Lord Goldsmith
Attorney-general, 2001-07
Goldsmith comes out badly from the Chilcot report – maybe second only to Blair in terms of damage to his reputation.
He initially argued that military action would require a second United Nations resolution but it never came. In spite of that, he said there was legal cover.
Chilcot concludes that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action “were far from satisfactory”.
The military and the civil service both asked for more clarity on whether force would be legal. Goldsmith did so but failed to provide written advice explaining his decision.
Sir John Scarlett
Chairman of the joint intelligence committee, the umbrella group for the intelligence agencies, 2001-04
Scarlett emerges from the Chilcot report with his reputation badly damaged, mainly for failing to rein in some of the wilder conclusions by Blair in claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the basis for going to war.
Scarlett produced the first draft of the “dodgy” dossier in September 2002, which included the infamous claim that a British target – the UK base in Cyprus – was only 45 minutes from an Iraqi attack.
Sir Richard Dearlove
Head of MI6, 1999-2004
References to Dearlove are dotted throughout volume four of the report dealing with the faulty intelligence about Saddam allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction.
The criticism of Dearlove is less pointed than that of Scarlett. It is largely implicit, blaming him for providing faulty intelligence that Iraq was pursuing a chemical and biological weapons programme and that it had been seeking uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon.
Chilcot blames MI6 for failing to inform No 10 or others that the source who had made claims about alleged weapons of mass destruction in September 2002 had been lying.
Eliza Manningham-Buller
Head of MI5, 2002-07
She is one of the few to come out of the report with her reputation enhanced. Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry that the invasion of Iraq substantially increased the terrorist threat to the UK and helped to radicalise young British Muslims.
The Chilcot report notes that in volume four of his diaries, Alastair Campbell
wrote: “Eliza [Manningham-Buller] gave a very gloomy picture of the terrorist scene here, said that even though al-Qaida were not directly linked to Iraq, they would use an attack on Iraq to step up activity here. TB [Tony Blair] was looking really worried at that point.”
The joint intelligence committee (JIC) repeatedly warned of the dangers of an increased terror threat. On 10 February 2003, less than two weeks before the invasion, Chilcot notes that the JIC echoed Manningham-Buller that “the threat from al-Qaida will increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq. They will target coalition forces and other western interests in the Middle East. Attacks against western interests elsewhere are also likely, especially in the US and UK, for maximum impact. The worldwide threat from other Islamist terrorist groups and individuals will increase significantly.”
Admiral Lord Boyce
Chief of the defence staff, 2001-03
He is criticised in the report for failing to properly articulate to his commanders the scope and direction of Britain’s strategy in southern Iraq after the invasion.
The report notes that “it was the responsibility of the chiefs of the defence staff and the chief of joint operations to ensure that appropriate rules of engagement were set, and preparations made to equip commanders on the ground to deal with it effectively. They should have ensured that those steps were taken.”
Boyce, however, appears to have been cut out of Blair’s early thinking on joining the US effort to topple Saddam. He told the inquiry he was unaware of the discussions that Blair had had with President Bush in April 2002.
General Sir Mike Jackson
Head of the army, 2003-06
The report heavily criticises the Ministry of Defence for sending troops into Iraq without proper equipment, such as vehicles tough enough to withstand explosive devices and sufficient helicopters for transporting troops around.
Jackson said the problem was “partly financial but also systemic”. He acknowledged the vulnerabilities of the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rover and the muddled attempt to find a replacement vehicle for it.
General Sir Nicholas Houghton
Director of military operations, 1991-2002; now chief of the defence staff
As well as the poor performance of British troops in southern Iraq, there were multiple problems over lack of proper equipment.
Houghton, noting in 2006 the problems with equipment, said: “Do not look for too big a dividend this year … The reality is that Warrior [an armoured vehicle] gives us confidence and a protective edge … The boys can manage Snatch - just: but they have no inherent confidence in it.”
Alastair Campbell
Prime minister’s director of communications and strategy, 1997-2003
Campbell has long been linked with the “dodgy” dossier of September 2002 alleging Saddam was pursuing a weapons of mass destruction programme.
Although Campbell chaired a committee overseeing the dossier, Chilcot makes it clear that it was Scarlett that drew up the dossier and Blair that wrote the foreword.
Campbell is one of the few to emerge relatively unscathed from the report. Far from attempting to “sex up” up the dossier, Campbell comes across as one of the voices of reason.
The report quotes Campbell telling Scarlett that the dossier “must be, and be seen to be, the work of you and your team and that its credibility depends fundamentally on that”. Campbell added: “It goes without saying that there should be nothing published that you and they are not 100% happy with.”
Jack Straw
Foreign secretary, 2001-06
Straw has to take responsibility for the failure to pursue the diplomatic options through to the point at which they were exhausted, which Chilcot pointedly said they had not been.
Straw contends the options had been exhausted. He also said that he did not take at face value the intelligence claiming there had been weapons of mass destruction.
Straw also identified the need for a “Plan B” for the UK not to participate in military action in the event that the government failed to secure a majority in the parliamentary Labour party for military action.
Straw told Blair: “We will obviously need to discuss all this, but I thought it best to put it in your mind as event[s] could move fast. And what I propose is a great deal better than the alternatives. When Bush graciously accepted your offer to be with him all the way, he wanted you alive not dead!”
Clare Short
International development secretary, 1997-2003
Short, though an opponent of the war, repeatedly pressed for plans for the aftermath of the invasion. But she is included in the failure to undertake post-invasion planning.
The report notes: “The UK failed to plan or prepare for the major reconstruction programme required in Iraq.”
At key points, Short’s department for international development “should have considered strategic questions about the scale, focus and purpose of the UK’s reconstruction effort in Iraq”.
Geoff Hoon
Defence secretary, 1999-2005
He is criticised for failing to make the case for the military ahead of the invasion and for being not a strong enough personality to stand up to pressure from Downing Street.
The report notes that Hoon – early in 2002, before Blair went to see Bush in Texas in April – identified Iran as being a bigger problem for the UK than Iraq in terms of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. But he did not follow through on this and joined the rush to war in Iraq.
Hans Blix
Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, 2000-03
Blix comes out well from the Chilcot report, pushing to the end for a diplomatic solution and insisting the UN weapons inspectors had successfully achieved what they had set out to do in tracking down and destroying Saddam’s programme of weapons of mass destruction.
The report notes that he told the UN security council in the run-up to the invasion that Iraq had promised to provide full cooperation in checks that it had no weapons of mass destruction, in spite of scepticism expressed by British intelligence.
He told Iraq that many countries still believed it had WMD. But the council wanted to offer Iraq a last opportunity, one that the UK and the US in the end did not wait for.
John Williams
Former head of press at the Foreign Office, 2000-06
Williams, who was Campbell’s counterpart at the Foreign Office and was also a former political editor at the Daily Mirror, is quoted in the Chilcot report offering various media strategies.
According to the report, he is quoted as saying there was a need to “encourage support from sympathetic newspapers and carry the argument to those likely to criticise our policy”. Journalists who were “too easily inclined to discount the threat Saddam poses” should be “forced by the weight of facts” to justify their position.