Could war in Iraq have been averted?

A British inquiry concludes the 2003 invasion went "badly wrong", and Iraqis are still living with the consequences.





A coalition of U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq on the 20th of March 2003.

They fought to overthrow then President Saddam Hussein based largely on a claim he possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Those weapons were never found.

The war that followed is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, unleashed 13 years of sectarian violence and destroyed Iraq's institutions and infrastructure.

For the past seven years, a British inquiry has investigated the events that led to the invasion, and what lessons should be learnt.

The chairman of the inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, has delivered a damning indictment of British policy.

He says claims made about the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were not substantiated.

And they were presented with a certainty that was unjustified.

Despite explicit warnings, Chilcot says the consequences of the invasion were underestimated by the government.

And that planning and preparation for a post-invasion Iraq were, in his words, "wholly inadequate".

Chilcot also questioned the legal basis for going to war, saying it was "far from satisfactory".

Tony Blair's government wasn't the only bad actor in this fiasco.

Following the first Gulf War American Neo-Con's became convinced that removing Saddam Hussein from power would reshape the Middle East to their world view. Tuning the region into something it never was. A bastion for egalitarian democratic rule. Iran the only country to ever have a freely elected government saw that dream end in a CIA sponsored coup at the behest of British Petroleum after Iran's Prime Minister nationalized all foreign oil companies operating in the country believing that Iran's oil profits should be retained by Iran. Iraq is a manufactured nation, following the Sykes -Picot agreement dividing the Ottoman empire in spheres of influence for France and the UK of which Iraq is a consequence. Having been divided into several provinces by its former ruler.