Edition: English | 中文简体 | 中文繁体 Монгол
Homepage > World Video

UK's findings on its role in Iraq war to be released

CCTV.com

07-06-2016 12:53 BJT

It's been seven years in the making. Finally, the inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War is ready to deliver its findings. A lot of attention will turn to the motives of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the e-mail exchanges between him and former U.S. President George W. Bush.

Thirteen years after coalition forces invaded Iraq, the country still dreams of peace.

Britain's role in the U.S.-led invasion - and former Prime Minister Tony Blair's justification for military action - still a highly charged issue in the UK.

"If you are going to go to war you need a pretty high threshold, it seems to me, to decide on that and I think there is very few who would argue that the intelligence was not substantial enough on which to make that decision," Former head of MI5 Intelligence Agency Eliza Maningham-buller said.

The justification at the time was that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the West with weapons of mass destruction.

As the invaders discovered, Saddam didn't have those weapons.

But supported by flawed intelligence reports, Blair pressed for war in Parliament-and in Washington with former U.S. President George W. Bush at his side.

"The point I would emphasize to you, is that the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons' capability - that threat is real," Blair said.

Nearly a million demonstrators turned out in London alone, but Britain joined the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Seven years in the writing, at a cost of fifteen million dollars, the inquiry report chaired by Judge Lord Chilcot comprises more than two-and-a-half million words-longer than War and Peace, the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible combined.

Regardless of how many words or how many years it took to put them together, for some, the Chilcot report will never answer all the questions.

For the UK as a nation, however, the report will bring an element of closure for what some regard as one of the most despised acts of British foreign policy in modern history.

Follow us on

  • Please scan the QR Code to follow us on Instagram

  • Please scan the QR Code to follow us on Wechat