Britain took part in the 2003 Iraq war on the basis of flawed intelligence and before peaceful options for disarming Saddam Hussein’s regime had been exhausted, a long-awaited inquiry has ruled.
The inquiry by John Chilcot, a retired judge, said Britain’s intervention had gone “badly wrong” and the U.K. government had failed to achieve the objects it had set for itself.
Announcing the results of his seven-year inquiry in central London on Wednesday morning, Chilcot said he was not expressing a view on whether military action in Iraq was legal.
But he added: “We have however concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory.”