By Stephen Lendman
The long delayed Iraq Inquiry Committee Chilcot report took seven years to complete, filled 12 volumes, yet excluded what’s most important – declaring the 2003 Iraq war illegal, flagrantly violating international law, destroying the cradle of civilization, raping it for control and profit, and demanding accountability for those responsible.
Its 2.6 million words pronounced no judgment on Blair’s partnership with GW Bush’s naked aggression against a nonbelligerent country, based entirely on misinformation and Big Lies.
US, Britain and co-conspiratorial “coalition” partners attacked and occupied Iraq based on falsified claims about nonexistent WMDs, no evidence of chemical or biological ones, mushroom-shaped cloud hysteria, manipulated intelligence, a fabricated Al Qaeda connection, and other phony threats.
Intelligence was willfully cooked to fit policy. Britain’s so-called Dodgy Dossier generated fear to enlist public support for war, justifying the unjustifiable.
Bush, Blair & Co. are war criminals, responsible for millions of deaths, vast destruction, along with endless violence and chaos, US-created and supported ISIS now acting as imperial foot soldiers.
Blair acted internally on his own, willfully lied, mislead parliament, his senior ministers and Britain’s public – inventing a nonexistent threat “with a certainty that was not justified,” said Chilcot.
War on Iraq was entirely based on lies. Genocidal crimes followed. Yet neither Bush or Blair faces accountability – at home or by the International Criminal Court (ICC) – established by the Rome Treaty to prosecute individuals for crimes of war, against humanity and genocide.
Chilcot said Britain “invade(d) Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was (a first) not a last resort.”
Saddam Hussein posed no regional threat, said Chilcot. Britain with America and coalition partners acted extrajudicially. His report stopped short of demanding what’s most important – long-denied accountability.
Bush, Blair & Co. belong in the dock, prosecuted for Nuremberg-level high crimes – ones Chief Justice Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime against peace.”