An official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War released it's findings July 6, heavily criticizing the country’s leadership for a conflict that it determined could have been avoided. (Reuters) 
 
 An official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War released it's findings July 6, heavily criticizing the country’s leadership for a conflict that it determined could have been avoided. (Reuters) 
 
 A sweeping, multi-year inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq War delivered a devastating assessment Wednesday, with investigators blaming the country’s political, military and intelligence leadership for disastrously mismanaging a conflict that need never have started and that ended “a very long way from success.” 
 
 The findings offer official validation to the views of the Iraq War’s most ardent critics, forensically eviscerating in the sober language of the British civil service nearly every aspect of the conflict’s conception, planning and execution. 
 
 In a country where the shadow of Iraq continues to loom over both politics and policy, the ­report’s documentation of a disaster in the making guided by American allies could shape British ­decision-making for years or even decades to come. 
 
 It could also permanently taint the legacy of the country’s prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, who came in for the sharpest critique of all — and responded with a marathon news conference on Wednesday afternoon at which he was by turns deeply contrite and pugnaciously defiant. 
 
 “I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe,” Blair said, his voice cracking with emotion. 
 
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 But for all his misgivings over what he acknowledged were failures of planning and preparation, he insisted that the war was still worth it because it rid the world of the dictator Saddam Hussein. 
 
 “I did it because I thought it was right,” said a graven-faced Blair, the country’s prime minister for a decade. 
 
 The findings by a team of British investigators are the culmination of seven years of work in which they were given nearly unfettered access to British documents and witnesses. Delivered in a breathtaking 2.6 million words — five times the length of “War and Peace” — the focus was on Britain’s role as both invader of Iraq in 2003 and an occupier for the next six years. 
 
 [The official summary of the Iraq Inquiry] 
 
 But the report inevitably also cast light on U.S. decision-making. The United States, which led the march to war, has never conducted a comparably ambitious study of its own failings in Iraq. 
 
 The report includes memos that Blair sent to then-President George W. Bush — though not the replies. In one such memo, from July 2002, Blair writes to Bush that “I will be with you, whatever” — suggesting a British blank check for war at a time when other European allies were strongly opposed. 
 
 Former British prime minister Tony Blair reacts to the sweeping Chilcot report of Britain's role in the Iraq War, which blamed the country’s political, military and intelligence leadership for a conflict that could have been avoided and that ended “a very long way from success.” (AP) 
 
 With violence in Iraq still raging — a bombing in Baghdad on Sunday left more than 250 people dead — the inquiry casts blame widely for a conflict that cost the lives of 179 British troops and, at the time of the British withdrawal in 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis. To date, more than 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 32,000 have been wounded. 
 
 The war was initially sold to the public on both sides of the Atlantic as a vital intervention to deprive Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. But no such weapons were ever found. 
 
 [Key points from the report] 
 
 With exacting detail, the report catalogues a succession of failures. 
 
 British intelligence painted a flawed picture of Iraqi military capacity, with agencies never doubting the existence of WMDs. In fact, the report concluded, Iraq posed “no imminent threat” to Britain. In making their case to the public, Blair and other British officials described the case against Hussein “with a certainty that was not justified.” 
 
 In their private deliberations, they ignored warnings that the invasion of Iraq could be a boon to Islamist extremists. Groups such as al-Qaeda gained key footholds amid Iraq’s chaos, and militant offshoots later became the foundation for the Islamic State. 
 
 The British relied almost exclusively on their American counterparts for postwar planning, then failed to deliver the manpower and resources needed to make good on promises to transform Iraq into a functioning, stable democracy. 
 
 In a statement delivered Wednesday in London, the report’s lead author, retired civil servant John Chilcot, said Blair took the country to war “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.” 
 
 [Tony Blair kind of apologized for the Iraq war, but many Brits still hate him] 
 
 Chilcot, speaking at a conference center in central London, was applauded by relatives of British troops who were killed in the war. Wiping away tears, family members later praised the inquiry and said it had opened a pathway to possible legal action against Blair and other British officials responsible for launching the war. 
 
 Sarah O’Connor, whose brother, Sgt. Bob O’Connor, was killed in 2005, described Blair as “the world’s worst terrorist.” Roger Bacon, whose son also died in 2005, said the report should be used “to ensure that all aspects of the Iraq war fiasco are never repeated again.” 
 
 Outside, protesters held aloft signs reading “Bliar” and chanted, “Blair lied, thousands died!” 
 
 [Russian Embassy’s mocking tweet: ‘Told you so’] 
 
 The report was commissioned by Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, and was originally expected to take a year to complete. 
 
 Instead, it took seven years amid persistent delays that Chilcot has said reflected his own underestimation of the scale of the challenge involved with assessing Britain’s first invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign state since World War II. 
 
 The report will give ample ammunition to the war’s toughest critics, including those in Britain who have called for war crimes charges to be brought against Blair — who now runs a lucrative consulting business that has drawn scrutiny for working with authoritarian governments in the Middle East and elsewhere. 
 
 The leader of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, on Wednesday described the war as “illegal” and apologized on behalf of Blair’s party to “the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined.” 
 
 [Blair to Bush: ‘I’ll be with you, whatever’] 
 
 Others in Parliament floated the idea of formally censuring Blair. But the report takes a pass on the issue of Blair’s legal culpability, and he is unlikely to be charged. 
 
 Chilcot said the question was beyond the scope of his inquiry and could “only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognized court.” 
 
 In two hours of passionate statements after the report’s release, Blair said that “not a single day” passes without him thinking over the Iraq War decisions. 
 
 Yet he stood firm on the question of whether he had deceived the public, saying he had taken the country to war “in good faith,” and that the report had validated his contention that “there were no lies” from his government. 
 
 That view was echoed by the man who now holds Blair’s job, David Cameron, who said he did not believe the report had found evidence of “deliberate deception.” 
 
 Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron urged politicians to learn the lessons of the inquiry, the first being that “taking the country to war should always be a last resort.” 
 
 [The Iraq War still haunts the U.S. presidential race] 
 
 Wednesday’s report lands as Britain continues to reckon with the aftermath of its June 23 vote to exit the European Union, an outcome that prompted Cameron’s resignation and that has spawned a mutiny against Corbyn from within his own ranks. 
 
 The report does not have a direct bearing on the country’s current political chaos, but it is likely to revive for many Britons memories of a rush to war that has come to epitomize betrayal by the nation’s elites. The cynicism of British voters that the Iraq War helped to spawn was on display last month, when many seemed to blithely ignore the warnings of experts that a British exit from the E.U. could spark economic and political chaos. 
 
 The shadow of the Iraq War also influenced Britain’s 2013 decision to stay out of a U.S. plan to launch airstrikes against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and to delay joining in when the United States began bombing Islamic State targets a year later. 
 
 Even as Wednesday’s report ignited a reckoning in Britain on Wednesday, the reaction in Iraq was relatively muted among people too focused on daily survival to worry about another report documenting the West’s failures in their country. After 13 years of violence, the war to depose Hussein hardly seems worth it even to those who celebrated his fall. 
 
 [The man who took a sledgehammer to Saddam’s statue wishes he was back] 
 
 Bush and Blair “are war criminals and should be punished,” said Kadhim Sharif Hassan, 60, who famously took a sledgehammer to a statue of Hussein in central Baghdad in 2003 and now says it would have been better if the dictator had not been overthrown. 
 
 “The system they created is much worse than the old system. It’s only produced death and destruction,” he said. 
 
 Karla Adam in London, Brian Murphy in Washington, Loveday Morris in Beirut and Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Iraq’s crisis: Don’t forget the 2003 U.S. invasion 
 
 U.S., Britain’s ‘special relationship’ endures but with less vigor 
 
 U.S. military ties with Britain are sheltered from Brexit storm, officials say 
 
 Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world ||||| LONDON — On July 28, 2002, roughly eight months before the American-led invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain sent President George W. Bush a personal note that alarmed some of Mr. Blair’s top national security aides — and was greeted with relief in Washington. 
 
 “I will be with you, whatever,” Mr. Blair wrote, in what appeared to be a blanket promise of British support if the United States went to war to topple Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. Getting rid of Mr. Hussein was “the right thing to do,” Mr. Blair wrote, predicting that “his departure would free up the region.” 
 
 Fourteen years later, Mr. Blair’s pledge was revealed publicly on Wednesday as part of a voluminous, seven-year official investigation into how and why Britain went to war in Iraq. 
 
 The main conclusions in the report, by the independent Iraq Inquiry Committee, were familiar: that Britain, like the United States, used flawed intelligence to justify the invasion, that Iraq posed no immediate national security threat, that the allies acted militarily before all diplomatic options had been exhausted and that there was a lack of planning for what would happen once Mr. Hussein was removed. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for photographers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London,... (Associated Press) 
 
 LONDON (AP) — The Latest on Britain's inquiry into its role in the Iraq war (all times local): 
 
 12:10 p.m. 
 
 Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he hopes the Chilcot report looking into British involvement in the Iraq War lays to rest allegations that he used lies or deceit as a pretense to invade Iraq. 
 
 Blair issued a statement Wednesday right after the report was released, saying that he tried to do the right thing by joining the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The country was wracked by violence and chaos for years after that. 
 
 Blair says "whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country." 
 
 Blair says while the Chilcot inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for British military action in Iraq, it found that the attorney general concluded there was a lawful basis by March 13, 2003. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:05 p.m. 
 
 The families of U.K. troops slain in the Iraq conflict say Britain should use the Chilcot report to make sure the country never makes such grave mistakes again. 
 
 In a statement Wednesday, a group of families who had access to the report's executive summary say that "never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end." 
 
 The sister of one slain serviceman, Sarah O'Connor, says the report confirms there is one "terrorist" that the world needs to know about "and that is (ex-Prime Minister) Tony Blair." 
 
 The military families have long pushed for the inquiry and for those responsible for British involvement in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to be held to account. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:55 a.m. 
 
 The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says former Prime Minister Tony Blair overestimated his ability to influence decisions made by the Americans. 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot says Blair put too much faith in being able to shape U.S. policy in the months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein's government. 
 
 Blair had a good relationship with U.S. President George W. Bush and they worked together closely during the run-up to the military intervention in Iraq. 
 
 The Chilcot inquiry, which took seven years to produce, is publishing detailed notes from Blair to Bush describing strategic plans for the invasion. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:40 a.m. 
 
 The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says Britain's 2003-2009 deployment to Iraq ended "a long way from success." 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot, in a report that took seven years to produce, says Britain had to make a "humiliating" deal with militias in Iraq that had been targeting British forces as a best possible way to lessen the violence that erupted in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. 
 
 He said Wednesday that the simultaneous war effort in Afghanistan had a material effect on British forces in Iraq, citing as an example a shortage of helicopters and surveillance equipment. 
 
 Chilcot said decisions made were not fully implemented and that the Ministry of Defense had been slow to respond to the threat posed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:30 a.m. 
 
 The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says the risks of intervening in Iraq should have been known in advance. 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot says British officials should have known the risks of internal strife in Iraq, the danger of increased al-Qaida activity and the possibility of general instability inside the country. 
 
 Chilcot said the known risks should have been addressed further by British political and military elites and that the failures continued to have an effect after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He said hindsight was not needed and that careful planning would have taken these factors into account. 
 
 He also noted that Britain's deployment in Iraq ended "a long way from success." 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:25 a.m. 
 
 The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has said his inquiry will not make a finding on whether the invasion of Iraq was legally justified. 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot says there were serious shortcomings in the planning and execution of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and poor preparation for the aftermath, which saw Saddam Hussein's government overthrown and the country descend into chaos. 
 
 Chilcot said, however, that "the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for U.K. military action were far from satisfactory." 
 
 His report is broadly damning of British political, military and intelligence planning. He did not find that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government had knowingly misled the public and Parliament about the situation in Iraq. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:10 a.m. 
 
 The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot says "the U.K. 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." 
 
 He says then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons with "certainty that was not justified," and military planning for the war and its aftermath were not up to the task. 
 
 Chilcot oversaw an inquiry that has taken seven years to complete, heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents. 
 
 ___ 
 
 8 a.m. 
 
 Anti-war activists and relatives of some dead British troops hope the Chilcot report will find the Iraq war illegal, opening the way for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes. 
 
 Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sgt. Bob O'Connor, died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005, says "that man has been the puppet master, and it's about time that we came along and we cut his strings." 
 
 John Chilcot, a retired civil servant, has stressed that his inquiry is not a court of law, and the International Criminal Court has said that the "decision by the U.K. to go to war in Iraq falls outside the court's jurisdiction." 
 
 Chilcot said he wanted the report to be "a really reliable account of all that happened that really matters" over Iraq, with lessons for the future. 
 
 Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Cpl. Shaun Brierley was killed in 2003, said he hoped the report "comes somewhere close to what I expect, which is to say that Tony Blair did go to war illegally." 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:30 a.m. 
 
 The official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War is releasing its findings Wednesday, more than seven years after hearings began and 13 years on from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. 
 
 Retired civil servant John Chilcot is due to publish his 2.6-million-word report on a divisive conflict that — by the time British combat forces left in 2009 — had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis. 
 
 Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government and military apparatus, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group. 
 
 The war has overshadowed the legacy of Britain's then-leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair. His government has been accused of exaggerating intelligence about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to build support for invasion. 
 
 Blair — who declined to comment on the report before publication — has always said his government did not invent or distort intelligence. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press Writer Jonathan Shenfield contributed to this story.
– A sweeping, seven-year investigation by Britain into its decision to join the US in the Iraq War is out, and "scathing" is beginning to sound like an understatement. The report by Sir John Chilcot faults every aspect of the decision by Tony Blair's government, reports the Telegraph. "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments," said Chilcot as the report was released. "They were not challenged, and they should have been." He said the UK went to war before exhausting "peaceful options," adding that "military action at that time was not a last resort." After that, Britain bungled the post-war strategy as Blair overestimated his ability to influence George W. Bush, says the report. "I will be with you whatever," he had written to Bush in a 2002 note. The AP points out one key aspect of the report: It will not make a finding on whether the invasion was legally justified. That's likely to disappoint critics of the war, who were hoping Blair would face prosecution on war crimes. The report does accuse Blair and his team of making a case against Saddam "with a certainty that was not justified," specifically in regard to weapons of mass destruction. Blair himself reacted on Wednesday: "Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country." A link to the full report can be found here. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post point out that at more than 2 million words, it's much longer than War and Peace.