The Chilcot Report

Cliff

Not revenge for 9/11, since his administration and the intelligence services knew full well that there was no connection, and that in fact Islamists/al Qaeda hated Saddam. But they sold it to the US public as revenge, under the convenient ambiguity of their made up war on terror, such that 70% today still believe Saddam, along with his mate Osama, was responsible for 9/11.

IronGiant

So posters here knew there was no WMD, were satisfied that Saddam would not be building up his weapons - and were happy that he remained in power seriously oppressing his people with torture and all the rest and gassing towns if he felt they deserved to be punished. Everybody who says Blair lied were fooled by him?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. As @fluxo said, many in the country felt the invasion was justified and we should join the Americans as they were our allies. The majority of MPs, on both sides of the house, also agreed. There was a lot of discussion in on TV and Newspapers, but the consensus was, on balance it was best to help the Iraqi people.
Of course there were some who were against like Robin Cook and Claire Short, although she was a bit slow with her resignation. And there were protests, mainly anti war, regardless of whether the reasons were sound or not. That is quite reasonable.

But if you were looking at the news today, its like Blair was the only person for the war and he fooled everybody. Just like the EU debate, some claims like Saddam could launch an attack within 45m, you knew were rubbish. Just like the Remain camp saying the Premier league would be doomed if we left.
The problem was not the deposing of Saddam, but rather the follow up plan. And the Americans were responsible for most of that.

Yes its terrible people died, but if we had won they wouldn't have died in vain. Iraq would be stable, we could say we did the right thing and this enquiry would not be happening.

raduv1

That's why he said misguided

raduv1

Didn't believe I needed to add but thanks anyway.

krish

Lest not forget that hindsight has been dismissed in the Chilcot Report as an excuse for a course of action undertaken.

IronGiant

But it wasn't misguided as Bush et al knew the 9/11 connection was a fiction. It was fake revenge perhaps.

raduv1

you're picky tonight   I think you are misunderstanding his use of misguided.

synonyms: erroneous, fallacious, unwarranted, unfounded, unsound, misplaced, misconceived,

krish

As much as we might hate and despise dictators and despots in our narrow view of the world . All we achieved is to bring the region into a whole different level of instability and unrest . We created a monster much worse by killing the monster that controlled it.

Tyrants and despots can be controlled , now......

IronGiant

And the horrible thing is they knew exactly what former gangster Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was like with his growing jihadist insurgency, which became al Qaeda in Iraq, and is now ISIS.

Trollslayer

Without getting too mythological, we cut off every head of the Hydra whenever we found one, for years.  Then we went home.