Iraq Chilcot inquiry recommends careful analysis before future wars

John Chilcot, chairman of the United Kingdom’s inquiry into the Iraq War, said on Wednesday that “careful analysis” is needed before any future military intervention in armed conflicts similar to the United Kingdom’s action taken against the Arab country in 2003.

“The main expectation that I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavor on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgment being applied to it,” Chilcot told the BBC.

Chilcot’s report depended on the testimonies of highlevel military and political officials, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who holds responsibility with former U.S. president G.W. Bush, for the invasion of Iraq by the United Kingdom and the United States in 2003.

It is expected that Blair, who was in power between 1997 and 2007, will be heavily criticized by this report, while families of soldiers killed in the war have confidence that the report’s findings can help them to sue the former head of British government, according to media.

The inquiry focuses on the circumstances of the United Kingdom’s decisions taken to intervene militarily in the Arab country to topple former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

This report was initiated in 2009 upon the orders of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in power between 2007 and 2010, after intense pressure from politicians and families of the 179 British servicemen who lost their lives in the conflict.