06/07/2016 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source.

Our top story today: After seven years, the Chilcot report

into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war has finally been

We have concluded that the UK chose to in -- chose to join the invasion

of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.

Military action at that time was not a last resort.

Tony Blair was the prime minister at the time.

He defended some of his decisions, but admitted he had made mistakes.

For all of this, I express more pot-mac sorrow -- I express more...

Sorrow, regret than you may know or can believe.

We'll hear from Louisiana later in the programme,

where two white police officers

We will explain the circumstances of that.

We will have the latest from the Euros in France -

2-0 to the Portuguese, and the Welsh are running out of time.

Let's return to our coverage of the Chilcot report that was released

this morning in London. Most of them were

military personnel. Sir John Chilcot acknowledged

the "deep anguish" Well, several of those

families have been speaking The bereaved have endured seven

years of painful waiting Debbie Allbutt and her son Connor

were on their way to hear Steven Allbutt, husband and father,

was killed in Iraq in 2003. In the last few days,

the trauma has returned. It has brought a lot

of memories back. I have had nightmares,

that I saw Steve. I saw him in a shop,

it was a nightmare. I am just hoping we find out why

we went in and why we went In the quiet of nearby

Westminster Abbey, former SAS man John Brown was remembering his son,

Nick, also an SAS trooper. He wanted answers about

the justification for going to war. We want to know what the inquiry

says about the entry, I know they did not

have an exit strategy. The families came here looking

for the truth that named names Well, they've now had

a chance to consider The families gathered

here trust that we speak The families say they will study

the conclusions and decide whether to launch legal action

against Tony Blair. I'm going back to that time

when I learned that my brother had been killed, and there is one

terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of,

and his name is Tony Blair. But there was a welcome

for the report's findings What is your reaction

to what you heard? Amazed, I didn't expect it to be

as good an outcome, really. I thought we would have a bit

of cover up or something. Sir John Chilcot has

done us a good job. I'm really, really

pleased with the outcome. It's good news, but at the same time

it's bad news as well, because I think if Tony Blair wasn't

the Prime Minister at the time, I think my dad could still

have been here today. The former SAS man John Brown

watched Tony Blair's For all of this, I express more

sorrow, regret and apology... The Chilcot Report has not given

the families all the answers they sought, but it has restored

some measure of their faith As we've heard, one of the key

criticisms within the Chilcot report is the lack of planning for Ford

would happen after Saddam Hussain had been deposed. Jack Straw was the

UK 's Foreign Secretary. He has aimed criticism that the Americans,

in particular this man, Paul Bremer, who was the US official who decided

that the Iraqi army should be disbanded. Mr Straw has said that:

We have also heard from a spokesperson for President Bush. A

statement says: Lets bringing Gary O'Donoghue, live from Washington,

DC. You have a presidential election to keep the US media busy, I wonder

if this report has cut through. It honestly hasn't cut through very

much here. The White House and State Department have been asked about it,

and they have effectively brushed it aside as a sort of UK matter. They

say it is something that has been widely litigated, in their words, in

the United States, and they feel they have done their postmortem on

the Iraq war a long time ago. There are in mind that President Obama has

been in for two terms, and he was against the Iraq war, and that also

allows the US to distance themselves from these decisions. As you said,

former President Bush, saying that the world was better off without

Saddam Hussein, pointing to Tony Blair and saying that the world had

no stronger ally. There are some incredibly revelatory moments in the

report, not least that note in 2002, when Tony Blair said to President

Bush, I will be with you, whatever. That is one of the things that has

focused people's minds today. Was that a blank cheque to the

Americans? Tony Blair says the report vindicates him in terms of

that, the American administration not really willing to engage on what

that means for the relationship going forward. Tony Blair thought it

was essential to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans. Did the

UK reap the benefit of that in the years that followed? If you look at

UK foreign policy since the Second World War, it has been an absolutely

enduring theme of Prime Minister 's of all parties that the

relationship, the so-called special relationship, is central to

Britain's national interest. Sir John Chilcot said that Tony Blair

estimate -- overestimated the influence he had in Washington.

Talking to a former ambassador to Iraq here this morning, he said that

the relationship was important and there was influence on George Bush

at the time, from what Tony Blair said, in terms of getting him to go

to the UN, for example, for a resolution. I think the UK continues

to see itself as a kind of conduit between the US and the rest of the

world, so the relationship remains important, but there is no doubt

that it paid a price in international terms for being that

conduit, because it alienate a pass -- it alienate it partners in

Europe, notably France and Germany. I would highly recommend following

our correspondence on Twitter for more of this.

Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's press adviser at the time says,

mistakes, yes, but no lies, deceit, secret deals, sexing up.

One of the most controversial aspects of the run-up to the

invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the role being played by the

intelligence services. The Chilcot report deals with this explicitly,

saying : Here is the BBC's security

correspondent, Frank Gardner, on that.

Iraq under the late President Saddam Hussein

was a notoriously difficult place to spy on.

But Washington and Whitehall were desperate to acquire any

intelligence on Iraq's suspected chemical, biological

UN weapons inspectors had been searching Iraq for evidence of these

Saddam's regime behaved as if it were hiding something.

In fact, those programmes were destroyed in 1991,

But in Whitehall in the run-up to the invasion,

the Joint Intelligence Committee seized on what turned out to be

flimsy and poorly assessed intelligence supplied by MI6.

The Chilcot report says: Judgments about the severity of the threat

posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were presented with

It adds that the assessed intelligence had not established

beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein continued to produce chemical

MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service,

comes out badly from the Chilcot report.

Because it confirms in stark words that the intelligence on Iraq

was wrong and it needed to have been rigorously and independently

challenged by people other than those who gathered it.

Since then, that service has undergone a root and

Today raw material supplied by intelligence case officers

is independently assessed and challenged by others.

For MI6 the Chilcot report still makes uncomfortable reading.

But by now its lessons should be well and truly learned.

More on the Chilcot report through the BBC News website.

Our viewing figures in Wales today might be down on the average, and we

could understand, because as I am talking, Wales is involved in

arguably the most important football match it has ever played - Wales

against Portugal. The Welsh are losing at the moment, with about

five minutes to put that right. More on our top story: The former

Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has been giving his reaction to the

report. He sat down for an interview with our Deputy political editor.

The decision that I made to recommend to the hazard Commons that

we should take military action was the most difficult -- to the House

of Commons that we should take military action was the most

difficult one I have made. It will live with me for the rest of my

life, and I fully understand the terrible grief of those who lost

loved ones serving in Iraq, UK personnel, and everybody else who

has died as a consequence of our decisions. Could you have done more

to make post-war planning better? You are named in the report as

having failed in that regard. Of course we could, in retrospect. At

the time, I thought I was doing everything I conceivably could in

terms of post-war planning. Part of the difficulty was that we were, as

the report accurately describe, the junior partners of the United

States, and that became very evident, not so much jeering the

intense military action in March - April 2003, but in the aftermath.

For certain, I could have done more things differently with the benefit

of hindsight. You are one of very few ministers who knew what was

going on. It was not properly discussed or decided, according to

Chilcot. There were extensive discussions in Cabinet. There were

not discussions on papers in Cabinet. That was something I work

for very hard myself, and it is a matter of regret that that didn't

happen. Mr Blair now accept that. If there is one thing you could do

again differently, what would it be? If there was a magic wand, it would

have been to know the truth about Iraq's WMD, or the fact that Saddam

had secretly disposed of the unquestioned programmes and holdings

that he had had. But I'm afraid, life isn't like that. I ideally wish

that the American Government, or part of it, had not made the

decision to just abolish the whole of Iraq's security forces, which was

a huge error. This is Outside Source live

from the BBC newsroom. A long-awaited British inquiry

into the Iraq war has heavily criticised the British government

for helping the US to invade before all peaceful options

had been exhausted. If you're outside of the UK,

it's World News America next. And they'll have more analysis

of the Chilcot report, including an interview

with Stephen Hadley, who was President George Bush's

deputy national security advisor Here in the UK, the

News at Ten is next. It'll also have more

on the Chilcot report, including an in-depth look

at the failings of the UK Let's turn away from the Chilcot

report for a few minutes. A video has emerged appearing

to show two white police officers holding down and shooting dead

a black man in Louisiana. The confrontation happened

in Baton Rouge after reports of a man threatening people

with a gun outside a shop. I'm going to play you some

of the video now, but a warning that some of you may

find it distressing. After that, Alton

Sterling was shot dead. He is not what the mass media is

making him out to be. This is a play to try and obscure the image of a

man who is simply trying to earn a living.

There have been protests and a furious response on social media.

We must see this in the context of, first, the number

of people killed by police - that figure is over

And that, second, the number of these people who are black is hugely

disproportionate to the make-up of American society.

There should be no doubt in anybody's's mind that this incident

is going to be investigated impartially, professionally and

thoroughly by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights

division. Hopefully, when the community understands that, the

tensions will ease, and we will continue to press for calm and

patience. That is what I am asking for right now. Back to our lead

story. You may have seen on Sunday that there was the deadliest attack

in Iraq. The Chilcot report details that between the invasion and July

2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis died June ring either the invasion or the

subsequent instability. The BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen,

has been reporting all week from Iraq. Here is his latest report.

The people of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq are still living and dying

with the consequences of the 2003 invasion.

Security is being beefed up yet again after the bomb that killed

But the fear of a sudden random death is never far away.

When the US forces reached Baghdad in April 2003, pictures of them

helping Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein went

Hadi Al Jabari started knocking lumps out of the plinth to celebrate

Now like many Iraqis, he's nostalgic for the brutal

TRANSLATION: Saddam has gone and we now have 1000 Saddams.

If Tony Blair was here this morning, what would you say to him?

TRANSLATION: I would say to him, you are a criminal.

Less than an hour's drive from Baghdad, these are Iraqi Shia

militiamen, trained and equipped by Iran,

Chilcot says the British Government ignored a warning that removing

Saddam would offer Iran an opening in Iraq.

Captured IS positions seemed to have been prepared by trained soldiers,

IS commanders include former Iraqi officers who joined

the jihadists when the US and Britain dissolved the Iraqi army.

Not all of the chaos, violence and war in the Middle East

at the moment can be traced back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003,

It was like throwing a great big rock into a pond,

it sent out shock waves, geopolitical, religious,

And 13 years later, they're still crashing around the region.

Warnings about internal strife, regional instability and the rise

of jihadists were also ignored by Number Ten, says Chilcot.

Iraq's sectarian violence spread to Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere.

As leaders used and abused Shia Sunni fears to fight for power.

Jihadists were on the attack before the invasion.

But Iraq after 2003 offered Al-Qaeda a haven and launch pad that Islamic

Small numbers of British troops who we filmed on condition

At this base, Australians and New Zealanders

It is a long way from what Chilcot calls the humiliating

end of an intervention that went badly wrong,

We're going to finish today's Outside Source by bringing you

up-to-date on the football. It has been the first semi final of Euro

2016. Portugal versus Wales, and if you will forgive me dropping away

BBC neutrality for a moment, it hasn't gone well. Let's talk to

Katie. It sounds, looking at the BBC live page, that there was too much

Ronaldo for Wales. He has been sensational, you are

right. We have just had the final whistle. It is the Portuguese fans

who will go home celebrating. They have seen their team win 2-0 to make

it to the final. For Wales fans, it has been a fairy tale. It was a

nervous start to the match, but it burst into life after the break.

Christianity Ronaldo scored a fantastic header from a corner, to

score the game's opening goal. Three minutes later, Portugal had a

second. Wales switched off again and a shot from Ronaldo was swept in.

Those two body blows meant Wales could not recover. They will go home

disappointed, but they will hold their heads high. They will go home

as heroes. No one expected them to get this far. They won... Portugal

head on to Paris to play either France or Germany on Sunday.

It feels like it wasn't so long ago that we were talking about the

trouble between England and Russia fans - what is the atmosphere like

today? It has been really positive. I think

we can say that, from Wales fans in particular, all along. It has been a

party atmosphere for them. We have not seen any trouble from Wales or

Portuguese fans. Everywhere you look, there have been red shirts,

singing nonstop throughout the day. It has been a positive atmosphere.

We did notice some of the security forces here in the fan park moving

quite quickly into the crowd at the end, but I think that was a

precautionary measure. Overall, the atmosphere has been very good,

Portuguese fans really celebrating and hoping that their team can win a

major tournament. Ronaldo hoping as well that he can win his first major

trophy for Portugal. He has won just about everything else.

I'll leave you to enjoy the atmosphere. Portugal are through. It

is France versus Germany tomorrow. One of those will face Portugal. We

will cover the build-up to the final across the weekend. Outside Source

should be live from the place that wins on Monday. See you then.

Hello there. A huge weekend of sporting event coming up, which will

look at in more detail