THE long-awaited inquiry in the Iraq war is finally published today after a seven-year wait.

Scroll down for live coverage off Sir John Chilcot's statement on the 2.6 million word document:

1 Sir John Chilcot delivering his report

11.50am: That's all folks

We're ending this live blog now as we move on to cover all the reaction and fallout from the report's publication.

Please check out all our stories on Sun Politics, and the full statement from Sir John is available here.

Thanks for reading

11.45am: Blair's 'love letters' to Blair

The report's publication allows for a number of handwritten notes between the former Prime Minister and the US President, including one saying he was "with you whatever".

Read about them here:

11.42am: Our full coverage

Here is a report from our Political Editor on the Iraq Inquiry and it's findings:

Chilcot report in full: Blair presided over disastrous failings that left invasion of Iraq almost a complete failure https://t.co/5n9yynDKwF — Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 6, 2016

Another story about Sir John tearing into Tony Blair from my colleague James Cox:

Former PM escapes blame for ‘sexed up’ intelligence report into Saddam’s non-existent WMDs

On the protests are taking place outside the QE2 centre in London:

Fury of Iraq War victims’ families ahead of today’s publication of Chilcot report

And how a lack of kit cost British soldiers their lives:

Brit troops died because of a lack of proper equipment report finds

Stick around as we bring you all the details from the momentous report

11.36am That's it

Sir John finishes by paying tribute to one of the panel members, Sir Martin Gilbert, who died last year and never saw the report published.

And with that he's off the stage - and the full report is published. Follow @SunPolitics on Twitter for more coverage.

Was it worth the wait?

11.35am: 'No need to go to war'

Sir John concludes "there was no need to go to war in March 2003".

Tony Blair also “overestimated his ability” to influence US decisions on Iraq.

11.33am:

The conflict ended a “very long way from success”, he says.

11.31am:

The UK was fighting two enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time bit did not have the resources to do so, Chilcot says.

11.30am:

The scale of the UK effort in post-conflict Iraq “never matched the scale of the challenge”, says Sir John.

11.28am:

There was "little time" to properly prepare three military brigades for deployment in Iraq, the risks were neither "properly identified nor fully exposed" to ministers, resulting in "equipment shortfalls", Sir John said.

11.25am:

Post-invasion, Chilcot says the risks to British troops were not properly identified, or flagged up to ministers.

11.23am

He says it is now clear Iraq policy was made “on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments.”

11.19am: "A certainty that was not justified"

Sir John says Blair told MPs that at some point in the future the threat from Iraq’s WMD would be real.

But said the PM presented the intelligence 'with a certainty that was not justified',

11.17am:

He says there were a number of times when Iraq should have been discussed by Tony Blair’s Cabinet - but was not.

11.15am:

The circumstances in which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action in Iraq were “far from satisfactory”, he says.

11.14am:

Blair and Straw blamed France for a hold-up in the UN and in the absence of a majority - it was undermining the authority of the security council, Chilcot says.

11.11am;

I want to set out some key points in the report:

First the formal decision to invade Iraq, if Saddam Hussein did not accept the US ultimatum to leva within 48 hours, was taken by Cabinet on 17 March 2003.

Parliament voted the following day to support the decision.

The decision was, however, shaped by key choices made by Mr Blair’s Government over the previous 18 months – which I will now briefly set out:

After the attacks in September 11, 2001, Mr Blair urged President Bush not to take hasty action on Iraq.

By early December, US policy had begun to shift and Mr Blair suggested that the US and the UK should work on what he described as a “clever strategy” for regime change in Iraq, which would build over time.

When Blair met Bush in Texas in April 2002 the formal policy was to contain Saddam Hussein, but there had been profound change in UK’s thinking:

The JIC had concluded that SD could not be removed without an invasion

The Government was stating that Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with. It had to disarm or be disarmed.

11.09am:

We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.

Military action at that time was not a last resort.

We have also concluded that:

The judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were presented with a certainty that was not justified.

Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated.

The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.

The government failed to achieve its stated objectives

11.09am:

The questions for the inquiry were:

Whether it was right and necessary to invade Iraq in March 2003

Whether the UK could – and should – have been better prepared for what followed

11.08am:

In 2003, for the first time since the Second World War, the United Kingdom took part in an invasion and full-scale occupation of a Sovereign state.

That was a decision of the utmost gravity.

Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator who had attacked Iraq’s neighbours, repress and killed many of his own people, and was in violation of obligations imposed by the UN Security Council.

11.07am: He's here

A bit behind schedule, but Sir John Chilcot is on stage. Perhaps it is fitting that after a seven-year wait that he was late to report of his own inquiry.

10.58am: We're nearly there

The stage is set and Sir John is about to deliver a statement on the Iraq Inquiry. Follow here for live updates.

For all our other coverage click here