MILITARY chiefs failed to “stand up” to Tony Blair’s government over the Iraq war, a former soldier told the House of Commons yesterday.

Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who served in Afghanistan, said the conflict to topple Saddam Hussein had led to a “deep sense of mistrust” of senior officers by a generation of soldiers.

Mercer, who was newly-graduated at the time of the 2003 vote, said “basic moral courage” and the ability to “stand up for your men in the face of a seemingly unstoppable sequence of events” was instilled in new recruits and advocated at all levels in the military.

However, he said a failure to do this had led to failings identified in the Chilcot Report including equipment shortages which cost service personnel their lives.

The Plymouth MP said: “To speak the truth to power is an integral part of the military’s duties to this nation. So where was this courage in the build up to this disastrous war?

“It is inconceivable to me to allow political administration in this country to hamper preparations for war because it did not politically want to be seen to be doing so.

“It is inconceivable to me to allow soldiers out on patrol bases into contact with the enemy without body armour, not as a tactical decision or as a result of enemy action against a supplier but simply because of bad planning.

“It is inconceivable to me to continue to allow patrolling in Snatch Land Rovers when they were known to provide no protection whatsoever to our men and women against a well known obvious IED [improvised explosive device] threat.

“Yet these things happened and they directly cost UK military lives.”

The comments came on the second day of debate on the findings of the report, which has focused on whether or not Blair misled MPs into voting for war.

Mercer said Blair is “yesterday’s man” and called on the House to focus on learning the report’s lessons, stating: “When a soldier leaves his patrol base in the morning, he is not thinking about how his personal contribution that day will advance the case of Iraq’s future prosperity.

“He is not thinking about whether we should believe the dossier about weapons of mass destruction. He is thinking about calling his wife later.”

However, the SNP’s Pete Wishart said: “There is just no escape from the personal association of the former Prime Minister in what transpired in Iraq. It will follow him to the grave, it will be on his headstone.

“It would be as well tattooed on his forehead. It is about this man and how he approached this war.”

Labour former minister Ian Lucas, who voted against the war, said the Tory Party also has a case to answer, stating: “The official opposition failed in its constitutional duty to ask difficult, hard questions and to hold the government to account and it was left to other parties in the House and the Labour backbenchers to hold the government to account.

“The failure of the official opposition to challenge the prime minister and government effectively made his wrong decision easier.”

Julian Lewis, chairman of the Defence Select Committee, said a “disconnect” between military advisers and politicians would lead to similar mistakes.

Calling for change, he said: “It’s easier for a prime minister with a bee in his bonnet about overthrowing one regime or another to brush aside the words of one man, no matter how authoritative any given chief of the defence staff may be, than it is to brush aside the contribution of the heads of the armed forces as a body.”

Boris Johnson arrived late in the day, taking to the front bench for the first time as Foreign Secretary to hear Defence Secretary Michael Fallon ending the debate, news which drew political reporters to the press benches.