Alex Salmond raises prospect of legal consequences from Chilcot report

Alex Salmond - credit: Holyrood Magazine

Alex Salmond has called for “a consideration of what political or legal consequences are appropriate” for Tony Blair following the publication of the Chilcot report.

With the Chilcot Inquiry having released its report into the run up to the invasion of Iraq, the former First Minister accused Blair of having “led the world into the present nightmare instability in the Middle East”.

The report contains a memo sent from Tony Blair to George W Bush, which shows the then Prime Minister promised “I will be with you whatever” in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq.

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The Chilcot report found that action was taken before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted and that military action was not the “last resort”.

Scottish Green co-convener Patrick Harvie described the report as “a damning indictment of Tony Blair and his blinkered, sickening devotion to George Bush's warmongering”.

Salmond said: "The report's forensic examination of thousands of pages of evidence and its firm conclusions are excoriating of a Prime Minister who, contrary to his denials, gave a pre-determined commitment to President Bush on 28 July 2002 to join US military action in Iraq.”

Chilcot said claims over the threat posed by Iraq “were presented with a certainty that was not justified” and that plans for what would happen to Iraq after regime change were found to be “wholly inadequate”.

The report found decisions were based on “flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been.”

It raises questions over Blair’s conduct in the build-up to invasion, finding he “overestimated” his ability to influence US decision making.

Salmond said: “In the days, weeks and months ahead, the intimate detail of this report will only implicate further a former Prime Minister who recklessly committed the country to war without collective judgement, and personally failed to ensure there was a plan for delivering a future for the people of Iraq.

“After such carnage, people will ask inevitable questions of was conflict inevitable and worthwhile? The answer from Chilcot is undoubtedly no. And who is responsible? The answer is undoubtedly Tony Blair. There must now be a consideration of what political or legal consequences are appropriate for those responsible.”

Harvie said the report proved that those who marched against the invasion in 2003 had been correct to oppose the war.

He said: “Today's report is a damning indictment of Tony Blair and his blinkered, sickening devotion to George Bush's warmongering. Chilcot makes clear that peaceful options had not been exhausted, the legal basis for invasion was not satisfactory, the intelligence was flawed and that the risks of unleashing terrorism were clear before the invasion took place.

“The UK Government and Ministry of Defence owe it to the UK families mourning their loss and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed to ensure that such an appalling misjudgement never happens again, and to abandon the self-serving projection of power in favour of the international rule of law.”

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie MSP said the report “shines a bright light on this dark period of our country's impact on the world”.

He said the report vindicated the late Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy’s opposition to the invasion.

Rennie said: “When Charles Kennedy led opposition to the conflict he did so based on analysis of the evidence with a considerable degree of caution.

“Perhaps if Tony Blair and his government had adopted the same analysis and caution then we may not have seen the failure that was the Iraq war.”

But Blair responded to the report, saying: “The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit.

“Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.”

He highlights a number of areas in the report that there was “no falsification or improper use of intelligence”, “no deception of Cabinet” and “no secret commitment to war”.