Synopsis:
In 2003, for the first time since the Second World War, the UK invaded a sovereign state: Iraq. In 2016 Sir John Chilcot delivered his long-awaited report on the war; its 2.6 million words fill twelve volumes. This accessible edition of the executive summary allows the reader to make up their own mind about the crucial questions. Did Saddam have chemical weapons? Were they a threat? Was the war legal? And was the planning adequate?
Review:
'The Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot and composed of five privy councillors, finally published its report on the morning of 6 July, seven years and 21 days after it was established by Gordon Brown with a remit to look at the run-up to the conflict, the conflict itself and the reconstruction, so that we can learn lessons.
It offers a long and painful account of an episode that may come to be seen as marking the moment when the UK fell off its global perch, trust in government collapsed and the country turned inward and began to disintegrate.
(Philippe Sands, London Review of Books --http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/philippe-sands/a-grand-and-disastrous-deceit
'A more productive way to think of the Chilcot report is as a tool to help us set agendas for renewed best efforts in creating more effective and accountable statecraft.
Chilcot has confirmed that... we still do not have intelligent long-range planning by the armed forces in close and active cooperation with other government agencies, nor an adequate and integrated system for the collection and evaluation of intelligence information, nor do we have the highest possible quality and stature of personnel to lead us through these challenging times'.
(Derek B. Miller, The Guardian) --https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/12/chilcot-report-reveals-lessons-forgotten-since-1945
'Although sceptics wondered how much more the very-long-awaited Report of the Iraq Inquiry
by a committee chaired by Sir John Chilcot could tell us when it appeared at last in July, it proves to contain a wealth of evidence and acute criticism, the more weighty for its sober tone and for having the imprimatur of the official government publisher. In all, it is a further and devastating indictment not only of Tony Blair personally but of a whole apparatus of state and government, Cabinet, Parliament, armed forces, and, far from least, intelligence agencies.
Among its conclusions the report says that there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein; that the British chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted; that military action was not a last resort...'
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The New York Review of Books --http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/13/tony-blairs-eternal-shame-chilcot-report/
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