Posted on 2016-07-07 | 11:59

Responding to the publication of the Chilcot report on 6 July, Roger said:

“I have been calling for the Government to publish this report for some time and remain concerned about the delays involved, but I welcome the publication today of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war.

“The report’s findings are damning, particularly the conclusion that Tony Blair decided to take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq before ‘peaceful options’ had been exhausted. It also found that the then-Prime Minister ‘exaggerated’ the case for war, and that it was not correct that Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent threat. This amounts to a very grave misleading of the British Parliament into an illegal, unjustified and disastrous war, with an impact on stability across the region from which people in the Middle East are still suffering today. The UK has also suffered the consequences in the form of terrorist attacks, and we are all now less safe because of this war.

“The note from Tony Blair to President Bush saying: ‘I will be with you, whatever’ is extremely serious. This suggests that Blair gave a commitment to taking the UK into war regardless of the evidence base or the legality of such a war. He also ignored the clearly-expressed views of the British people, who took part in the largest ever demonstration in the UK to try to stop the Government from taking their country to war against their will.

“The leader of the Labour party said today in the Commons that Parliament should take action against Tony Blair for misleading Parliament in his attempt to get it to agree to the invasion. I would support this as I believe that those responsible for this disaster, in which 179 UK troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians lost their lives and suffered horrendous injuries, must be held accountable. We also need to learn the lessons of the past and ensure that we never engage in illegal wars again, and that the UK is a force for good rather than for instability in the world.”