IT was supposed to take two years, instead it has taken seven. Today the findings of the £10 million Chilcot Inquiry will finally be made public.
Launched in 2009, the inquiry was tasked with examining decisions made and actions taken in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as identifying any lessons from the conflict. However, the remit did not include establishing the legality of the operation.
The International Criminal Court has already stated that no charges can be brought against Tony Blair for taking the UK to war as it has no jurisdiction over “crimes of aggression”.
But yesterday former military commander General Sir Michael Rose, who has been advising the families of some of the 179 British service personnel killed, said they were preparing to launch a civil action against Blair.
Meanwhile, SNP foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond, who has raised the possibility of Blair being tried in Scottish courts, insisted the former prime minister must be held to account.
He said: “This report will not provide a verdict, and far from being the final word on the Iraq war it will just be the start of a process, providing some of the evidence and findings from which we can then determine those responsible.”
“I want to reassure the families of those who died, and everyone living with the consequences of this conflict, that there is renewed cross-party determination to ensure Mr Blair and all those responsible for the lies and failures are held to account.”
Glasgow woman Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old fusilier son Gordon was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Basra, was among relatives set to travel to London to collect a copy of the report, which runs to 12 volumes and a summary.
Meanwhile, Gavin Tweedie, the father of 25-year-old Lieutenant Alexander Tweedie, from Hawick, was unable to make the trip but said: “I’m hoping that Tony Blair is heavily criticised but more than that I don’t know what to expect.”
While the families have had no prior access to the report, Blair and others criticised have under the “Maxwellisation” process which allows them the right to reply and is said to have caused major delays to publication.
Last night Mark Thompson, whose 21-year-old son Private Kevin Thompson, from Lancaster, died in 2007, said he was apprehensive about the report’s contents, saying: “We’ve all been told nothing. It’s nerve-wracking for all the families. None of us know what to expect.”
Salmond said this lack of access was “one of the continuing unfairnesses” of Chilcot and had given Blair the chance to prepare a “PR army”.
The inquiry heard that Blair and former US President George W Bush agreed to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in a meeting one year before the invasion, a claim Blair denied. The original justification for the war was that Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, but none were found.
Yesterday Rose said Blair had a responsibility to “properly assess the intelligence and information” used to justify going to war, continuing: “The families want to see justice and if it proves as a result of reading the report that there was dereliction of duty, malfeasance in public office, intelligence was negligently handled, then they will take action.”
Meanwhile, military ethics expert Professor Alastair McIntosh said generals had told him of grave concerns about deploying troops and claimed Blair may have led them “up the garden path”.
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