After seven years of investigation, a British commission led by Sir John Chilcot has issued findings on British participation in the Iraq War. The report, 2.6 million words in 12 volumes, concludes plans were "seriously flawed" and the war "went badly wrong, with consequences to this day."
As an example, Chilcot mentioned an ISIS car bombing in Baghdad that claimed 250 lives. There would be no ISIS today if President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had not taken their nations into war.
The inquiry has led to the release of secret memos between Bush and Blair in which both, as early as October 2001, agreed that Iraq President Saddam Hussein should be removed from power. In a declassified "Note on Iraq" (July 28, 2002) Blair promises Bush, "I will be with you, whatever," and predicted: "If we win quickly, everyone will be our friend."
The ground war did go quickly, but the Chilcot Report found plans for a post-invasion Iraq were "wholly inadequate." On the American side, Bush political appointees - with little or no training in nation building and ignorant of Arab culture - made fatal mistakes.
The invasion itself caused the rise of Sunni jihadists and the Sunni/Shia civil war that followed. Hussein was a moderate Sunni, so sectarian tensions were held in check and attacks on Shia Muslims were rare. His human rights record was of course horrible.
Paul Bremer, Bush's top man in Iraq, has responded to the Chilcot Report, saying it is unfair to blame his boss for failed intelligence. A more accurate phrase is "cooked" intelligence, many examples of which are found in former Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003.
Powell's own State Department knew the aluminum tubes, which he said were manufactured for nuclear weapons, were in fact rocket launchers. On other allegations, intelligence agents warned Powell they were "weak," "not credible" or "highly questionable."
Parents of British soldiers killed in Iraq are now considering lawsuits against Blair, and protestors in the streets are calling him a war criminal. The Chilcot Report maintains that the legal basis for the war was "questionable," but Chilcot said that jurists would have to settle that issue. Our Justice Department decided not to pursue charges against the Bush administration, so the issue has not been resolved in the U.S. either.
That there were violations of international law is certain. In 2011, Bush canceled a trip to Switzerland because a complaint against him had been filed in a Geneva court. Bush has admitted that he ordered waterboarding, considered a war crime under the Geneva Convention on Torture, which was approved by President Ronald Reagan.
Not only did Bush's prosecution of the war undermine our moral standing in the world, it also led to the deaths of 4,502 U.S. service men and women. Although U.S. officials were forbidden from tallying Iraqi fatalities, estimates run from 180,000 to 1 million.
The 32,223 wounded Americans (many of them severely injured) has put a huge burden on the Veterans Administration even with increased funding. On average 20 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans take their lives every day.
Finally, there is the issue of billions and billions of dollars spent on this tragic and unnecessary war. A report by Reuters estimated that the cost, including veterans' benefits, is $2.2 trillion, which will grow (with interest) to over $4 trillion over the next four decades.
The GOP Congress has done nine investigations of Benghazi, but there has been no comprehensive probe into the Iraq War. Instead of yet again harassing Clinton, why doesn't Congress put Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the hot seat?
Nick Gier of Moscow taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31 years.
