Blair was wrong on Iraq – and he should have the humility to admit it | Martin Kettle

Thirteen years have not dimmed the urgency of doing better, and the Chilcot report’s emphasis on UK government and state failure should be taken seriously

The invasion of Iraq was, as Sir John Chilcot put it today, the first invasion of a sovereign state by the UK since the second world war. It was also, as Chilcot said, in his dry, meticulous terms, a failure which went badly wrong.

Those words “failure” and “badly wrong” will sound like a weak and feeble form of condemnation to the many who feel the Iraq war should be condemned as a crime, a moral outrage, a terrible deception or as simply unforgivable. But “failure” in fact goes to the absolute heart of what was so very wrong about Tony Blair’s policy, way of governing and premiership.

Related: The Iraq war inquiry has left the door open for Tony Blair to be prosecuted | Joshua Rozenberg

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