LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain into an unsuccessful war in Iraq through a mix of flawed intelligence, “wholly inadequate” planning and an exaggerated sense of the U.K.’s ability to influence the United States, according to a damning official report on the conflict that was published Wednesday.
The government-commissioned inquiry fell short of delivering what many bereaved families sought — a declaration that the 2003 war was illegal. But its 2.6 million words give the most comprehensive verdict to date on the mistakes of a conflict whose violent aftershocks still rattle the world.
Blair, however, stood by his decision to join U.S. President George W. Bush in toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“I believe I made the right decision and that the world is better and safer as a result of it,” he said.
The decision to go to war was the most contentions act of Blair’s decade as prime minister between 1997 and 2007. By the time British combat forces left Iraq in 2009, the conflict had killed 179 U.K. troops, almost 4,500 U.S. personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Saddam’s government and military, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group.
The inquiry, which was seven years in the making and headed by retired civil servant John Chilcot, concluded that Britain joined the U.S.-led invasion “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.”
“Military action at that time was not a last resort,” Chilcot said as he published the report.
The war overshadows the legacy of Blair, whose government has been accused of exaggerating prewar intelligence about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. As Chilcot introduced his report at a London conference center, dozens of anti-war protesters with placards reading “Bliar” rallied outside.
An emotional but defiant Blair told a news conference that going to war in Iraq was “the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took” as prime minister.
He said that “I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know, or can believe,” for all the things that went wrong.
But, he added: “I did not mislead this country. I made the decision in good faith.” And he said the world was a safer place without Saddam, whom he labeled “a wellspring of terror.”
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said the former president was cycling with wounded veterans on his Texas ranch and had not had the chance to read the report.
“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 said.
For families of British troops who died in the conflict, the report’s forensic analysis provides some vindication of their struggle to hold the war’s planners to account.
But it did not declare the conflict illegal, which might have opened the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Chilcot refrained from saying whether the 2003 invasion was legal and didn’t accuse Blair of deliberately misleading the public or Parliament. But he said that “the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for U.K. military action were far from satisfactory.”
Peter Goldsmith, Britain’s attorney general at the time, initially advised the invasion would be illegal without a U.N. Security Council resolution, but changed his mind shortly before war began. Chilcot said Goldsmith’s reasoning was not properly examined at the time by the government.
Relatives of soldiers killed in the conflict said they hadn’t ruled out legal action, although it’s unclear what form that could take. The International Criminal Court can look into alleged war crimes by British troops in Iraq but says the legality of the decision to go to war falls outside its jurisdiction.
“All options are open,” said Matthew Jury, a lawyer for some of the families.
Family members who were shown the report three hours before it was published, said “we must use this report to make sure all parts of the Iraq fiasco are never repeated again.”
“Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end,” a group of families said in a statement.
Sarah O’Connor, whose brother died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005, branded Blair “the world’s worst terrorist.”