Browse content similar to 06/07/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The legacy of the war in Iraq dominates the news this evening. | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
Thousands of soldiers from Northern Ireland | :00:11. | :00:13. | |
served in the country, and one of their officers says | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
the families of those killed there deserve an apology. | :00:17. | :00:18. | |
Today the inquiry into the war was heavily critical of the decision | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to go to war. | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
Mervyn Jess, who reported from Iraq at the time, | :00:26. | :00:27. | |
has been hearing the reaction of some of those who took | :00:28. | :00:30. | |
Short on, that is how the military commanders describe their | :00:31. | :00:47. | |
preferences in Iraq, which began in Baghdad. Today, Sir John Chilcot | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
outlined his findings after a seven year inquiry into the war, a war | :00:53. | :00:54. | |
that claimed hundreds of British lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi | :00:55. | :01:02. | |
lives. The UK choose to join the war in Iraq before the peaceful options | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
for design and had been explored. Military action at that time was not | :01:08. | :01:20. | |
a resort. Doug Beattie served in Iraq. I'm not surprised by anything. | :01:21. | :01:25. | |
I think we all knew that the decision to go to war was well | :01:26. | :01:32. | |
before they got permission to do so. I do think the Government need to | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
apologise to the family of the people who fought in Iraq and to the | :01:38. | :01:40. | |
Iraqi people who have suffered so badly because of this really bad | :01:41. | :01:48. | |
decision to go to war. This man was also an officer in the Royal Navy, | :01:49. | :01:54. | |
serving in the Gulf. It is very clear that is a damning indictment | :01:55. | :01:59. | |
of Tony Blair and all that he did. We did believe that Saddam Hussein | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
had weapons of mass structured and now we see from the evidence that | :02:05. | :02:07. | |
there wasn't any. As we begin to find out more and more, this wasn't | :02:08. | :02:12. | |
an issue of national security for the United Kingdom. The report | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
through this response from the former Prime Minister. I acknowledge | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
all the problems that came with that decision, the mistakes and accept | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
responsibility for them. What I cannot and will not do is say I | :02:27. | :02:32. | |
believe we took the wrong decision. I believe I made the right decision | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
and that the world is better and safer as a result of it. In 2003, I | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
reported from Iraq for BBC Newsline. Remnants of the old regime still | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
litter the countryside, but the emphasis now is very much about | :02:48. | :02:54. | |
empowering the local population and rebuilding Iraq. We believe and we | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
dream that our country will be better. A former Sergeant Major in | :03:00. | :03:05. | |
the Royal Irish Regiment reflected on the impact made well in Iraq. You | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
assume the political matters above are creating the right reasons for | :03:11. | :03:17. | |
going to such places, so that volatile region, did we make it | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
better at the time when I was there? I like to think we did. Do I think | :03:22. | :03:26. | |
that we left it in a better place? I'm not so sure. 13 years after it | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
ended, it is a war that is still making headlines. | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
Earlier I spoke to Colonel Tim Collins, who is best known | :03:35. | :03:36. | |
for a rousing speech he gave to the men of the First battalion, | :03:37. | :03:39. | |
the Royal Irish Regiment before the invasion. | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
The first thing is of course it was given to my men and my men alone and | :03:44. | :03:52. | |
the world eavesdropped on it. It was therefore only via consumption. | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
Secondly, we were going with what we believed was the case at the time. | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
If you know then what you know now, would you have them differently, | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
Dundee speech differently or even taking part? Some folks who probably | :04:07. | :04:14. | |
don't get out an awful lot think I was speaking to the world -- some | :04:15. | :04:23. | |
people. Do you think that men and women were sent to their death | :04:24. | :04:28. | |
unnecessarily? Not unnecessarily. The removal of Saddam Hussein's | :04:29. | :04:31. | |
regime was nothing but a good thing. But I do think the desperation of | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
those surrounding the Blair Government to try and bridge a the | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
British Government as some kind of softly softly peacekeeping | :04:41. | :04:47. | |
operation, that cost lives and that is something that is closer | :04:48. | :04:54. | |
examination. Would you have done anything differently? No, I think we | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
were entirely successful. We took more territory than any other | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
British unit, didn't lose any soldiers and I think we were very | :05:05. | :05:06. | |
successful. The family of a Dublin soldier, | :05:07. | :05:07. | |
who was shot dead while serving in British Army in Iraq, | :05:08. | :05:10. | |
say they are still very angry and very sad about what happened | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
to their loved one. Lance Corporal Ian Malone, | :05:14. | :05:15. | |
from Ballyfermot, was shot in the head by a sniper in April | :05:16. | :05:17. | |
2003 in Basra. His funeral was the first | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
with a uniformed British military Our Dublin correspondent | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
Shane Harrison's been We are never going to get closure. | :05:25. | :05:39. | |
It was wrong. He went out there to do a job and he wasn't able to do | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
that job. He was never going to be capable of doing that job. The boy | :05:47. | :05:50. | |
said came home with lucky that they got home. And we are still very | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
angry and we are still very sad that he's not here today to share our | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
lives. Given that Ian lost his life in Iraq, was it worth it, when you | :06:01. | :06:07. | |
look at the middle east now, the rise of IS, the fact that even in | :06:08. | :06:10. | |
the last few days there have been massive casualties in Baghdad? | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
Definitely not. They have made the country worse. I believe they made | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
the country worse than it was before the army went in. What do you think | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
of the Chilcot Report now? It's not something new to us, we knew all | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
along that this is what had happened. They were going to war no | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
matter what. They were very ill prepared to do that, but to see it | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
in black and white and deceivers has recognised that that is what was | :06:39. | :06:46. | |
done has made us as a family make us feel that we were right. We were | :06:47. | :06:52. | |
very angry at the time that our brother was killed and a lot of | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
other people, and these thousands of civilians are killed in Iraq, there | :06:58. | :06:58. | |
was no need of it. The leader of the Green Party, | :06:59. | :06:59. | |
Steven Agnew, was one of tens of thousands of people | :07:00. | :07:02. | |
here who marched in opposition He said Tony Blair should be held | :07:03. | :07:04. | |
responsible for the violence I certainly feel vindicated but I | :07:05. | :07:17. | |
feel incredibly frustrated that seven years later, after the report | :07:18. | :07:20. | |
was published 13 years after the war, that we still don't have a | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
determination in whether or not the war was legal. It is still my | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
contention that it was an illegal war and as the report does conform | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
to the microphone, we went to war without exhausting other options. | :07:35. | :07:35. | |
Colin Wallace, the former Army press officer who worked | :07:36. | :07:38. | |
in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, has refused to give | :07:39. | :07:40. | |
evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry. | :07:41. | :07:42. | |
It heard today that in a statement made to police in 2004, | :07:43. | :07:45. | |
he contradicted allegations he had previously made about a cover-up | :07:46. | :07:50. | |
at Kincora Boys home in East Belfast and the still unsolved murder | :07:51. | :07:56. | |
in 1973 of the Belfast schoolboy, Brian McDermott. | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
A 38-year-old man has died following a crash in County Armagh. | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
The collision happened on the Red Lion Road | :08:06. | :08:07. | |
in Kilmore shortly after one o'clock this morning. | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
The Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard has announced that no more | :08:11. | :08:17. | |
water meters will be installed in new homes. | :08:18. | :08:19. | |
He described the practice as a waste of public money. | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
The meters have been placed in newly built houses since 2007, | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
although they have never been used as domestic properties don't pay | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
The Assembly will have to approve the decision to no longer | :08:31. | :08:35. | |
There were some sharp exchanges at Stormont today as MLAs | :08:36. | :08:41. | |
on the Education Committee questioned officials | :08:42. | :08:43. | |
The authority has been criticised for planning to reduce the hours | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
some disabled children will spend in special school nurseries | :08:50. | :08:51. | |
I know that we're going to be hearing from parents | :08:52. | :08:58. | |
And it is going to revert to much of what you have said. | :08:59. | :09:05. | |
I suppose one of the fundamental questions that I would ask | :09:06. | :09:07. | |
is, from your perspective why has this whole process been such | :09:08. | :09:10. | |
First of all, I don't accept that characterisation. | :09:11. | :09:20. | |
Secondly, we do need to remind all of us that virtually everybody who | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
works in support of children with special needs in Northern Ireland is | :09:27. | :09:32. | |
an employee of the Education Authority. So this is not us against | :09:33. | :09:41. | |
them, this is us, the employees, the employees of the Education | :09:42. | :09:42. | |
Authority. Yachts in the Clipper Round | :09:43. | :09:42. | |
the World boat race have been But there were poor conditions | :09:43. | :09:48. | |
for the Derry Londonderry yacht durra as our North-West reporter, | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
Keiron Tourish reports. It was an emotional | :09:53. | :09:54. | |
homecoming for the first They sailed up the Loch | :09:55. | :09:55. | |
Foyle this afternoon. LMax was the first boat to finish | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
the local leg of the race about five miles ahead | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
of the Derry Londonderry tour boat. Its crew was just delighted to be | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
back home after the 17-day So many boats and hundreds | :10:10. | :10:12. | |
of people lining the banks. I can't wait to see the city | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
itself when we get there. Crews in 12 yachts | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
sailing 40,000 miles Facing treacherous conditions | :10:23. | :10:31. | |
and stunning backdrops It draws people from all walks | :10:32. | :10:33. | |
of life, including students, solicitors and accountants | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
from all 44 different nationalities. The council spent a considerable | :10:40. | :10:45. | |
amount on the race For the last two Clipper races, | :10:46. | :10:47. | |
we've invested ?1.2 million and that's given us two boats | :10:48. | :10:59. | |
for those two years, an international profile around | :11:00. | :11:01. | |
the world, but also two major We expect a huge return for that | :11:02. | :11:04. | |
and 125,000 visitors came last year and we expect somewhere | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
in that ballpark again. It adds ?6 million | :11:11. | :11:19. | |
to the local economy. There will be plenty of activity | :11:20. | :11:21. | |
along the quay in the next week or so as the city plays host to this | :11:22. | :11:24. | |
major maritime festival. It will include food and music | :11:25. | :11:27. | |
from across the globe. It looks like we might finally get | :11:28. | :11:29. | |
a taste of summer tomorrow. With the details, | :11:30. | :11:34. | |
here's Geoff Maskell. A bit of a grey and damp day today. | :11:35. | :11:49. | |
But the last of the shower should push out to the east tonight. | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
Despite there's clear spells, we have got enough breeze to keep the | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
temperature is largely in double figures, 910 degrees overnight. The | :11:59. | :12:02. | |
next few days will be very nice indeed, dry and bright and feeling a | :12:03. | :12:06. | |
bit warmer. Tomorrow morning, we will be waking up to some beautiful | :12:07. | :12:09. | |
blue skies and plenty of sunny weather as we go through Thursday. A | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
very nice for Northern Ireland, some zones of weather. A band of cloud | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
and some showers across the central belt and to the north of that we are | :12:21. | :12:24. | |
into the clearer and fresher air. There will be a few showers around | :12:25. | :12:31. | |
but they will pass through Northern Ireland, a decent run of things the | :12:32. | :12:35. | |
top temperatures of 19 or 20 degrees. We might see a bit of rain | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
to the north-west. Friday is another good day, largely drive. Plenty of | :12:40. | :12:47. | |
bright and sunny spells. By the evening though, we start to see the | :12:48. | :12:50. | |
next weather system arriving and that will bring rain and signal a | :12:51. | :12:53. | |
change. That changes all being driven by this area of low pressure, | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
which is heading towards us for the weekend. Thursday and Friday will be | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
rather pleasant, Saturday and Sunday I'm afraid I going to be wet and | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
windy. It's a pretty miserable outlook for the weekend. Looking | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
ahead over the next four days, it is a day of two halves. | :13:12. | :13:12. | |
Our next BBC Newsline is at 6:25 tomorrow morning | :13:13. | :13:14. | |
You can also keep updated with News Online. | :13:15. | :13:19. |