Chilcot report: Iraqis living under IS, corruption do not gain much from findings

Updated

It was the first of May 2003 and there I was in Baghdad with cameraman Ron Eckel in the newly "liberated" Iraq.

It was supposed to be the beginnings of a flowering of democracy, a prototype of things to come for the whole region. Sadly, it was the start of something new and terrible.

Within weeks of the invasion, people who had welcomed the foreign troops were muttering about life being better under Saddam. Despite the billions being spent, the electricity and water was intermittent, security non-existent, and the beginnings of the insurgency was filling body bags.

And now, it seems, those were good days compared to now.

After possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, at least a million displaced and all affected by divided and corrupt institutions, it is telling that for some the certainties of a brutal dictator like Saddam now seem attractive compared to the bloody chaos of today.

Will those recovering the charred remains of the latest bombing victims in the Iraqi capital care about the Chilcot report? Will it mean much to the people of Mosul who survive under the inhuman rule of Islamic State?

Or the bulk of ordinary Iraqis who just want a tiny bit of the peace and prosperity that was promised and denied following an invasion by the richest most powerful countries on earth?

Introspection is a luxury a country like Britain can afford.

And no doubt needs. That war has shaped responses to new, and not unrelated conflicts like the Syrian mess.

Could early intervention by the same countries that invaded Iraq have saved that nation lives and denied Islamic State the foothold it has converted into a vast territory?

As David Cameron noted, the disaster that is Iraq should not deter governments from intervening in future fights if it is deemed unavoidable and for the greater good.

And yet it almost certainly has, with the UK parliament rejecting an earlier attempt to join the fight against Assad in Syria.

Before the Chilcot report was even published, relatives of servicemen killed in Iraq were fearful it might be a whitewash ... two previous reports fell into that category, according to some who lost loved ones in that war.

But to their obvious delight, the massive volumes and findings have substance and credibility.

Tony Blair isn't being whisked off to a war crimes tribunal in the Hague, as some would cheer. But nor has his chain of decision-making escaped Sir John Chilcot's trenchant criticism.

Those same bereaved relatives say it is not the end of their quest to see Tony Blair behind bars and they will comb through every one of the millions of words to see if a legal case could be mounted.

But, beyond retribution, the strong message from the report is the need in future to more carefully consider any decision to go to war. Not just to agree in principle with a powerful ally well ahead of a formal decision, as seems to have been the case.

And to test and question every element of what should be the hardest of all decisions. That clearly was not done.

And to properly plan for the peace that offers security, prosperity and the rule of law for whatever country you decide to "liberate". That did not happen either.

As one Iraqi who initially welcomed the Americans, the British and the Australians said recently, there used to be just one Saddam, now there are a thousand.

The basic premise of any benign invading force is once you win the war you are responsible for what comes after.

And clearly, for the Iraqi people, that principle was abandoned — if it was ever really accepted.

Yes, Saddam is history. But so are the hopes and dreams of countless Iraqis who have lost loved ones, homes, businesses.

It is not that learning the Chilcot lessons are not important. They are and will help guide future leaders through the moral, military and political maze before troops are committed to foreign fields again. And, unlike Australia, at least the British have taken a good hard look at what happened.

But what does it all mean for the country that was invaded? Probably not much. There are more pressing issues to deal with: Islamic State, sectarian divisions, political paralysis, a daily fear of suicide bombs.

The introspection of the Chilcot report is a privilege afforded by a country that has all but washed its hands of Iraq. And the country that had to be "saved" is all but forgotten, but has to live and die with the consequences of a failed intervention.

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, united-kingdom

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