There was an awful lot to take in from Sir John Chilcot’s half-hour statement, and there will be more to take in from the 2m-plus words he published when people get round to reading it, and the torrent of reaction.

Chilcot report live: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you can ever believe,' says Blair Read more

There were many criticisms, and I know Tony Blair will respond to them later today. I am sure too that he will take responsibility for the decisions he took and stand up for the soldiers, intelligence officers, civil servants and others who are criticised. One thing I know about Tony Blair is that he stands up for those who work for him when they are acting on decisions he has made.

I hope people will forgive me, though this is by no means the biggest point in the report, if I begin by focusing on the part of the Iraq narrative with which I have been most associated, and which was one of the factors behind my decision to leave Downing Street in the autumn of 2003. I did not receive a Maxwellisation letter, and so I am assuming I am not criticised within the report. That is four inquiries now that have cleared me of wrongdoing with regard to the WMD dossier presented to parliament in 2002, and I hope that the allegations we have faced for years – of lying and deceit to persuade a reluctant parliament and country to go to war, or of having an underhand strategy regarding the respected weapons expert David Kelly – are laid to rest.

The truth was – and remains, confirmed today – that the so-called sexing up of intelligence never happened. The Today programme report that said it had [happened] should never have been broadcast, and the BBC should have properly investigated our complaint rather than dismissed it out of hand because it came from Downing Street. Had they done so, David Kelly would almost certainly be alive today, and no attempt by the media to say it was “six of one, half a dozen of the other” will ever move me from that view, or fully erase the anger I feel at their dishonesty. Sorry, but I feel I have to say that.

I hope too that one of the conspiracy theories peddled in the main by former [British] ambassador [to the US] Sir Christopher Meyer, that Tony Blair did a secret deal with George Bush at Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, is also laid to rest. There was no secret deal, there was no lying, there was no deceit, there was no “sexing up” of the intelligence. What there was was a decision, a set of decisions, which ultimately had to be made by the prime minister.

Though Sir John did not say so in so many words, it was clear from his presentation that he believed the Iraq war was a big mistake. He set out many reasons why he believed so. But his report does accept that ultimately leaders have to make decisions, and especially the tough ones.

The immediate response of Peter Allen’s experts and correspondents on 5 Live was drowned out by the chanting of protesters in the background “Tony Blair … war criminal”, and I could hear a succession of speakers saying what they had clearly planned to say before Chilcot had said or published a word.

As we have seen in the debate surrounding the EU referendum, we live in a post-factual, post-reason age where many parts of the media, and many people, tend to find the facts that fit the argument they already believe, the pieces of evidence that fit the worldview they already hold, the opinions that match their own. This is a phenomenon born in the fusion of news and comment in most newspapers as they adapted to TV, developed in the sound and fury of 24/7 TV news, and ventilated by the howling rage of social media. People say they want the full truth to emerge, but is that really so? Or do they in fact only want the truth in so far as they already believe it to be, like the screaming protesters outside the QE2?

So when the latest murderous Isis attack in Baghdad happens, a few days ago, with Chilcot looming, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, cannot resist adding two and two together and making whatever the number of deaths happens to be. “Sectarian war started in the chaos and violence that was unleashed by the American and British invasion of Iraq in 2003,” he said. “Plenty of Iraqis have already made up their minds: that the invasion and occupation pushed them into an agony without an end.”

Plenty of Iraqis, and not merely Kurds and Shias, also remain glad that Saddam Hussein is no more. We just don’t see or hear them too often on British TV stations. Sir John was clear that the government’s objectives were not met. With regard to the aftermath, short, medium and long-term, that may be so, though Iraq is at least a democracy and one that is fighting terrorism. But the fall of Saddam, when the invasion took place, was a core objective, and the world is a better place without him and his sons in charge of their country.

Sir John acknowledged that war may have been necessary at some point, but argued that the timetable was rushed to suit US interests. It is true that the Americans were keen on action. It is also true, as he acknowledged, that Tony Blair did have some influence in getting Bush to go down the UN route.

Here is where I find the most extreme criticisms of Tony Blair from those who hate him most difficult to accept.

I was one of the few people who saw the process of his making the decision close up, virtually round the clock, around the world. Far from seeing someone hellbent on war, I saw someone doing all he could to avoid it. Far from seeing someone undermine the UN, I saw him trying his hardest to make it work. Far from seeing someone cavalier about the consequences of war, I saw someone who agonised about them, and I know he still does, as do all who were there, part of his team.

But here is the difference between him and other ministers and MPs, him and advisers, him and commentators, him and the public who three times elected him, including after the fall of Saddam. He had to decide. One way or the other. With the US or not. Topple Saddam or leave him. Knowing that either way there were consequences that were hard to foresee.

Chilcot delivers crushing verdict on Blair and the Iraq war Read more

We elect leaders to make the toughest calls. Amid all the talk of learning lessons I fear we have already learned some wrong ones. Leaders in democracies have learned that if you do the really difficult, unpopular thing, it can be hung around your neck for ever.

I saw the care he took over the decisions. I have seen the agonies it has caused him many times since and will do till his dying day. The deaths of soldiers weigh heavily on him, as do the deaths of Iraqi civilians. He knows there are things he should apologise for. But one thing he will never apologise for is standing up to one of the worst, most fascist dictators the world has ever known. Nor should he. For all the faults in Iraq today, a world without Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq is a better and safer world, and those who gave their lives to make it happen did not, in my view, die in vain.

He accepts Iraq and the region have not advanced as we had hoped, but I wish more could be heard from those – they exist – who will speak up for the democracy that has developed, the fight against terrorism the government is leading, and the progress, albeit too slow, that has been made; I also wish the Blair haters were able to see things from his perspective, as the man who had to make the decision, in a way that we can see things from theirs.

• This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on alastaircampbell.org