So what is the Chilcot report and what are its implications?

TB is at least morally a war criminal. He may get off a reading of the letter of the law, but he is personally responsible for uncountless deaths.

All that sofa-meeting stuff, open-necked shirts casual approach, the culture created by cronies like Alistair Campbell.

The politics textbooks call that 'Blair's kitchen cabinet'. I agree that when big chunks of the important business is done informally, unminuted, almost casually, there is a lot of scope for problems.

How young you must be daisy! In the 1970's the Labour Cabinet would have meetings with Union leaders in smoke filled rooms and send out for sandwiches and drink beer. What you wear has nothing to do with the quality of the decisions being made, thank goodness.

Do you remember the "Kitchen Cabinet"? This was Harold Wilson's inner Cabinet and it also included his Secretary, Marcia Williams, who became Lady Falkender. She was not even elected but she certainly was part of the inner sanctum. Margaret Thatcher had a press secretary called Bernard Ingham. He controlled access and spun for Mrs T. Again not elected but where do you think Alaister Campbell learnt how to be a press secretary? He copied Bernard Ingham. It appears that everyone thinks this form of Government is new - it is not! A course in recent history may help inform the discussion!

If Chilcot has any positive outcomes, it should be that informal decision-making is curbed and that other colleagues are free to ask searching questions and disagree. To say that AC and TB were different to other PM's is totally untrue. Others just got away with it.

And Jeremy Corbyn would be different if he had a Cabinet? All prime ministers keep their friends close. Lots do not have much of a discussion with the whole Cabinet which is why you get resignations from time to time. Someone in the minority will feel it is a resigning issue. All Cabinets have enemies within but if you do not control them, as Cameron has failed to do, you get dysfunctional Government.

The Cabinet and Parliament, after all, have to agree a course of action especially now that deploying troops divides so many people. This will lead to years of inaction on our part but it might make us far more realistic regarding capabilities and our role in the world, which we greatly over-inflate. We will soon have little reason to have an army. What is it going to do?

I apologise to Chilcot - I spelt his name incorrectly yesterday!

There's quite a few people felt ashamed to be British since Brexit, and now after Chilcot.
I certainly don't, but I'm ashamed of our government

And Tony Blair is a multi-millionaire on the back of everything he did. Pass the bucket.
I agree with pp, why should he make us ashamed to be British?

Alistair Campbell in particular has been pissing me off.

The country seems to have been entirely run by him & and his mate Tone.

TBs approach to government was to recruit to his cabinet only Ministers who accepted they shouldn't ask too many searching questions.

Ministers who were granted 30 min meetings, so not enough time for them to get into uncomfortable detail.

All that sofa-meeting stuff, open-necked shirts casual approach, the culture created by cronies like Alistair Campbell.

This is probably stupid but I don't understand why TB should be tried as a war criminal.

Is it because he lied? Because he started a war illegally? Doesn't that make him a liar but not a war crimjnal?

I imagine war criminals to be standing over mass graves laughing and encouraging his men to abuse the women. TB doesn't fit this "image."

Not trying to be a goady fucker, would very much appreciate a (simple) explanation.

The BBC has already got all kind of experts explaining how Chilcot wuz wrong, gggrrr.

Today I am ashamed to be British.

I can't believe there are no consequences for Blair on this. It's so wrng

I know this will grate with some of you, but the Telegraph online has an excellent resume of the main points of Chilcott. Having listened to a Professor of Internstional Law at UCL recently, he made it clear that Tony Blair cannot be classed as a war criminal. Chilcott also does not decide upon the legalities of what was done. The report looks at the decision-making process and the numerous mistakes that were made. Focus sing one just one politician will not enable us to learn lessons for the future.

I believe Chilcott is very clear where there has to be improvement. The Ministry of Defence is also criticised for not being aware of what resources were needed to fight and were too slow to deliver. As the Government was trying, with its media hat on, to say it wanted to avoid war, they did not gear up commissioning and purchasing. They totally over estimated what the British Army was capable of doing with the resources allocated to it. It does not appear that the Army Generals were too clear on saying what the limitations should have been either.

Chilcott also talks about the relationship between Blair and Bush, the lack of cabinet scrutiny regarding information discussed at cabinet meetings and how the information they were given was flawed anyway. There is a huge amount to think about for future governance during a crisis and just saying Tony Blair should be hung drawn and quartered is to misunderstand the purpose of Chilcott. Of course Tony Blair is criticised but he did not commit war crimes.

Blair is a war criminal and should be tried in The Hague as one.

I always felt one of Blair's motivations was not to be Harold Wilson refusing to send troops to Vietnam.

It's astounding isn't it Pausing.

Ordinary, everyday people with no actual experience or any special insight and with only a passing knowledge of history & its lessons could see all of that.

Experts & advisors were no doubt telling him that.

And yet.... Tony Blair and George W Bush knew best.

Atrocious & horribly inevitable.

Indeed, Bungo.

I'm no expert but just know a little modern history, and watched in horror as they made classic mistakes.

Take the following ingredients:

1. Political purge (de-Ba'athification), where you sack everyone who has been a member of a particular party - in a country where being a member of that party was a prerequisite for having any responsible position in the first place. So you've now sacked and impoverished all the people who were making the country tick, most of whom were never genuine supporters of the party in the first place.

2. Imprisonment of political prisoners from this purge in camps together - creating a "University of Robben Island" effect of the sort which enabled the ANC to thrive, grow idealogically and form coherent practical plans in South Africa.

3. Including the army in the list of people ignored, unpaid, sacked and imprisoned. Iraqi army commanders rocked up to the Coalition immediately after the invasion and said, we have this many men, ready and at the service of their country, where do you want them? And were told to go away. Co-opting the army into the future of Iraq was essential and the Coalition did some sort of job of it later, but a lot of people were sacked, unpaid and pissed off at various stages. And not necessarily separated from their weapons.

4. Removing any legitimate routes of engagement for these people back into the functioning of their country. Because many are in jail, and others are banned from holding positions due to former party membership, and many are effectively banned because theirs is now the discriminated against religion, rather than the discriminated towards religion.

It's completely predictable that treating these groups of people like this will lead to the formation of a competent alternative movement complete with highly experienced militia. These were people who were never going to sit there and take the loss of their entire world quietly.

I didn't know what ideology the movement would adopt - just that there would almost certainly be one.

"Much of it is about how little preparation there was for a post-war Iraq, which we now know is what created the vacuum now filled by Daesh and other groups."

That was widely commented on at the time too. Fgs, at least in colonial times when we invaded places it was to set them up within the colonial structure.

Lets not forget that Tony Blair has styled himself as a Middle Eastern 'adviser' in the last few years also....this man has no morals whatsoever.

I think it says more than that. Much of it is about how little preparation there was for a post-war Iraq, which we now know is what created the vacuum now filled by Daesh and other groups.

If the war had been started unreasonably but it had resulted in stable, peaceful democracy then ... well it wouldn't have been ok but it would have been better than what we have.

AFAICS the report is simply saying there were no WMD and Blair knew this before deciding to go to war.

I was part of that massive anti-war march too - I recall everyone knowing/saying at the time there were no WMD's. It was all a rouse.
I listened to Radio 4 every morning throughout the entire debacle and it seemed overwhelmingly clear that there were no WMD's.

Are we meant to be surprised now?

So now this report makes clear Tony Blair knew going to war in Iraq would increase terrorism (which it did) and it would destabilise the Middle East (which it has) do we finally get public support for taking refugees displaced by war and terrorism in or is that still not our problem?
^ absofuckinglutely!

There are moments here that I can see him trying to give an insight into the way government information/decisions work, and basically saying, "look, this was a tricky bloody time".
I can get that.

I should have explained it better to those numpties in my Cabinet before I helped my old mate Bush to bomb Iraq into the Stone Age.
It had to be done though
Comment on Guardian website summarising Blair's actions.

I'm getting cross with the journalists too actually.

He's not directly answering their questions, he reframes them and answers his own question, and they're not pulling him up on it at all - they're just giving him a platform to talk, not being rigorous enough at all.

He has no voice.

god he's such a spineless dickweasel, all that trembling bottom lip and "why oh why wont you believe me?"