Live Chilcot Report Statement House of Commons

and it is now free of Ebola to talk I will look specifically into the

issue of the bonus. I wasn't aware of that and I will get back to her

about it. This is a difficult day for all the

families who lost loved ones. Our thoughts today must be with them. In

their grief and anger I hope they their grief and anger I hope they

can draw some solace from the depths and rigour of this report and some

comfort from knowing that we'll never forget the incredible service

and sacrifice of their sons, daughters, husbands and wives will

stop 179 British servicemen and women and 23 British civilians who

did everything for our country. We must never forget the thousands more

have suffered late changing injuries and we must pledge today to look

after them for the rest of their lives. This report would have been

produced sooner if it had begun when those on this side of the House and

others first call for it back in 2006, but I'm sure the House will

join me in thanking Sir John and his councillors including Martin Gilbert

who sadly passed away during their work on the report. This has been a

fully independent inquiry. Government ministers didn't see it

until yesterday morning. The Cabinet secretary led a process that gave

Sir John full access to Government papers, meaning an unprecedented

public declassification of papers, Cabinet minutes, records of meetings

and conversations picked Dell might between the UK Prime Minister and US

President and letters. The inquiry also took evidence from more than

150 witnesses and its report runs to 13 volumes, costing over ?10 million

want the chance to study and debate want the chance to study and debate

it in depth and I am making provision for next week. Then add a

number of key questions that are rightly asked about Iraq -- there

are. Was legal advice and considerations taken properly? Was

the operation properly planned? Were the operation properly planned? Were

we prepared for the aftermath of the initial conflict and did our forces

have adequate funding and equipment? I will try and summarise the key

findings on these questions before turning to the lessons I believe

should be learned. A number of reasons were put forward for going

to war in Iraq including the danger that Saddam Hussein posed to his

people and the need to uphold United Nations resolutions. As everyone in

the social remember, central to the Government's case, was the issue of

weapons of mass destruction. Sir John finds there was a ingrained

belief held in the UK and US Government that Saddam Hussein

possessed chemical and biological capabilities and she wanted to

develop them and was pursuing an active policy of deceit and

concealment. They were good reasons for this belief. Saddam Hussein had

built up chemical weapons in the past and had used them against

Kurdish volumes and there really -- the Iranian military. The advice

given to the Government by the intelligence and policy community

was that Saddam Hussein seeks to develop these capabilities. As we

now know, by 2003, this long-held belief or longer reflected the

reality. Sir John says at no stage was the proposition that Iraq might

no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programmes

identified and examined by the joint intelligence committee or the policy

community and as the report notes, the late Robin Cook had shown it was

possible to come to a different conclusion from an examination of

the same intelligence. In the wake of 911, Americans were concerned

about the risk of weapons of mass destruction finding their way into

the hands of terrorists. Sir John finds that well it was reasonable to

be concerned about the fusion of planet Government proliferation and

terrorism, there was no basis to suggest that Iraq itself represented

such a threat. On the question of intelligence, Sir John finds no

evidence that intelligence was improperly included or that number

ten or probably influenced the text ten or probably influenced the text

of the September 2002 dossier. But he finds that the material from the

joint intelligence committee did not make clear enough the limit or

intelligence did not make clear, it did not see that Saddam Hussein had

continued to make biological or nuclear weapons and the joint

intelligence committee, he says, intelligence committee, he says,

should have made that clear to Mr Blair. He finds that public

statements from the Government conveyed more certainty than the

joint assessments. There was a lack joint assessments. There was a lack

of clarity between what the committee assessed and what Tony

Blair believed. In the 2002 dossier, he finds, I quote, a distinction

between Mr Blair's belief and the actual judgments. Sir John does not

question Mr Blair's belief nor his legitimate role in advocating

to the question of legality, the to the question of legality, the

inquiry has, and I quote, not expressed a view as to whether or

not the UK's participation in the not the UK's participation in the

war was legal. It does put the legal advice that the Attorney General

gave the time, that there was a legal basis for action. Sir John is

highly critical of the processes by which the legal advice was arrived

and discussed and I quote, the circumstances in which it was

ultimately decided that there was a legal basis for duty participation

were far from satisfactory. He also finds that the diplomatic options

had not at that stage been exhausted and that military action was

therefore not a last resort. Sir John says that when the second

resolution at the UN became unachievable, the UK should have

done more to exhaust all diplomatic options including allowing

inspectors longer to complete the inspectors longer to complete the

job. Turning to the decision-making, the report documents the process

followed. There was a Cabinet followed. There was a Cabinet

discussion before the decision to go to war and a number of ministers

including the foreign and defence secretaries were involved in the

decision-making. The report makes specific citizens of the process of

decision-making, in particular when akin to the options for military

action, it was clear these were never discussed properly by a

Cabinet committee or Cabinet. Arrangements were often informal and

sporadic and frequently involve small groups of ministers and

advisers, sometimes without formal record, and Sir John finds that a

crucial points Tony Blair said personal notes and commitments to Mr

Bush that had not been discussed with Cabinet colleagues. However,

well Sir John makes many criticisms of process including the way

information was handled and presented, at no stage did he

explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead

people. Turning to operational planning, the initial invasion

proceeded rapidly and we should be proud of what our armed forces

managed to achieve quickly. This was despite the fact the military didn't

have time to plan properly for an invasion from the south because they

had been focused on the north until the late decision from the Turkish

Government to refuse permission. There were also issues of equipment.

But the bigger question was in the planning for what might happen after

the initial operation and we mention this briefly. Sir John finds that

when the invasion began, the UK Government was not any satisfactory

position to find that satisfactory plans have been drawn up -- had

been. He calls it a clear ministerial oversight of

post-conflict strategy, effective collaboration between Government

departments and fails to manage this adequately. Officials in the

military remained to fixed on assumptions that the Americans had a

plan, that the US would share it with the international community and

that the UK role would be over three to four months after the conflict.

Sir John says failure to prepare for the aftermath reduced the likelihood

of achieving the UK's strategic objectives in Iraq and Sir John

believes they did not require the benefit of hindsight. Turning to

equipment and troops, Sir John is clear that objectives were not

matched to resources. The failure to meet the needs of UK forces and

provide powerful vehicles should not have been tolerated and he says the

MOD was so slow in responding to the developing threat in Iraq from

exploding devices. The inquiry also identified a number of moments when

it would have been possible to conduct a substantial reappraisal of

our approach to the whole situation in Iraq and the level of resources

required. Despite a series of warnings from commanders in the

field, he finds that no such reappraisal took place. During the

first four years, there was no clear statement of policy setting out the

acceptable level of risk to UK forces and who was responsible for

managing that risk. Sir John also finds that the Government, in

particular the military, were too focused on withdrawing from Iraq and

planning for an Afghanistan deployment in 2006 and that's true

effort away. Each includes that although Tony Blair persuaded

America and coming back to the United Nations in 2010, he was

unsuccessful in changing decisions on other critical matters. That, and

an absence of the Security Council in support of military action, at

that point the duty was undermining the authority of the Security

Council. While it is right for a UK Prime Minister to weigh up the

damage to the special relationship that will be done by failing to

support the US, Sir John says that it is questionable whether not

participating Miller tally on this occasion would have broken the

partnership -- militarily. He says that even with more resources, the

circumstances are learning the invasion made it difficult to

deliver substantial outcomes. Whether territorial integrity of

Iraq remained, deep sectarian divisions opened and thousands of

Iraqi civilians lost their lives. Well these divisions were not

created by the International coalition, Sir John believes they

were exacerbated, including through the extent are not addressed by

re-conciliation. Sir John finds the policy of Her Majesty's Government

got short of meeting its strategic objectives and helped create a space

for Al-Qaeda. The decision to go to war came to decision in this House

and those who voted for military action will have to take our fair

share of responsibility. We cannot turn the clock back but we have to

make sure lessons are learned and worked on. I'll cover the issues

about machinery of Government, processes, culture and planning in a

moment, but let me be the first to say that getting all of these things

right doesn't guarantee the success of a military intervention. For

example, on Libya, I believe it was right to intervene to stop: Gaddafi

killing his people. We did have proper processes and comprehensive

advice on key issues and we didn't put forces on the ground. We worked

with a transitional Libyan Government but getting these things

right doesn't meet the challenges of intermittent in -- intervention any

less formidable and the changes are plain to see today. As Prime

Minister for the last six years reading this report, I believe there

are lessons we need to learn and are lessons we need to learn and

keep on learning. First, taking the country to war should always be a

last resort and should only be done if all credible alternatives have

been exhausted. Second, the machinery of Government does matter.

That is why on my first day in office, I established the National

Security Council to ensure proper, coordinated decision-making across

the whole of Government including those responsible for domestic

security. This council is not just a meeting of ministers, it has the

right breadth of expertise in the room with defence staff, the heads

of military and other officials. I also pointed to the UK's first

security adviser with a team in the office to make sure our national

security apparatus is joined up. The machinery also taps the experience

and knowledge of experts from outside Government. This helps us

constantly challenge conventional wisdom within the system and avoid,

hopefully, groupthink. It is inconceivable today that we

could take a premeditated decision to commit, troops without a full

discussion in the National Security Council on the basis of fill papers,

legal advice are prepared and stress tested by all relevant departments

with decisions formerly minuted. I would argue that the culture of

established by Prime Minister is a stop -- matters, too. It is crucial

that the Prime Minister establishes a climate in which it is safe for

experts and officials to challenge policy and question the views on

ministers and the Prime Minister without fear or favour. There is no

question today that everyone sat around the NSC table is free to

speak their mind. Fourth, if we are to take the difficult decisions to

intervene in other countries, proper planning for what follows is a

vital. We know that the task of rebuilding effective governance is

enormous and that is why we created the conflict stability and

stabilisation fund and beef up the cross government stabilisation unit

so experts are able to deploy in post-conflict situations anywhere in

the world at short notice. None of this would be possible without the

historic decision we have taken to commit 0.7% of GD be on overseas

aid. -- gross national income. That's not only assists with

post-conflict planning but also in trying to prevent conflicts in the

first place. This we must ensure our Armed Forces are always properly

equipped. That is why we can be a regular strategic defence and

Security review to insure the resources we have meet the ambitions

of the National Security strategy. When meeting our mutual commitments

dispensed 2% of our GDP on defence and planning to invest at least ?170

billion on new military equipment over the next decade. We haven't

trained the Armed Forces covered in law to ensure our Armed Forces and

their families receive the treatment and respect they deserve. Sending

our brave troops onto the battlefield without the right

equipment was unacceptable and whatever else we learned from this

conflict we must all pledge this will never happen again. There will

be further lessons to learn from studying this report and the

committee today that this is exactly what we will do. This report on my

own experience, there are also some lessons here that I do not think we

should draw. First it would be wrong to conclude that we should not stand

with their American allies when our common security interests are

threatened. We must never be afraid to speak frankly and honestly as

best friends always should find where we commit our troops together

there should be a structure through which our views can be properly

conveyed as differences worked through. It remains the case that

Britain and America share the same fundamental values and Britain has

no greater friend or ally in the world than America and that our

partnership remains as important for our security and prosperity as it

has ever been. Second, it would be wrong to conclude that we cannot

rely on the judgment of our brilliant and hard-working

intelligence agencies. We know the debt we want them in helping to keep

us safe everyday of the year since November 2014 they have enabled us

to foil seven different planned terrorist attacks on the streets of

the United Kingdom. What this report shows is that there needs to be a

proper separation between the process of assessing intelligence

and the policy-making that flows from it. As a result of the reform

since the Butler report that is what they have in place. Third it would

be completely wrong to conclude that our military are not capable of

intervening successfully around the world. Many of the failures in this

report were not directly about the conduct of Armed Forces in Iraq but

rather the failures of planning before a shot was fired. There's no

question that Britain's Armed Forces remain the envy of the world and the

decisions we have taken to ensure the properly resourced will stay

that way. Finally we should not conclude that intervention is always

wrong. There are unquestionably times were it is right to intervene

as this country did successfully in Sierra Leone and Kosovo. I'm sure

that many in this house would agree that the urban times in the recent

past and we should have intervened but didn't, like in failing to

prevent the genocide in Rwanda and fragrance. Intervention is hard.

Fighting is not always the most difficult part. Often the state

building that follows is a much more complex challenge. Should not be so

naive as to think that because we have the best prepared plans in the

real world that things cannot go wrong. Equally because intervention

is difficult to does not mean that there are not times when it is right

and necessary. Britain has and will continue to learn the lessons of

this report, but as without intervention against Daesh in Iraq

and Syria, Britain must not and will not shrink from its role in the

world stage or feel to protect its people and I commend this statement

to the house. Thank you. Before addressing the

issues raised in the Iraq enquiry report I would like to remember and

or at the 179 British servicemen and women who were killed and the

thousands maimed and injured during the Iraq war and their families. As

well as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of the

invasion and occupation launched by the US and British governments 13

years ago. Yesterday I had a private meeting with some of the families of

the British dead, as I have continued to do over the past

several years. It is always a humbling experience to witness the

resolve and resilience of those families and the unwavering

commitment to seek truth and justice, for those that are lost in

Iraq. They have waited seven years for this report. It was right that

the enquiry have evidence from such a wide range of people. And that the

origins, conduct and aftermath of the war should have been examined in

such detail. But the extraordinary length of time it has taken to see

the light of day is frankly clearly a matter for regret. I should add

that the scale of the report runs to 6275 pages, to which I was only

given access at eight o'clock this morning. It means that today's

response by all of us can only be a provisional one. The decision to

invade and occupy Iraq in March 2003 was the most significant foreign

policy decision taken by a British government in modern times. It's

divided this house and said the government of the day against the

majority of the British people. As well as against the weight of global

opinion. The war was not in any way as Sir John Chilcott says, a last

resort. Frankly it was an act of military aggression launched under

friends -- false pretext as the enquiry accepts and has long been

regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international

legal opinion. It led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people

and the displacement of millions of refugees. It devastated Iraq's

infrastructure and society. The occupation fostered a lethal

sectarianism as the report indicates, that turned into a civil

War. Instead of protecting security at home or abroad the war fuelled

and spread terrorism across the region. From Sunday's suicide bomb

in Baghdad which killed 250 people, the deadliest so far was carried out

by a group whose origins lie in the aftermath of the invasion. By any

measure, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been for many a

catastrophe. Mr Speaker, the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 on

the basis of what the Chilcot report called and I quote flight

intelligence about the weapons of mass destruction has had a

far-reaching impact on us all. It has led to a fundamental breakdown

in trust in politics, and if our institutions of government. The

tragedy is that while the governing class got it so horrifically wrong,

many of our people actually got it right. Many on February 15 2003, won

a half-million spanning the entire clinical spectrum and tens of

millions of other people across the world marched against the impending

war. The biggest ever demonstration in British history. It was not, Mr

Speaker, that those of us who opposed the war, it wasn't that

those of us who opposed the war underestimated the talented or the

crimes of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Indeed, many of us

campaigned against the Iraqi regime during its most bloody period. When

the British government and the US administration were actually

supporting that regime. As was confirmed by the 1986 Scott enquiry.

But we could see the state is broken by sanctions and war pose no

military threat and the WMD evidence was flimsy and convicted. Going to

war without United Nations authorisation was profoundly

dangerous. That foreign invasion and occupation would be resisted by

force and it would set off a series of uncontrollable and destructive

events. If only this house had been able to listen to the wisdom of many

of our own people when it voted on the 18th of March against waiting

for a UN authorisation for a second resolution, the course of events may

have been different. All but 16 of the members of the official

opposition at that time supported the war, while many in my party

voted against it, as did others in other opposition parties. The

members here today on all benches, including dozens of my Labour

colleagues, who voted against the war, but none of us Mr Speaker

should take any satisfaction from this report. Instead, all of us,...

We can't have a running commentary on the statements made from the

front bench. Members of this house only well enough to know that I will

allow all opinions to be expressed and if that means the premise must

be for quite a long time and he is accustomed to that. But the rate on

a gentleman is entitled to be heard with courtesy. If people want to

watch away, leave the chamber. It is boring and we don't need you. Thank

you Mr Speaker. We have to be saddened that what has been revealed

and we must now reflect on that. In addition to all of those British

servicepeople and Iraqi civilians and combatants are still lives in

the conflict there are many members who voted to stop the war but have

not lived to see themselves vindicated by this report. First and

foremost Mr Speaker it would do as well to remember Robin Cook, who

stood over the 13 years ago and said in a few hundred words, in advance

of the tragedy to come, what has been confirmed by this report in

more than 2 million words. The Chilcot report has rightly dug deep

into the litany of failures of planning for the occupation, the

calamitous decision to stand down the Iraqi army and to dissolve the

entire Iraqi state. But the reality is, it was the original decision to

follow the US president into this war in the most volatile region in

the world and impose a colonial style occupation that led to every

other disaster. The government's September 2002 dossier with its

claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be

deployed in 45 minutes was only the most notorious of many deceptions.

As Major General Michael Boddy told the enquiry and the court, we knew

at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make the

case for war rather than setting out the available intelligence. Military

action in Iraq not only can the humanitarian crisis into a disaster,

it also convulsed the entire region. Does that intervention in Libya in

2011 as sadly left the country in the grip of warning militias and

terror groups. The Iraq war actually increased the threat of terrorism

around the country as Baroness Manningham bowler, former head of

MI5 made clear to the enquiry. There are many lessons that needs to be

drawn from the Iraq war. In the investigation carried out by Sir

John Chilcott in his enquiry, for our government, country, this

Parliament as well as my party and indeed every other party. They

include the need for a more open and independent collision ship with the

United States, and for a foreign policy based on upholding

international law and the authority of the United Nations, which always

seeks peaceful solutions to international disputes. We also need

and the premises indicated this, much stronger oversight of security

and intelligence services. Full restoration of proper Cabinet

government and give Parliament the decisive say over any future

decisions to go to war based on objective information and not just

government discretion, but three war Powers act that I hope this

Parliament will pass. And as in the wake of Iraq, our own and other

Western governments increasingly resort to hybrid warfare based on

the use of drones and special forces, our democracy, and our

democracy is crucial and important, it must ensure that their use is

subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny. There are no more

important decisions a member of Parliament ever get asked to make

the social waiting to peace and war. The very least, that track the very

least that members of parliament in this country should be able to

expect is rigorous and objective evidence on which to base their

decisions. We now know that the house was misled on to the war as

the house must now decide how it should deal with it 13 years later.

Just as all those who take the decisions we are in the Chilcot

report must face up to the consequences of their actions,

whatever they may be. Later today, I will be meeting a group of families

and military service men and women who lost loved ones. Iraq war

veterans and Iraqi citizens who have lost family members as a result of

the war. I will be discussing with them, our

public and the Iraqi people, the decisions taken by our Government

that led to war with terrible consequences. There are huge lessons

for every single one of us here today. We make decisions that have

consequences that don't just go on for the immediate years, they go on

for decades and decades afterwards. We need to reflect very seriously

for we take any decisions again to take military action without

realising the consequences of those will live with all of us for many

decades to come and have often palpable consequences. Let me

briefly respond. I want to leave us much time for colleagues to make

their points. I think the honourable gentleman is right to praise their

families. I understand that a great over the time taken. The only point

it would make is that when you have an independent report, you have to

allow it to be independent and allow the chairman to make his or her own

well it has been frustrating, I well it has been frustrating, I

think frustration is better than intervention. In terms of the time

he was given to read the port, I didn't want politicians including

the former Prime Minister to be given more time than the families

themselves and that's why they eat o'clock deadline was set. -- eight

o'clock. He is right to say, on the deadline, that the intervention

cheated space for Al-Qaeda. It is important to remember that violent

Islamist extremism started long before the Iraq war and long before

911 itself, which was several years before the Iraq invasion. It is

important to remember that. In terms of the litany of failures, I have

been able to be the executive summary and I'm sure colleagues

will, he is right, there are number of failures, the way the Kurdish

provisional authority works, the failure to plan for the aftermath

and I think the powerful points made by Sir John Chilcot. I think many of

the points you made we have already put in place, proper Cabinet

discussions, national security discussions, parliamentary votes,

intelligence agencies. I would urge him to come up with even more ways

to oversee all intelligence agencies. I encourage colleagues

from all around the House to look at from all around the House to look at

the way the intelligence committee works and the other things we have

done, not least in legislation going through both houses. We do need

leave our intelligence services with leave our intelligence services with

a clear set of instructions and oversight arrangements, rather than

change it every five minutes. War Powers act, I think that is

something that will be discussed in the debate. It is something I have

looked at carefully and I have come to the conclusion it is not the

right thing to do was. I think we will get themselves into legal mess

but I think house should debate it, as it will when it considers the

report. On the issue of the United States, he calls for an opening

partnership but I don't believe the United States is always right about

everything, but I do believe our partnership with the United States

is vital for our national security and I rather fear as opposed to the

United States is always wrong. I don't think they're always right but

I think the other best partner and we should work with them but I them

and others to take the time to read the report, not in its entirety, I

don't think anybody will have ten for 3.8 million words! But it's very

carefully judged and thought through and it should be read in conjunction

with the statement that Sir John has given today, which is an articulate

distillation of what he says in his 200 page summary and I think that is

what we should be guided by. We will all need time to study the many

damning conclusions in this report about how this catastrophic decision

was reached in 2003. The Prime Minister says we should read it with

an eye to future lessons for the machinery of Government. There's my

honourable friend agree that my only experience was a valuable

innovation, that his successor should be recommended to look at

whether or not we should not return to the pre-Tony Blair era of full

collective Cabinet responsibility with proper time for meetings,

proper information and studied conclusions and whether we should

not also look at whether parliamentary accountability for

these things should be reconsidered so that there are fool and properly

informed debates here, held in good time, before the military are

deployed and everything is set in hand and the position is

irreversible? We need to go back to a much more collective and

terms of Cabinet responsibility, terms of Cabinet responsibility,

before decisions like this are made you have to have a Cabinet

discussion but it would not try to substitute that for the work they

NSC does now. Having the head of NSC does now. Having the head of

MI5, MI6 and the head of the defence task sitting with you, they are able

to speak up and tell you what they think. I think that debate is

frankly more valuable than simply listening to other secretaries of

state who are also there. I still think that is the best place to do

that. In terms of parliamentary debates, we should have them, and it

is good to have them in reasonable time. One of the issues with the

Iraq debate was that it was so close to the point of decision that I

think many colleagues felt that a vote in a different way was to let

down our troops on the eve of a vitally important decision. Every

Prime Minister for looking at a view Prime Minister for looking at a view

of the millions of words of the report this morning. -- a few.

Today, we remember the hundreds of people who died in Iraq, Iraqi

civilians and witty service personnel -- British. Our hearts go

out to them. The report we are considering now will be pored over

in the weeks and months ahead and it should be the first step in learning

lessons from the UK's most shameful foreign policy action in decades. On

page 416, the Chilcott report confirms that on the 20th of July,

2002, Tony Blair voted George Bush saying, and I quote, I will be with

you, whatever. Frankly, it is remarkable, remarkable, that the

Prime Minister didn't think that Prime Minister didn't think that

that was even noteworthy to mention that was even noteworthy to mention

in his statement to the House. My first question to the Prime Minister

is why? Given much of the debate rests about the rationale of the

Prime Minister at the time signing up to whatever course of action the

native states was prepared to pursue. On intelligence, the report

concludes in paragraph 807 that the assessed intelligence had not

established beyond doubt either that Saddam Hussein had continued to

produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop

nuclear weapons continued. I completely understand, Mr Speaker,

by the families of dead and injured UK service personnel and hundreds of

thousands of Iraqis will feel that the were deceived about the reasons

for going to war in Iraq. I can truly understand why they also feel

let down when it came to the post-conflict situation and the

Chilcot Report highlights in graphic detail the failure in planning for

post-conflict Iraq. Add paragraph 630 of the executive summary, when

Mr Blair set out the future for Iraq in the House of Commons in March

2003, no assessment had been made of whether that vision was achievable,

no agreement had been reached with the United States only workable

post-conflict plan. Union authorisation had not yet been

secured -- UN, and there had been a secured -- UN, and there had been a

decision on the UN rule and post-conflict Iraq. In paragraph

418, it says Tony Blair who recognise the significance of the

post-conflict phase did not press President Bush or definite

assurances about US plans. He did not consider a seek advice on

whether a satisfactory plan called for a reassessment of the UK's

engagement and did not make a plan for condition of UK participation in

military action. In fact, the Chilcot Report concludes that, I

quote, from paragraph 857, the UK did not achieve its objectives. The

lack of planning has also been evident since, in allusion to

Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and most recently, with absolutely no plan

whatsoever in regards to Brexit. So when will UK Government of either

Tory or Labour hue actually start learning from the past so we're not

going to repeat mistakes? I hope those who were responsible and

associated with taking the UK to war in Iraq, that has only cause

hundreds of thousands of deaths, not just that, it has undermined

people's face in Parliament on Government in the UK and left an

indelible stain on Britain's standing in the world. I thank the

honourable gentleman for his remarks. It is a sombre day and he

is correct. He highlighted a number is correct. He highlighted a number

of the very serious mistakes that were made, not least on planning for

the aftermath. He asks a specific question about why I didn't mention

the specific Tony Blair note. I was trying to be careful in my statement

to accurately summarise what Sir John Chilcot has said and I did have

a whole section in my statement saying about the President. I said

Sir John says, a crucial point, Tony Blair made commitments to George

Bush that had not been agreed with Cabinet colleagues and I think it is

worth reading Sir John Chilcot's statement about that. On high gas

6030, it is a powerful paragraph -- all in paragraph four --...

I think it is one of the most powerful passages and I think he is

right to draw attention to it. I don't accept that all the same

failures and a padded in some way when it comes to planning in

Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there was a very clear connection between

a Taliban regime that was playing host to Al-Qaeda and the goal of

Government policy, which I supported at the time and put into place when

I became Prime Minister, was to make sure that company can become a safe

haven for Al-Qaeda -- could become. There was a huge amount of planning

in the post-conflict situation in Afghanistan and we are still engaged

in that. There is a plan, there is a UK run Officer training Cabinet to

strengthen their army. You can have all the plans in the world that

these are still extreme the difficult things to get right. If

you somehow saying there is no point in ever taking part in intervention,

that is a different position. You should be honest and say that. But I

and Brexit, we have set out the and Brexit, we have set out the

alternatives but it does not mean they are easy. The foreign affairs

committee has stated its inquiry into the intervention in Libya in

order to take into conclusion the Iraq inquiry. Given that the central

not least stabilisation being not least stabilisation being

described by my honourable friend at the time of fanciful rot, and to us

in evidence as an unrealistic desktop exercise, would you

reconsider his understandable decision not to give us information

during the referendum campaign so that the reaching of the analysis of

machinery of Government changes he outlined earlier to the honourable

member can be properly assessed by the committee?

I am very grateful for his remarks. I think the Foreign Secretary will

be giving evidence. Obviously the Prime Minister is always asked to

give evidence to every select committee of the house and I try to

stick to answering questions here at the ways of committee and also the

national Security committee, to bring together a number of different

committees. I do not think it will be possible but I will consider

every request. Can I first full heartedly endorsed the remarks the

Prime Minister made about those who lost their lives? Could I also ask

him, does he agree that each of us in Cabinet or in this house who are

responsible, we should take responsibility for our own

individual decisions, I'll be taken in good faith and basis of evidence

before us? But equally does he agree that the amount of hatred and death

in Al-Qaeda and Daesh should take responsibility for their actions and

for the blood and horror that they inflict on others? The Honourable

lady is right. I speak as someone who is a relatively new backbencher,

sitting at the listing to the arguments coming to my own

conclusions and I think anyone who voted for the conflict must take

their share of responsible to. I don't choose to go back and say well

if I knew now what I know then that I knew then what I knew now, I just

think you make the decision, you decided at the time and you must

live with the consequences in the year share of responsibility and

that is the stand side take. She does make a very good point about

the evil of these violent extremists, whether in Al-Qaeda or

Daesh or elsewhere, this problem in our world existed before the Iraq

war, it exists and is worse today. We are doing all sorts of things and

all sorts of ways to try and combat it. While this debate about what

happened in Iraq and the decisions we are taking is vital we must not

let its sap our energy for dealing with this cancer in a world which is

killing of their own country. The Prime Minister I think referred to

the cause or the aim of this war as weapons of mass destruction but if I

can rise attention again back to the document from Tony Blair to the

American president, goes on later after it says I will be with you

whatever, it goes on to say the reason for this is getting rid of

Saddam Hussein is the right thing to do. Regime change. Not WMD. This

factor in the fact that as Sir John Chilcott said, Blairs commitment

needed very difficult for the UK to withdraw support from military

action later on, this actually amounts to a deceit and the

misleading of this House of Commons. It is not the only one, and Sir John

has been very careful about avoiding accusing the previous Prime Minister

of lying to the house but a lot of the evidence here suggest he did.

What action can this house take in dealing with that? I think my right

honourable friend makes an important point. I have had longer than anyone

else to read this report but it is still trying to get to the bottom of

this particular issue, I accept, is difficult. What Sir John Chilcott

seems to be saying is that the British government had a policy of

coercive diplomacy, wanting to use the pressure of the threat of

military action in order to get Saddam Hussein to come principally

disarm. Everyone is going to have to read the report and come to their

own conclusions. From my reading of it, Sir John Chilcott is not

accusing anyone of delivered it explicit deceit. But people must

read the report and come to their own conclusions. Today we stand

alongside the families of 179 service men and women and 24 British

civilians who died in the Iraq war, we also stand beside those many more

they continue to live with injuries inflicted while serving their

country in Iraq. We are proud of them are the order them. Mr Speaker,

the Chilcot report makes clear the absolute determination of the former

Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair to pursue war in Iraq no matter the

evidence. There is a stark contrast between that single-minded

determination to go to war and the reckless and complete absence of any

plan for what would come next. What came next is 179 British servicemen

and women killed. What came next is 100,000 or more Iraqi civilians

killed. And what came next was refuelling of what is now Isis

Daesh, which threatens not only Iraq and the Middle East and indeed the

safety of all others. The much missed Charles Kennedy said in this

house in 2003 and the court, the big fear that many of us have is that

this is simply going to breed further generations of suicide

bombers. So will the Prime Minister now take the opportunity on the half

of his party this house to acknowledge that Charles Kennedy was

right all along in leading the opposition across this country

against the counter-productive war, and should not those who accused

Charles Kennedy of appeasement, some of whom are still on these benches

today, apologised to him, to his family, to our service men and

women, to our country and to the people of Iraq? My recollection of

the debate was that there were honest disagreements between

colleagues who were listening to the arguments in making their decisions.

I don't think anyone should be accused of appeasement for voting

against this war, should people who voted in favour of it in good faith

on the evidence they were being given be subject to answer criticism

either. People who voted for the world like we had to take their

share of responsibility. That is important. But it is not right to

accuse people who voted against the appeasement. I was shadow

international developer secretary at the time and asked 91 written

questions of the government, accommodating in an opposition Day

debate on the 30th of January 2003 because they had not received

answers or any satisfactory answers. With the Prime Minister for the sake

of the many many victims please assure the house that we have truly

learn a lesson of failure to plan for contingency? I remember very

well how effective my honourable friend was in holding those debates.

People say we did not debate post-war reconstruction in Iraq, we

did, endlessly, in this house. A lot of debate had. It is quite clear

from this report that there was a total planning failure. An

assumption that the Americans had a plan when they didn't, an assumption

that the UN would moving copperhead is ugly when he didn't, an

assumption that British troops would be adding three to four months. I

think it is one of the greatest areas of criticism, it is the any of

failure that I think should be accepted most clearly and it is the

one for any future conflict we plan for most carefully. I thank the

Prime Minister for summing up the main findings of the Chilcot report,

although unlike him I have not had the opportunities to even read the

summary. Would he agree that in 2003, when I voted for the war, when

he voted for the one and many other colleagues voted for the war, we did

it on the basis of the knowledge that we had. Iraq was in breach of

17 UN resolutions in 2003. Saddam Hussein had already killed half a

million of his own people. He went on to kill more and more. The Shia

in the south, the Kurds in the north, and if you stood by the mass

graves where 10,000 Iraqi bodies lie, still many of them

undiscovered, those of us who had campaigned for human rights over

many years in Iraq and I over 30 years, were very well aware of the

torture and the horrors that were happening in that country. And I

wish people would ask Iraqis what they think of the invasion. Because

many Iraqis are grateful, Mr Speaker, that we took the action

that we did at that time. I hope we are greater opportunity to discuss

these matters because there was some planning, not enough, I agree, but

there was some planning, part of which I was involved with. But the

horrors of Saddam Hussein, what he did to his own people, were clearly

documented. And I think we were right to take part in that invasion.

I will remember the speeches of the right Honourable Lady when I was

sitting there are, she made very powerful speeches about the

appalling thing Saddam Hussein did to his own people and the practices

in that country. That is a fair point. I also think that when the

case was made, people were acting on the knowledge of fraud of the money

was not just weapons of mass destruction, it was the sense that

we were trying to uphold the position of the United Nations and

the massive danger he posed to the region and his own people. We must

be frank. The consequences of what followed have been truly very poor.

That is what Sir John Fiennes. I think that section of his report

when he talks about the objectives of the government not being met and

that far from dealing with the problem with potentially resumes

linking up with terrorists, which Tony Blair talked about in his

dispatch box, this did end up with creating a space for Al-Qaeda so we

must learn all the lessons, including the ones we are paying

for. With my right honourable friend agree with me that there are lessons

for having them of this house and every member of the media as to how

we assess evidence? We can no longer take refuge in the peat heads that

we did not know the evidence about the non-existence of weapons of mass

destruction. The report says the assessed intelligence had not

established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce

chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear

weapons continued. That evidence was set out in the dossier, and as I

showed in evidence to the Chilcot report, if you read the dossier,

line by line, he could not fail to reach the same conclusion as Robin

Cook that there were no weapons of mass destruction. The fact that we

didn't, or very largely be did not reach that conclusion, is because we

had ceased to look at evidence and we rely on briefings and spin

doctors from our front benches. If this house is to get a grip of

issues in the future, it must go back to looking at evidence itself

is allowed journalists. What I would say to my right honourable friend is

that a lot of things have changed since that evidence was produced in

the way that it was, and one of the most important is the renewed

independence and practices of the joint intelligence committee, so

that ministers of course do still see individual pieces of

intelligence, and of course one wants to have a regular update, but

the process of producing JIC reports and JIC assessment is incredibly

rigorous, so I do not think that what happened could happen again in

the same way because the report she would get from the joint

intelligence committee, I think, are now much cleaner about what they do

now and what they think and what the conjecture rather than anything

else. I think we can avoid that situation. That doesn't solve the

problem in the House of Commons because it is impossible to assure

all of that intelligence information with every member of Parliament. I

join with others in paying tribute to the ex-service men and women who

died in the conflict in Iraq and also the hundreds and thousands of

civilians. One of the greatest scandals out of this whole episode

is of course the lack of resources for our troops sent into battle

without the equipment that they needed and this must never be

allowed to happen again. And the Prime Minister set out for the house

when he believes that the national security machinery that he has

established would have forestalled the evident mistakes made in

Whitehall in the run-up to the commitment in Iraq? I'm grateful to

the right honourable gentleman. On the issue of equipment, of course

money for our armed services is not infinite but I think what we have

done is get rid of the black hole in the defence budget, so resources and

commitment are more in balance, and by having a security and defence

review every five years, we have had to since I have been Prime Minister,

means that you imagine what you're spending to the things that your

security forces require. That is a big improvement. It's depends on

having the bee sources. I have tried to explain why the national Security

Council architecture helps solve some of these problems but I'm not

standing here saying you can completely reduce any risk of

mistake or planning or of the rest of it because these things are by

their nature very contributed. Human institutions are never going to be

perfect, nor are they perfectible. But it must be said that the

conclusions of the Chilcot enquiry as to the way in which legal advice

was processed, intelligence was processed, and intelligence was used

to inform policy, are pretty damning. Mr Speaker, my right

honourable friend has rightly highlighted that much has changed

since then. Certainly I can vouch for the fact that the processors,

which I hope have been continued by legal advice is contained, a rather

different from those that Sir John identifies. But when it comes to the

collation of intelligence, which is an extremely difficult skill, is my

right now friends satisfied that this is subject to enough scrutiny

and review subsequent to ensure that lessons can be learned when mistakes

in intelligence assessment are made? Because this does seem to me to be

one of the key areas in which free a -- future decision-making is capable

of continuing improvement. First of all I think my right honourable

friend is right that the way legal advice is produced and considered is

very different today to them because we have a National Security Council,

we have the Attorney General sitting on it, and before decisions like

these are made a well thought through piece of written legal

advice is produced. The Attorney General is not suddenly called on to

do this, the Attorney General is in the room white -- while these

meetings are taking place, which he did believe they are the successors

doing brilliantly. His point of the collation of intelligence and are we

doing it right is more difficult to answer. There's no doubt that post

but that the joint intelligence committee isn't helped -- incredibly

rigorous about reaching judgments, testing them around the experts in

Whitehall, confirming them with the Americans and others. And not

pretending to know things that it doesn't know. How well we test that,

I suppose there is a role for the ISC in that and thinking have we got

these judgments right after they have been made, but that is

something worth thinking can be done about. All of the intelligence

briefing and information in the world, at the end you still must

make a decision and you never have perfect information on which you

make that decision. We up the balance of risks and that is often

the case whether you're taking action against terrorists are trying

to help secure the national interest. In the end you must decide

and then defend the decision he made. The epitaph on Robin Cook's

headstone in the great cemetery rue -- reads as follows: I may not have

succeeded in stopping the war that I did secure the right of Parliament

to decide. Parliament is right to say that in the circumstances that

Parliament cannot be involved in the decision and then duck

responsibility for the ramifications of that decision. Does the Prime

Minister agree with me that the main element in that debate is the debate

in which Parliament decided in 2003 was not the 45 minute claim that was

not mentioned anywhere in those hours of debate, it was the fact

that Saddam Hussein and his murderous sons had spent 13 years

running rings around the United Nations, ignoring 17 UN resolutions,

including resolutions calling for all necessary means to stop him.

Wasn't that the main issue in that debate? And has the Prime Minister

found any evidence whatsoever of any lies told to Parliament on that day?

My memory of the debate is that it was about the balance of risks

between action and inaction, and the case made by the then Prime Minister

was that there was a real risk of inaction because you have someone

who had been defying the UN, have done terrible things to his people,

and centres neighbours, and the danger of that coming together with

a potential programme of weapons of mass destruction and the other

instabilities in the world post-911, you must remember it was post-911,

that was what I think, I felt as a relatively young backbencher, I felt

that is what we were voting on. Weapons of mass destruction was part

of the picture, not the whole picture. His question about

deliberate deceit, I think you must read the report carefully. I can see

and hear an accusation of deliberate deceit, but there is certainly

information that was not properly presented.

-- I cannot say. -- I cannot see. I don't think the Prime Minister or

the right honourable lady who voted for this war should feel ashamed or

apologetic and as usual the Prime Minister has acted with honour and

dignity. The fact is that we believe what we were told about weapons of

mass destruction. Some of us walked into the no lobby but it was a

narrow decision. I don't think there is any point in having

recriminations because everybody in this House acted in good faith. For

the future, surely we must distinguish between authoritarian

regimes like Assad and Sadam who we must deter and oppose and

totalitarian regimes like Isis who we must seek to destroy. We are not

argument but on this I think he is argument but on this I think he is

absolutely right. There is the difference between the Terence and

containment and pre-emptive action when there is direct threat to the

country. -- deterrence. I would also add there is a third, which is when

you think you need to act in order to prevent a humanitarian

catastrophe, which was the reason I stood at this dispatch box and said

we would take action in respect to Libya. -- said we should. All of us

who voted for the Iraq war must and will take our share of

responsibility but there are many of us who do not regret the fact that

Sadam Hussein is no longer in power for the reasons so powerfully set

out a moment ago by my right honourable friend. Does the Prime

Minister recognise that one of the wider lessons from Iraq is that we

need a United Nations that is capable of giving effect to the

responsibility to protect so that brutal dictators who murder and

terrorise their own population can and will be held to account? As so

often I think the right honourable gentleman speaks with clarity on

these matters. Of course we need a United Nations who can do this and

this is why sometimes we end up in the situation of being certain that

it is right to take a particular action but because of a toe on the

security council it somehow becomes legally wrong. There is a question

about how something can be morally right but legally wrong. -- because

of a veto on the security council. I think we need to continue reforming

the United Nations. In the hope that we all accept that war should be the

measure of last resort once all other options have been exhausted,

given the publication of the Chilcott report, will the Prime

Minister now do something that no government has done since 2003 and

that is finally and unequivocally admit that this intervention was

both wrong and a mistake? I think people should read the report and

come to their own conclusions. Clearly the aftermath of this

conflict was profoundly disastrous in so many ways and I don't move

away from that at all. I take the view that if you voted in a

particular way you can't turn the clock back, you have to take your

responsibility but you learn the lessons of what went wrong. May I

think the Prime Minister. The enquiry's view at point 20 is that

in March 2003 that the options of diplomacy had not been exhausted so

military action was not a last resort. Despite the lack of evidence

of weapons of mass destruction, despite problems with the advice, in

.22 it says led by Tony Blair the UK Government supports military action.

-- in point 22. It was necessary to deferred to his close ally is on

Iraq. Given the undermining of the UN and the horrible consequences is

it not conceivable that Mr Blair should not be held to account for

his actions? I think the honourable gentleman reads out some important

parts of the report and I think it is significant that Sir John Chilcot

finds that this undermines the United Nations because some of us

fought at the time that the UN was being undermined by the actions of

Saddam Hussein and the fact that he was not complying with so many

resolutions. We need to study that and take that into account. As for

how people should account for themselves, it is for them to read

the report and think about why they did what they did. I want to setup

the lessons I think we should learn, I am far more adjusted in the future

and how we learn what is in here rather than rerun the Iraq debate.

It may be unusual for anybody in this place to change the way they

will vote following a speech made here and I can't prove that that is

what I did but that is what I did the night of the debate because what

was said about weapons of mass destruction. I now have to listen

and wrestle with my own conscience, the then Prime Minister must wrestle

with his. We'll my right honourable friend agree that the then Prime

Minister must take full responsibility for encouraging this

House to take the decision that it did, with disastrous consequences in

the stabilising the world? -- will my. Of course it is right that the

people who took the decisions have to take the responsibility. I voted

for the action in 2003. It was a difficult decision but I don't

apologise and I believe that we were right to remove the fascist regime

of Saddam Hussein. The Prime Minister referred in his remarks to

what has happened in Libya and in Syria. Can he speculate about what

might have happened in Iraq if Saddam or Uday Hussein had been in

power in 2011? Isn't it likely that the Baathist fascists in Iraq would

have killed more than the number of Syrians killed and created nurdle

than the number of refugees displaced from their homes. --

created more than. It is impossible to answer that but just as there are

consequences of intervention there are consequences of nonintervention,

which is proved by Syria, where we have appalling numbers of deaths and

displacement of people and a booming in the -- industry of terrorism. Can

I thank my right honourable friend for pledging on behalf of this House

that our soldiers who suffered life changing injuries in the Iraq war

should be looked after for the rest of their lives? But may I also

remind the House that we have an equal duty for our soldiers who

suffered life changing injuries in previous conflicts, such as some of

my 35 men so badly wounded on the 6th of December 1982 at Ballykelly

as well as other regular army, Territorial Army, Ulster Defence

Regiment and Royal Ulster Constabulary members who suffered so

grievously in previous conflicts. My honourable friend with his previous

military background is absolutely right to make this point. What I was

trying to say was that Iraq and Afghanistan have been an enormous

change in tempo for the British Army and you have seen not only the large

number of people who lost their lives but also a very large number

of life changing injuries, people who lost limbs who want to have full

and active lives. The country came together to make sure that happens

so it is important that the charities are still funded and that

will help other people who suffered life changing injuries in other

conflicts. Chilcot has concluded that this country went to war not as

a last resort, that the authority of the UN was undermined, and the chaos

and carnage which has Institute, partly explained by the complete

lack of planning for the aftermath. I don't understand, given that we

now know from Chilcot, the memo written by the then promised on the

28th delight to George W Bush saying, I will be with you what

ever, is in any way compatible to what was said to Parliament and

people at the time. -- the 28th of July. Amid all this stuff about

improving processes, which is fantastically important, is it not

at the end of the day the people who made the decisions, and in our

search for responsibility wouldn't have helped if individuals

responsible were held responsible? My right honourable friend is right

to highlight these aspects of the report, we were not at the last

resort stage, the UN was undermined and there was this fundamental lack

of planning that led to so many problems, and he is right that the

people who took the decisions should be held accountable in this House,

in the court of public opinion. They are also accountable in terms of

people who might want to take action, as they have through the

courts in respect of equipment failures and so on in Iraq and

Afghanistan, but clearly the people of the day and the Prime Minister

have to account for themselves, and I understand Mr Blair is doing that

now. In regards to the structure of government, does he agree that

perhaps the national security adviser, rather than being a civil

servant, should be a Cabinet Minister, so it would bring all of

the strands of government together, more accountability and transparency

and perhaps more focus and decision-making and as we discuss

and vote on militarily tree action, surely any Prime Minister needs to

take ultimate authority because we don't know what the future holds and

there might be circumstances where it isn't practical or we don't have

the time? I think he is absolutely right on the second point, which is

that prime ministers do need to be ready to deploy without

parliamentary sanction if it is urgent and then to report to

Parliament straight afterwards. It is when there was a premeditated

decision to take action. I think in terms of the National Security

advisor I think it is right that we have an expert who is not currently

-- doesn't have to be a current civil service, and it is inexpert

who is garnering together the military, civilian, intelligence,

all of the different parts of Whitehall and it needs to be

somebody full-time rather than running a department rather than

being a politician. Would he put on record that he believes all of those

who voted for the action against Saddam Hussein did so in good faith

and on the very important lessons to be learned does he acknowledge that

just as there are consequences, sometimes terrible, of military

intervention, so there are consequences of nonintervention, as

we are seeing at huge cost today in Syria? I am very happy to make both

those points. I am sure that everybody who came here, like me,

wrestled with the arguments and made the difficult decision and I am sure

we can deal with this consequently. In terms of the consequences of

nonintervention, it is absolutely the case, we can see that in Syria.

The point I made to the Member for Telford South. -- Ilford. It is also

worth mentioning humanitarian issues like Rwanda, as I did in my

statement. Our troops shouldered the burden of Mr Blair's disastrous Iraq

war and paid the price in blood. On a gentler note, and as an Iraq

veteran, can I commend the Prime Minister for the work he has done

for our troops, veterans and their families, in improving their lot,

and can I ask whether he shares my hope and expectation that his

successor will do the same? Can I thank my honourable friend for his

kind remarks and also the good work he has done, not least in

commemorating the battles of the First World War 100 years ago. I

think we have now set up with the military covenant written into war

and the covenant support group a mechanism in what also that every

year we are trying to go further in supporting our Armed Forces, our

veterans and forces, and there is a mechanism for ideas to come forward,

whether helping with council tax or the pupil premium or free bus passes

or help with medical expenses, there is a forum for those ideas that

there wasn't in the past. We have heard a lot of justified

criticism of Tony Blair but can I as the Prime Minister to think of his

own role and of the others who voted for this? They heard Robin Cook's

powerful speech criticising the Government's case. They argued that

the invasion would be a catastrophe. The evidence was there if people

chose to look for it. Would it not be a step towards restoring public

trust in this House to offer some form of apology for the decision to

support the war? The Honourable lady wants to replace all the arguments

of the day. I don't really see a lot of point in that. Members of

parliament came to this House, made decisions, made them in good faith,

they can now reflect on whether those decisions were right or wrong.

I think what we should do instead is tried, as Sir John Chilcot does,

learn the lessons of what happens, and make sure mistakes cannot be

made in the future. The decision not to give Hans Blix more time to

conclude his UN weapon inspections is surely one of the principal midst

judgment of the prewar period. Does my right honourable friend feel that

in reference to the changes that have happened since then, the

skipper of ignoring the UN in this way has been reduced? I think he is

right that it is one of the most powerful points in the report that

Blix should have been given more time and that was an argument made

at the time that has even more force with the way it is written by Sir

John. I don't think I can stand here and honestly say that all the

changes we have put in place make mistakes like that impossible to

prevent because at the end of the day, governments and cabinets had to

make judgments on the basis of evidence in front of them. It makes

them more difficult because you are going to have, with the National

Security Council and the way it is setup, a better forum for making

decisions, listening to arguments and hearing expert advice and I that

does make it more difficult to press our heads if you cannot take expert

opinion with you although, of course, in the end Cabinet ministers

can decide. However wrong it was to take military action on false

intelligence, and I accept my responsibility in the way in which I

voted for military action, was its not the case that many of us were

influenced very much so buys Saddam Hussein's notorious record, the

aggression against the Iranians date, a war that lasted eight years

and took the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people on both

sides and is not satisfied with that, two years later, the

aggression against Kuwait which resulted in the first Gulf War?

Would it not be totally wrong to come to the conclusion that had its

not been for this invasion, which I say should not have taken place

because it was based on false intelligence, everything would have

been fine in the middle east and look at what is happening in stereo,

where we did not intervene, I believe rightly so, and again, I was

influenced by what happens over what we are disgusting now. -- stereo. He

put it very well. Each year is a situation where there was this

appalling record. Saddam Hussein had gassed the Kurds and murdered his

own people, invaded his neighbour, used weapons of mass action in the

past and we were told he was developing them again in the future

and on the basis of that, we were told we could not risk leaving him

in place and leaving those programmes in place. Even the

heightened risk post and 911. Those were very strong arguments and I

think it is worth recording that. It is worth taking into account the

point but who knows what would have happened if Saddam had still been in

place at the time of the Arab Spring, but it is possible to

believe that his reactions to his own people would be rather like the

reactions of President Assad to his own people which I would argue has

done more to ferment terrorism and cause extremism perhaps anything

else in the last decade. Today is a dark day for the UK Government. It

is a tragic day for Iraq and it is a desperately for the families of our

service men and women who I know are watching today. War is not a sport

and now should be a time of deep inflection and humility across

Government and across the operations of the military who advise the

Government. I want to pay tribute to those who fought and their families.

They are the best of us, the true patriots and they pay is the

greatest sacrifice for the liberties that we enjoy in this House. With me

that we need to make sure that how we look after these people, how we

say we want to do it and how we actually do it are the same thing?

As ever, he speaks with great clarity on these things. He is right

that it is a moment for deep reflection. He is also right that as

we think of our arms forces serving out, we should proud of what they

did. We should be proud of the bravery and courage. They were all

being the command of this House -- all being the command of this House

and performing in the way you would expect. He is right think of it like

that. He is also right to say that the promises of the armed services

cover and are kept in reality as well as on paper. Can I say that we

should remember that the real responsibility for the murder and

killing of so many Iraqi civilians lies with Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaeda,

and of course Isis as well. Can I say this, the three main complaints

made about Tony Blair and the Government's position at the time,

one that he misled Parliament or a lighter parliaments, the Prime

Minister has said that has not been found in the Chilcot report. The

other that intelligence was doctored. As I understand it from my

quick reading, that has not been found either. The other that it was

not in a regal warts but we know that Chilcot makes it very clear

that it relied on intelligence that it was illegal to go to war at that

point. I'm afraid he will have to read the report and to those

questions but first of all, on the dossier that was produced, the

report is clear that number ten and the Prime Minister did not wrongly

alter that. There are some comments in there about how the report did

not necessarily report all of the things that were in other papers

which is a different point. On the issue of whether the war was Iraq or

illegal, Chilcot does not take a stand and perhaps I've already out

exactly what he says. He says that there was legal advice and that

advice had a legal case for war and that is how the Government preceded

by Chilcot is not saying he is seeking a position. On the issue of

misleading Parliament is, there is nothing in the report that I can see

pointing to deliberate deceit but clearly there are occasions when

more information or better information could have been put

forward so I think one has to be careful in reading the report, but

also be my shorthand answers to his questions. Can I ask my friends for

his statement today. I understand from listening to the debate so far

that there will be noble tickle recriminations for reasons I

understand. Can I seek his assurance that as there will be no

recriminations against those who sent our Armed Forces to war, there

will be no recrimination against our Armed Forces being chased by

ruthless for doing our bidding and looking after our nation? I very

much agree with the statement he put forward. We are doing everything we

can to get through and knock down these holy and justified enquiries

that have been put in place because -- wholly unjustified. On this day

when we rightly reflects on our own intervention and our own

responsibilities, it is important to remember that violence did not begin

in Iraq in 2003. Against the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the

south, the regime of Saddam Hussein killed hundreds of thousands of

people. An adverse lessons learned from the intervention, which I fully

set out in the report and the lessons and the Leicester should be

learned. It has also been rightly commented that we should learn the

lessons from not intervening in Syria weather has been a

humanitarian catastrophe. Can I asked the Prime Minister, of all the

lessons learned, does he agree that the gay inclusion should not be

never to intervene because if that was the conclusion, the result would

be to a band and oppressed people around the world and to give a blank

cheque to dictators and terrorist groups. -- the key inclusion. What I

said in my statement was that I thought there were lessons to learn

but also lessons not alone and the lesson not to learn is that

intervention is always wrong. Sometimes it is and our interest of

national security or to prevent humanitarian catastrophes were it is

right to intervene and we should be very clear what that there are cases

where we have not intervened and has been almost the same amount of chaos

and of the bodies. I welcome my right honourable friend's statement

today. Would he join me in expressing some slight concern not

only at the shape of the centre of Government that was around at the

time of the Blair Government but also the departments that supported

its because of course, the top of the pyramids can only work if the

supporting pillars are in place and I have only read the executive

summary so I cannot comment in detail but it seems to me quite

clear that part of the military of defence, including chiefs of staff,

were not delivering the advice of the Government is needed and

elements of the Foreign Office had succumbed to read form of groupthink

that leaves me deeply concerned as to the structure and advice

governance can get. I'm going to have it date before answering. There

is not a huge amount of that in the executive summary of the Iraq

inquiry. I think we will have to dive into the volumes to see exactly

what Sir John has to say about advice from the MOD, from the

Foreign Office, how much groupthink they're genuinely was and all the

rest of it. I would hesitate with that. I think we will have to study

the report and discuss this next week. Those of us who come to the

report scandalised anew by the duplicity of pleasant Asian and the

property of preparation on such grave matters nevertheless have to

remember that those who are acutely burden today by the cruel sense of

futility of sacrifice in terms of lives lost, lives devastated and

lives changed. The Prime Minister rightly emphasises lessens the need

to be learnt but we must take care not to turn this report into a grey

wash by converting it into a syllabus about foresight in

Government and oversight in Parliament. This is not a day for

sound bites, but does the Prime Minister not agree that the hand of

history should be feeling somebody's collar?

I don't they did is a grey wash or a whitewash or on anything else wash.

From what I've seen so far, this is a thorough effort at trying to

understand the narrative of the offence the decisions that were

taken and the mistakes that were made I think there's a huge amount

to learn and I think everyone who has played a part in it has to take

their responsibility for it. It's been so bring this afternoon to

hear the reflections of those who took the decision here in 2003. I

went to Iraq in 2007 to deliver on that decision. It was a difficult

and dangerous time. During that summer, many of my friends and

colleagues were sent home dead and injured. The Prime Minister have

spoken about the processes which addressed the Armed Forces's

equipment. Can the Prime Minister reassure the House at the urgent

operating requirement process is not quick enough so that we will never

again when troops into battle in vehicles not fit for purpose?

First, can I thank my honourable friend for his service and thank all

of those who serve in operation after 2003 all the way through to

when we withdrew. I'll never forget going to Iraq myself and meeting

some of the soldiers, some of whom who were there on the second or

third tour. And their sense that the situation was extremely difficult.

One of the positive things that has come out of this and Afghanistan is

the urgent operational requirements system which means we have

commissioned some fantastic equipment more quickly, and

responded to their needs. By the time our troops were coming out of

Afghanistan I'd been there 13 times over a period of six or seven years.

By the end, they were saving the equipment was better than the

Americans and they have things more quickly. New bits of kit could be

produced. There are positive lessons to be learned from all of this, as

well as all the negative ones. Could I ask the House to pause for a

minute to remember Robin Cook, who had the courage to speak up against

the orthodoxy of the day and the courage to eat out as a voice for 30

in 2003. Note the sequence of events which led to the UK's participation

in the invasion of Iraq show that where the unshakeable in the of a

political leader's self belief traps him or her in its own logic that

they cannot see beyond it, the consequences can be catastrophic. As

the man who voted against the war in 2003, I know that the Iraq war did

not create from scratch the multiple problems that we see today in the

Middle East. But it does make them so much more intractable. We'll be

PM agree with me that at root, the peoples of the Middle East, what

they want is not so different from what people over here want? They

want security, they want respect, and they want to know that they're

not treated with double standards by the international community.

I very much agree that we should recognise what people in the middle

east want is what we want in terms of respect, the right to a decent

government, the rule of law and decent standards. It is worth

reading parts of the report about weapons of mass destruction. It says

in paragraph 496 the ingrained belief that Adam Hussein's retained

warfare capabilities was determined to do enhances capabilities

including at some point in the future nucleic and was underpinning

responsibility since the Gulf conflict ended. It was wrong but he

had weapons of mass destruction, we now live he didn't. But it is worth

recalling the sense that everyone in this house have that it was very

deeply ingrained in policy makers and policy thinkers that he did.

It's right that Chilcott comes to the agreement that Robin Cook was

right to say that you could look at the evidence and come to a different

conclusion. But it is quite important to remember just how many

people and how many organisations were convinced that this was the

basis of politics. My right honourable friend attends

the Nato Warsaw summit this weekend. He will be acutely aware of the

pressure that Nato feels right now. And Nato member states, from Russia.

Is it not the case but President Putin will be examined very closely

the action at this Parliament takes moving forward. As Parliament knows,

Nato can only act when the Security Council of it meets to act. Chapter

five says an invasion on one country is an invasion on all. Can I ask

that this house does not move to the position where it has to prove that

before we take that action, because otherwise we could find that the

Iraq lessons and Iraq as a whole is just used as a mother shield to

never take any military action. -- as another shield.

We should not use this sobering moment of reflection where we look

at the mistakes made and lessons to be learned. We should not use this

moment to think that somehow it's right for Britain to shrink away

from international responsibility and engagement. That would be the

wrong lesson to learn from this. Like the Prime Minister, I remember

the debates of February and March 2000 and three. We were both elected

for the first time in 2001. What I remember is many of the members Ben

who ask questions and demanded evidence were heckled and shouted

down. One have debated on this report, it is white but as well as

scrutinising the conduct others should have some of scrutiny on

themselves. We now know that of what was reported to be evidence in 2003

was obtained by people who had been tortured having been illegally

rendered. Will the Prime Minister give me an assurance that this

country will never again basic foreign policy judgments on evidence

or information obtained in that way? I can certainly give him that

assurance. That is something physically addressed during the

Kurdish government -- Coalition Government that we should not use in

any way evidence delivered by means of torture.

Can I thank my right honourable friend for giving such an excellent

statement on this war. As my right honourable friend knows, my

constituency includes three command Brigade whose wives and families

will have played a significant part in this whole conflict. You sure

that MPs from similar garrison cities are also given names and

details of those families so that we can communicate with them in order

to make sure that we can talk to them about the impact this conflict

will have had upon their lives? I'm happy to give that assurance, I

think that work is in hand. Can I make comments about the loss

of life in Iraq, specifically to take this opportunity to commemorate

the service and sacrifice of our Armed Forces. They served in good

faith and we should be proud of them today, as we are everyday. It's

critical that the public can have trust in the decisions we take in

this place. And at no time is that truer than on a vote to take our

country to war. Whatever we think about the judgment that was made, we

should acknowledge that the bond of trust between the Government, this

house and the public has been damaged by the decision that was

taken in 2003. We in this place today now have an absolute need to

put that right for the future. Can I ask the Prime Minister if he will

consider reviewing how intelligence is shared with members of this house

before voting on military action? In addition to considering what steps

could be taken to improve MPs, Armed Forces and our intelligence that

this is the ability to work together to take these difficult decisions?

First, let me join the honourable gentleman who served himself in our

Armed Forces in paying tribute to what our Armed Forces did in Iraq.

They should be proud of the work they did. They were acting on behalf

of this House of Commons and the gunmen to took that decision. They

behaved bravely and courageously and we should remember that and those

who gave their lives and what we did. On his question about how we

share intelligence information with this house, two reflections. One is

that we have tried. We did in the case of Libya and Syria to try and

publish assessments cleared for the House of Commons and cleared, I

might add, by officials rather than by ministers. That is the first

point. The second point is getting the chairman to read the statement

or speech made by the Prime Minister to make sure it accurately reflects

the intelligent information. I think those are two things we should try

to do. Sometimes time is short, the picture is changing, the

intelligence is changing. Those are good things to try and do, but I

would say there is no perfection in all of this. In the end, you can

receive and share as much intelligence as you like, but you

must make a decision, make an argument and then defend it whether

it is right or wrong. Given that the Chilcot Report found

that the UK Government undermined Security Council authority and the

result of the EU referendum, what plans do the Government had to

reinforce the Foreign Office and restore our international

arbitration? I think the Foreign Office has been

restored in many ways. -- international reputation. William

Hague restore the language school and opened a number of embassies

around the world. I think the Foreign Office has seen once again

is a great place to go and is and work. -- to go and work. We have to

go on recognising that the combination of our 2% spending on

the militarily, I 0.7% spending on aid and our proper funding at the

Foreign Office, those three things going together do enhance our soft

and hard power in the world. I'm always proud when we hear that

we're not shrinking from our place on the board's stage. But the brunt

of that always falls on the servicemen and we have had many

peoples you today on how we should be looking after our servicemen,

giving them the right kit and the right mental health. We must also

look after their families. When we review every five years what we're

doing, can we guarantee we've got enough resources?

I agree, I did mention service families because I think it is

important that we look after them and the covenant is partly about

them. We heard the talk today about what a

dreadful dictator Saddam was and how he's been ignoring UN rules. The

question in 2003 was "Why now?". That is why the intelligence around

weapons of mass destruction was so crucial. Would-be Prime Minister

agree with me that the key parts of the special relationship is that it

should be like any other relationship. The reason we are so

close to some people is that they will tell us what we need to hear,

not what want to hear. There is a very good section of the

report entitled Why Now. It is important to read the part of the

report about what would have happened if Britain had not have

stood alongside the United States. In the review, that would not have

terminally damaged the special relationship and I think that is the

correct. As my right honourable friend said

earlier, today, Sir John Chilcot has confirmed the existence of a dirty

deal between Tony Blair and President Bush. Given that, will be

Prime Minister join me in demanding that Tony Blair apologises

unreservedly to the families of the 179 UK service personnel killed, and

to be hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who also died. When he or

so join me in asking Mr Blair to apologised for the British public,

whose faith in me democratic process has been faithfully undermined by

this whole sorry affair? We should wait to see what Mr

Blatter... He's eating probably while we are here. -- Mr Blair. --

he's. -- he's speaking. The barbarity of

Saddam Hussein is beyond doubt and my thoughts are with the thousands

of Kurds murdered by Mikel weapons in 1988. Despite that, -- by

chemical weapons. Despite that, I did not support the 2003 war and

Cammy clarify that military action was being taken against Saddam

Hussein before then because Will the Prime Minister at knowledge that

operation Warden and operation provide comfort, the no-fly zones in

Iraq, meant that Saddam Hussein was a caged animal?

I think my honourable friend who served in at least one of those

missions have made this point before. It's set out here as well.

Which is that there was a policy of deterrence and containment. I think

Sir John Chilcot argues quite persuasively that that's situation

should have continued for longer with more UN action before the last

resort of military action. He makes that point very clearly.

There are some practical constitutional lessons to be learnt

here, specifically for Parliament, given Parliament's role. For

example, wouldn't it be better if we had specific opportunity to

scrutinise the Attorney General before decisions are made? Shouldn't

we have better parliamentary scrutiny of the security services?

On those occasions where we do have to come to a decision about military

integration, because sometimes that is necessary, shouldn't there be a

better equipped to national security council which has that thread of

accountability, somehow, back to Parliament?

These are all interesting ideas and I'm prepared to consider them. The

Attorney General does answer questions in Parliament and is

accountable to Parliament. The National Security Council members

are accountable to Parliament and there is this committee, both Lords

and Commons, which scrutinises the National Security strategy which I

have appeared in front of. Our intelligence services are far more

accountable than they've ever been, including giving speeches openly

about what they're doing and answering questions at meetings in

considerable detail. I'm always happy to consider other things, but

I think in terms of accountability we have a huge way.

I would also paid tribute to troops and also to ask that those who have

ended up with broken lives because of it shouldn't just be looked after

through the covenant while serving but long-term. We know of cases of

troops and their families who are continuing to suffer. Two things

coming out of this are that in essence what was being carried out

was regime change, which would not normally be considered a legal basis

for war, and that there was inadequate planning for the peace

afterwards. Does this not apply to Libya? In that predominantly what we

got caught into their was getting rid of Colonel Gaddafi and we have

invested a fraction in the nation-building in Libya than we did

in the border. The other thing mentioned was that Saddam Hussein

was known to have attacked his own people, yet we still sold him

weapons after that, still sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, we are