy Hunt it's a bad idea, all the junior doctors are telling him this, yet he's the only one who believes it should happen. He's either stupid or disingenuous, and people don't get 1st Class degrees from Oxford University if they are stupid. It's the same with the welfare reform: all the experts were saying it was a bad idea that wouldn't work, the only person pushing for it was Iain Duncan-Smith, and guess what. The experts were right. Once again, IDS was either being malicious or idiotic, and I believe he's many things but an idiot isn't one of them.

I agree with you. Indeed, debate is a lot less rational than most people would like to assume, and is usually based on trying to rationalise a gut feeling, rather than one's inclination coming from what one has rationalised. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else.

It's the reason why debates can rumble on and on with no-one being convinced and arguments being come up with on the spot, because the rationalisation is more of a performance than a genuine attempt to discuss views.

 

[Phil.]

One minor thing that did strike me was Tony Blair's comment in his response (my emphasis):



His point about the popularity of believing the worst of everyone is exactly what I've been saying repeatedly in various debates on railforums over the last few years: That too many people these days needlessly assume that politicians, and others who disagree with them are acting in bad faith, rather than accepting that there is a genuine disagreement about what the best approach is.

The ultimate irony was when on BBC News, the BBC showed Tony Blair's speech - including his apology about how things turned out - to someone who immediately said words to the effect that he thought Blair was lying and didn't really mean his apology. That of course perfectly illustrates the very point that Tony Blair was making!

Bliar saw the report several days before the public. He's had time to rehearse his speech. The man is a disgrace. Middle East peace envoy my 4r5e!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Have any officially accepted comments been forthcoming from George W Bush since the report was finally published?

 

[Phil.]

Have any officially accepted comments been forthcoming from George W Bush since the report was finally published?

He's probably waiting and looking for someone to tell him what to say.

 

[ainsworth74]

Surely more to the point is does anyone outside of the UK even care about our report?

 

[DarloRich]

Have any officially accepted comments been forthcoming from George W Bush since the report was finally published?

Surely more to the point is does anyone outside of the UK even care about our report?

no - the US state department said they wouldn't look at it or respond.

And more to the point most people in the UK don't care about what the report actually says, just what they want it to say. The press are the worst; hoping to memory hole what they said then and present themselves as moral champions now.

 

[yorksrob]

Surely more to the point is does anyone outside of the UK even care about our report?

According to The Times, newspapers in France and Russia are widely reporting the outcome as a vindication of their countries policy at the time.

President Obama is also said to have commented that he had opposed the war at the time and that he had spent his entire presidency sorting out the various consequences. (apologies - can't link as I only have the paper version).

 

[Greenback]

I think that the report has mostly just set out what most of the people in the UK believe. I don't think that there was ever much appetite for the invasion of Iraq, a lot of people suspected that the deal with Bush to support his policy to invade come what may had been done long before the actual invasion. I also think that many of us thought that it was some kind of punishment for 9/11.

As far as I'm concerned the report has been an expensive exercise in stating the obvious, and since nothing much will result from it, I don't really see the point of it.

Though it's always nice to see eminent Lord's agreeing with what I always thought and said!

 

[northwichcat]

Surely more to the point is does anyone outside of the UK even care about our report?

It's been reported in the US, Canada and Ireland as well as by international news networks based outside the UK

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/world/europe/chilcot-report.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/worl...blair-defends-decision-to-go-to-war-1.2712845
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/uk-chilcot-inquiry-1.3666509
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/c...eleased-stops-short-saying-blair-lied-n604461
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/chilcot-report-tony-blair-focus-launch-160706040621724.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/05/opinions/chilcot-inquiry-blair-bush-iraq/

Even pro-Republican Fox News has mentioned it but published the below from Bush's spokeman.

In a statement, Bush spokesman Freddy Ford explained that the former president hasn't had the chance to read the Chilcot report and that "despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."

"He is deeply grateful for the service and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in the war on terror. And there was no stronger ally than the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair," Ford said.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/ne...ort-and-says-world-is-better-without-hussein/

 

[Groningen]

Blair was pleased that he was not caught on lies; if that was the problem. No mandate from the UN and more. And what have we now; it look a lawless area with no government and several islands of faith.