On 6 July 2016, Sir John Chilcot published the report of his public inquiry into the UK's decision to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The report ran to 2.6 million words across 12 volumes. Its conclusions were unambiguous.
The decision to invade Iraq was based on flawed intelligence presented with unwarranted certainty. Peaceful options had not been exhausted. Post-war planning was wholly inadequate. And the legal basis for the war remained, in Chilcot's careful language, "far from satisfactory."
What the report found
On the decision to go to war:
"By July 2002, the UK was, in the words of a note from Mr Blair to President Bush, 'solidly behind' the US. He had given that commitment before the key decisions on whether and how to go to war had been taken."
Blair had committed to support an invasion before the UN inspections process had concluded. He had committed to war before Parliament had been consulted. He had committed to war before the legal advice of the Attorney General had been finalised. The public justification — that force was a last resort after exhausting diplomacy — was not accurate.
On the intelligence:
The September 2002 dossier claimed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes of an order. This claim was presented to Parliament and the public as established fact. The Chilcot Report found that this certainty was unwarranted — the intelligence was disputed, caveated, and contested within the intelligence community.
The 45-minute claim referred to battlefield munitions, not long-range missiles capable of reaching British interests. This distinction was known to the government and not communicated to the public.
On post-war planning:
"The UK's preparation for the post-conflict phase was wholly inadequate."
There was no plan for governing Iraq after Saddam Hussein's removal. There was no serious assessment of how the country's sectarian and ethnic divisions would respond to the sudden removal of a unifying (if brutal) central authority. There was no plan for the security vacuum. The decisions taken in the aftermath — including the de-Baathification of the Iraqi civil service and the dissolution of the Iraqi army — were not decisions the UK had anticipated or prepared for.
The consequences
For Iraq:
Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths from the conflict and its aftermath vary widely, but no credible estimate puts the figure below 100,000. The most rigorous survey-based studies estimate 150,000–200,000 violent deaths in the period 2003–2011. The Lancet published a study in 2006 estimating 654,000 excess deaths from all causes in the three years following the invasion.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) rose from the security vacuum created by the dissolution of the Iraqi army and the radicalisation produced by years of occupation. The instability exported from Iraq contributed to the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis that shaped European politics for a decade.
For the UK:
179 British service personnel died in Iraq. Thousands more were wounded, many with life-altering injuries.
The intelligence services' reputation for accuracy was damaged — not just in Iraq, but prospectively. When the UK government presented intelligence on chemical weapons use in Syria in 2013, Parliament voted against military action partly because the memory of Iraq had destroyed the credibility of intelligence-based threat assessments.
Public trust in political institutions fell significantly in the aftermath of the Iraq War and has not recovered.
The BBC was punished for being right
One of the less-discussed consequences of the Iraq War was its effect on the BBC. In May 2003, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan broadcast a report on the Today programme citing a source who claimed that the government had "sexed up" its intelligence dossier — knowing the 45-minute claim to be wrong.
The government, led by director of communications Alastair Campbell, launched an aggressive counter-attack. The subsequent Hutton Inquiry — an inquiry whose terms of reference and conduct were widely criticised as partial — exonerated the government and blamed the BBC. BBC Director-General Greg Dyke and Chairman Gavyn Davies resigned. Gilligan's source, weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, died by suicide.
The Chilcot Report, published thirteen years later, confirmed that the core of Gilligan's report was accurate: the intelligence had been presented with unwarranted certainty. The BBC had been right. The government had punished it for being right.
Sources
- The Chilcot Report — Full text
- Iraq Body Count — Documented civilian deaths from violence
- The Lancet — Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq (2006)
- House of Commons Hansard — Iraq War Debate, March 2003