Tony Blair lied Britain into Iraq war

This video from Britain says about itself:

6 July 2016

Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, says the Chilcot report shows Tony Blair lied in the run up to the Iraq war and that she believes he should be treated as a war criminal.

By Steve Sweeney in Britain:

Blair branded a liar

Friday 7th July 2017

After eight years Chilcot finally says Blair wasn’t ‘straight with the nation’

TONY BLAIR wasn’t straight with the public about decisions he made in the run-up to war in 2003, Iraq Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said yesterday.

Though carefully worded, Mr Chilcot’s admission appears to tacity accept the charge leveled by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and others that Mr Blair launched the bloody invasion on false pretences.

The group’s famous placards reading “Blair lied — thousands died” introduced a generation to politics.

Speaking on the anniversary of the inquiry’s conclusion, he said that Mr Blair had relied on “belief” rather than “fact” in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.

Asked whether Mr Blair had been truthful to him and the public, Mr Chilcot responded: “Can I slightly reword that to say I think any prime minister taking a country into war has got to be straight with the nation and carry it, so far as possible, with him or her.

“I don’t believe that was the case in the Iraq instance.”

Judges are currently considering whether legal proceedings should be allowed against Mr Blair over his role in the Iraq war following the findings of the Chilcot report.

A district judge ruled against a private case being brought against Mr Blair last November, claiming he had immunity from prosecution.

But the Royal Courts of Justice is now hearing a case seeking to overturn that decision, which is being brought by former Iraqi army chief of staff Gen Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-Ribat, who is now living in exile. If successful it could see Mr Blair tried for war crimes.

The Chilcot Inquiry took an agonising seven years before it was published amid accusations that it would be an Establishment whitewash.

It found that the executed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein posed “no imminent threat” at the time of the invasion and said the case for the war was based on “flawed intelligence”.

A record two million people marched in London in February 2003 to oppose the war in Iraq.

During a debate on Britain’s support for the invasion, Mr Blair infamously told the House of Commons that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Yet this information, lifted from the so-called “dodgy dossier” designed to “sex-up” the case for war, was in direct conflict with UN weapons inspectors who said there was no evidence of WMDs in Iraq.

Despite this, MPs voted in favour of going to war without a United Nations security council resolution, a move which many have said made the invasion of Iraq illegal.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — who has always vigorously opposed the war in Iraq — said he has made it “very clear” in the past year that he agreed with Mr Chilcot.

“We have got to think very carefully as a country what has happened since the Iraq war and the consequences that flowed from what I believe was a catastrophically wrong decision in 2003,” he added.

StWC national convener Lindsey German told the Star: “Why has it taken eight years for Chilcot to let us know this? And why is Blair still allowed to walk free when this is such common knowledge?

“A million have died in Iraq. When are all these people going to get justice?”

US hid intelligence from Britain about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs before Iraq War, Gordon Brown claims/ The former Prime Minister has said if a damning US dossier had been shared with the UK, he would not have backed the war: here.