The report of the Iraq Inquiry is to be issued - without redactions - on 6th July 2016. See the letter from the Prime Minister to Sir John Chilcot (the Inquiry Chairman).
Earlier posts 14th August 2015 and 1st September 2015.
Statement by Sir John Chilcot: 6 July 2016
We were appointed to consider the UK’s
policy on Iraq from 2001 to 2009,
and
to identify lessons for
the
future. Our Report will be published on the Inquiry’s
website after I finish speaking.
In 2003, for the first time since the Second
World War, the United
Kingdom took
part in an invasion and full-scale occupation of
a
sovereign State.
That was a decision of the utmost gravity.
Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly
a
brutal dictator who had attacked
Iraq’s neighbours, repressed and killed many
of his
own
people, and was
in
violation of
obligations imposed by the UN Security
Council.
But the questions
for the Inquiry
were:
• whether it was right
and
necessary to invade
Iraq in March 2003;
and
• whether the UK
could – and should – have been
better prepared for what followed.
We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of
Iraq
before the peaceful
options for disarmament
had
been exhausted. Military action
at that time was not
a
last resort.
We have also concluded that:
• The judgements about
the
severity of the threat posed by
Iraq’s weapons
of mass destruction – WMD – were presented with a certainty
that was not justified.
• Despite explicit warnings,
the
consequences of the invasion were underestimated.
The
planning and preparations
for
Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly
inadequate.
• The Government failed to achieve its stated objectives.
I want now to set out some of
the
key points in the Report.
First,
the formal decision to invade Iraq, if Saddam Hussein did not
accept the US ultimatum
to
leave within 48 hours,
was taken by Cabinet
on
17 March 2003.
Parliament voted the following day
to
support the decision.
The decision was, however,
shaped by key choices
made by Mr Blair’s
Government over the previous 18 months – which I
will
briefly set out.
After the attacks on 11 September 2001,
Mr Blair
urged President Bush not to take hasty action on Iraq.
By early
December, US policy had begun to shift and Mr Blair
suggested that the US
and
the UK should work on what he described as
a
“clever strategy” for regime change in Iraq, which would build over
time.
When Mr Blair met President Bush at Crawford, Texas, in early
April 2002, the formal
policy was still to contain Saddam
Hussein. But, by then, there had been a profound change in the
UK’s thinking:
• The Joint Intelligence Committee had concluded that
Saddam Hussein could not be removed without
an
invasion.
• The Government was stating that
Iraq
was a threat that
had
to be dealt
with. It had to disarm or be disarmed.
• That implied the use of force if
Iraq
did not comply
–
and internal contingency
planning for a large contribution to a military invasion had begun.
At Crawford, Mr Blair
sought a partnership as a way of
influencing President Bush.
He proposed a UN ultimatum to Iraq to readmit inspectors
or face the
consequences.
On 28 July, Mr Blair
wrote to President
Bush with an assurance that
he
would be with him “whatever” – but,
if the US wanted
a coalition for
military action, changes would be needed in three key
areas. Those were:
• progress on the Middle East
Peace Process;
• UN authority; and
• a shift in public
opinion in the UK, Europe and the Arab world.
Mr Blair also pointed out
that there would be a “need to commit to Iraq for
the
long term”.
Subsequently, Mr Blair
and Mr Straw urged the US
to
take the issue of Iraq back to
the UN. On 7 September, President Bush decided to do so.
On 8 November, resolution 1441 was adopted
unanimously by the Security
Council. It gave Iraq a final opportunity to disarm or
face
“serious consequences”, and it provided
for any further breaches by
Iraq
to be reported to the Security
Council “for assessment”. The weapons inspectors
returned to Iraq later
that month.
During December, however, President
Bush decided that
inspections would not achieve the desired result;
the
US would take military action in early
2003.
At the end of January,
Mr Blair accepted the US
timetable for military action
by mid- March. To help Mr
Blair, President Bush agreed to seek
a further
UN
resolution –the “second” resolution
–
determining that
Iraq
had failed to take its final opportunity
to comply with its obligations.
By 12 March, it
was clear that there was no chance of
securing majority support for
a second resolution before the US
took military action.
Without evidence
of major new Iraqi violations
or reports
from the inspectors
that Iraq was failing
to co-operate and they
could not carry out
their tasks, most members of the Security
Council could not
be
convinced that
peaceful options to disarm
Iraq
had been exhausted and that
military action was therefore justified.
Mr Blair and Mr Straw
blamed France for the “impasse” in the UN and claimed that the UK
Government was acting
on behalf of the international community
“to
uphold the authority of the Security
Council”.
In the absence of a majority in support
of
military action, we consider that
the
UK was, in fact,
undermining the Security
Council’s authority.
Second, the Inquiry has not
expressed a view on whether
military action was legal.
That could, of course,
only be resolved
by a properly constituted and internationally
recognised Court.
We have, however,
concluded that
the
circumstances in which it was
decided that there was a legal basis
for UK military
action were far
from satisfactory.
In mid-January 2003, Lord Goldsmith told Mr Blair
that a further Security
Council resolution would be necessary
to
provide a legal basis
for military
action. He did not advise No.10 until the end of
February that, while a second resolution
would be preferable, a “reasonable case” could be made that
resolution 1441 was sufficient.
The military and the civil service
both asked for more clarity on whether
force would be legal.
Lord Goldsmith then advised that
the
“better view” was that
there was, on balance, a secure
legal basis for military action without
a
further Security Council
resolution. On 14 March,
he
asked Mr Blair
to
confirm that Iraq
had committed further material breaches
as specified in resolution 1441.
Mr Blair
did so the next day.
However, the precise basis
on
which Mr Blair made that decision
is not clear.
Given the gravity of the decision, Lord Goldsmith
should have been asked to
provide written advice explaining how, in the absence of
a
majority in the Security Council, Mr Blair could take that decision.
This is one of a number of
occasions identified by the Inquiry
when
policy should have been considered by
a
Cabinet Committee
and then discussed by
Cabinet itself.
Third, I want to address
the
assessments of Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction and how they
were presented to support
the
case for action.
There was an ingrained
belief in the UK policy and intelligence communities
that:
• Iraq had retained some chemical and biological capabilities;
• was determined to preserve and if
possible enhance them
–
and, in the
future, to acquire
a nuclear capability; and
• was able to conceal its activities
from the UN inspectors.
In the House of Commons on 24 September
2002, Mr Blair presented
Iraq’s past, current
and
future capabilities as evidence of
the
severity of the potential threat
from Iraq’s WMD. He said that,
at
some point in the future, that threat would become a reality.
The judgements about Iraq’s
capabilities in that statement,
and in the dossier
published the same day, were presented with a certainty
that was not justified.
The Joint Intelligence Committee should have made clear
to
Mr Blair that the
assessed intelligence had not
established “beyond doubt”
either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons
or that
efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued.
The Committee had also judged that as long as sanctions
remained effective, Iraq could not
develop a nuclear
weapon, and that it would take several
years to develop and deploy
long range missiles.
In the House of Commons
on
18 March 2003, Mr
Blair stated that he judged the possibility of terrorist groups in possession of
WMD was “a real and present danger
to Britain and its
national security” – and that the threat
from Saddam Hussein’s arsenal could not
be
contained and posed a clear
danger to British
citizens.
Mr Blair had been warned,
however, that military action would increase the threat
from Al Qaida to the UK and to UK interests.
He
had also been warned that
an invasion might lead to Iraq’s weapons
and
capabilities being transferred into the hands of
terrorists.
The Government’s strategy reflected its
confidence in the Joint
Intelligence Committee’s Assessments. Those Assessments
provided the benchmark
against which Iraq’s conduct and denials,
and
the reports of the inspectors, were judged.
As late as 17 March,
Mr
Blair was being advised by
the
Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee that
Iraq
possessed chemical and biological weapons,
the means
to
deliver them and the capacity
to
produce them.
He
was also told that the
evidence pointed to Saddam
Hussein’s view that the capability
was militarily
significant and to his determination – left
to
his own devices
–
to build it
up
further.
It is now clear that
policy on Iraq was made
on the basis
of flawed intelligence and assessments. They
were
not challenged, and they
should have been.
The findings on Iraq’s WMD capabilities
set out in the report
of the Iraq Survey
Group in October 2004 were significant.
But
they did not support
pre-invasion statements by the UK Government, which had focused
on Iraq’s current capabilities,
which Mr Blair and Mr
Straw had described as
“vast stocks” and an urgent
and
growing threat.
In response to those findings, Mr Blair told the House of
Commons that, although Iraq might not
have had “stockpiles
of actually
deployable weapons”, Saddam Hussein “retained the intent
and
the capability ... and was in breach of United
Nations resolutions”.
That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict.
In our Report,
we
have identified a number
of lessons
to
inform the way in which intelligence may be used publicly in the future to support
Government policy.
Fourth,
I want to address
the
shortcomings in planning
and preparation.
The British military contribution was not settled until mid-January 2003, when Mr Blair and Mr
Hoon
agreed the military’s
proposals for an increase in the number
of brigades to be deployed; and that they
would operate in southern,
not northern, Iraq.
There was little time to prepare three brigades and the risks
were neither properly identified nor fully exposed to Ministers.
The resulting equipment shortfalls are addressed in the Report.
Despite promises that Cabinet would discuss
the
military contribution, it did not discuss
the
military options or
their implications.
In early January
2003, when the Government
published its objectives for post-conflict Iraq, it
intended that the interim post-conflict
administration should
be UN-led.
By March 2003,
having failed to persuade the US
of
the advantages of a UN-led
administration, the Government
had
set the less ambitious
goal of persuading the US to accept UN authorisation of
a
Coalition-led interim administration.
When the invasion began, UK policy rested on an assumption that
there would be a well-executed US-led and UN-authorised operation in a relatively
benign security environment.
Mr Blair
told
the Inquiry that the difficulties
encountered in Iraq after the invasion
could not have been known in advance.
We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active
Iranian pursuit of
its interests, regional instability,
and
Al Qaida activity
in Iraq, were each
explicitly identified before the invasion.
Ministers were aware of the inadequacy of US plans, and concerned about
the inability to exert significant influence on US planning.
Mr Blair
eventually succeeded only in the narrow goal of
securing President Bush’s agreement
that there should be
UN authorisation of
the
post-conflict role.
Furthermore, he did not establish clear
Ministerial oversight of UK
planning and preparation. He did not ensure that
there was a flexible, realistic and fully
resourced plan that
integrated UK military
and
civilian contributions,
and
addressed the known
risks.
The failures in the planning
and preparations continued
to have an effect
after the invasion.
That brings me to the Government’s
failure to achieve the objectives
it had set
itself in Iraq.
The Armed Forces fought a successful military campaign, which took
Basra and helped to achieve the departure of
Saddam Hussein and the fall of Baghdad in less than a month.
Service personnel, civilians who deployed to Iraq and Iraqis
who
worked for the UK, showed great
courage in the face of considerable risks.
They deserve our gratitude
and respect.
More than 200 British citizens died as a result
of the conflict
in Iraq. Many more
were injured. This has meant
deep anguish for
many families, including those who are here today.
The invasion and subsequent instability in Iraq had, by
July 2009, also resulted in the deaths of
at
least one hundred
and fifty thousand Iraqis
–
and probably many more
– most of them
civilians. More than a million
people were displaced.
The people of Iraq have suffered
greatly.
The vision for Iraq and its people – issued by
the
US, the UK, Spain and Portugal, at the Azores Summit on 16 March 2003 – included
a solemn obligation
to
help the Iraqi people build a new
Iraq
at peace with itself and its neighbours.
It looked
forward to a united
Iraq in which its
people should enjoy
security, freedom, prosperity and equality
with
a government that would uphold human rights
and
the rule of law as
cornerstones of democracy.
We have considered the post-conflict period
in Iraq in great
detail, including efforts to
reconstruct the country and rebuild its
security services.
In this short statement I can only address
a
few key points.
After the invasion, the UK and the US
became joint Occupying
Powers. For the year
that followed, Iraq was
governed by the Coalition
Provisional Authority.
The UK was fully implicated in the Authority’s
decisions, but struggled to have a decisive effect
on
its policies.
The Government’s preparations failed to take account of
the
magnitude of
the
task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq,
and
of the responsibilities which were likely
to
fall to the UK.
The UK took particular responsibility for four provinces
in
the South East. It
did
so without a formal Ministerial decision and without
ensuring that it had the necessary
military and civilian
capabilities to discharge
its obligations, including,
crucially, to provide security.
The scale of the UK effort
in
post-conflict Iraq never
matched the scale of
the challenge.
Whitehall departments and their Ministers
failed to put collective weight
behind the task.
In practice, the UK’s most consistent strategic objective in relation to Iraq was
to reduce the level of
its deployed forces.
The security situation
in both Baghdad and the South East
began to deteriorate
soon after the invasion.
We have found that the Ministry of Defence was
slow in responding to the threat
from Improvised Explosive Devices
and
that delays in providing adequate medium
weight protected patrol vehicles
should not have been tolerated. It was not
clear which person or
department within the Ministry of
Defence was responsible for identifying and articulating such capability
gaps. But it should
have been.
From 2006, the UK
military was conducting two enduring campaigns
in
Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not have sufficient
resources to do so. Decisions on resources for Iraq were affected by
the
demands of the operation in Afghanistan.
For example,
the
deployment to Afghanistan had a material impact
on
the availability of essential equipment
in
Iraq, particularly helicopters
and equipment for surveillance and intelligence collection.
By 2007 militia
dominance in Basra,
which UK military
commanders were unable
to challenge, led to the UK exchanging detainee releases
for an end to the targeting of its forces.
It was humiliating that the UK reached a position in which an agreement
with
a militia group which had been actively
targeting UK forces was considered the best option available.
The UK military role in Iraq ended a very
long way from success.
We have sought to set out
the
Government’s actions
on
Iraq fully and impartially.
The evidence is there for
all
to see. It
is an account
of an intervention which went badly
wrong, with consequences to this day.
The Inquiry Report
is
the Committee’s unanimous view.
Military action in Iraq might
have been necessary
at some point.
But
in March 2003:
• There was no imminent threat
from Saddam Hussein.
• The strategy of containment
could have been adapted and continued for some time.
• The majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections
and monitoring.
Military intervention elsewhere may
be
required in the future.
A vital purpose
of the Inquiry is to identify
what lessons should be learned from
experience in Iraq.
There are many lessons set
out
in the Report.
Some are about the management of relations with allies, especially
the
US. Mr Blair overestimated his ability to influence US
decisions on Iraq.
The UK’s relationship with the US
has proved strong
enough over time to bear the
weight of honest
disagreement. It does not
require unconditional support
where our interests or
judgements differ.
The lessons also include:
• The importance of collective Ministerial discussion which encourages
frank and informed
debate and challenge.
• The need to assess risks,
weigh options and set an achievable and realistic strategy.
• The vital role of Ministerial leadership and co-ordination of
action across Government, supported
by senior officials.
• The need to ensure that both the civilian and military arms of Government are properly equipped
for their tasks.
Above all, the lesson
is that all aspects of any
intervention need to be calculated,
debated and challenged with the utmost rigour.
And, when decisions have been made, they
need to be implemented fully.
Sadly, neither was
the
case in relation to the UK Government’s actions in Iraq.
To conclude, I should
like to thank
my colleagues, our advisers
and
the Inquiry
Secretariat for their
commitment to this difficult
task.
I also want
to
pay tribute to Sir Martin Gilbert,
who died last
year. As one of
the
pre-eminent historians of the past
century, he brought
a
unique perspective to our
work until he became
ill in April 2012.
We
have missed him
greatly as a colleague and friend.
