Chilcot STILL won’t say if Blair went to war illegally

FAMILIES of soldiers killed in Iraq last night expressed anger that the Chilcot report will not say if the war was illegal.

They said they would struggle to achieve ‘closure’ if the 2.6millionword document, out tomorrow, failed to rule whether Tony Blair took the UK to war unlawfully.

Lawyers also confirmed grieving relatives were considering taking legal action against the former prime minister on the grounds he misled Parliament to justify the disastrous 2003 invasion, which cost the lives of 179 UK troops. The families believe Mr Blair is guilty of ‘malfeasance in public office’ because he misused his constitutional powers, which led to mass casualties.

Lord Butler, who carried out a 2004 review of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the lead-up to the conflict, yesterday said Mr Blair had ‘exaggerated’ the findings of UK spies. But he said the Chilcot Inquiry was not set up to answer the question of legality.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The legal issue wasn’t actually put to him and of course his review team wasn’t equipped properly to deal with that legal issue.’ John Miller, whose son Simon was killed by an Iraqi mob in 2003, said it felt like ‘a betrayal’. Matthew Jury, a lawyer at McCue & Partners – representing 29 families – said relatives would be taking ‘appropriate and necessary legal action of their own’.

Peter Oborne – Page 16