MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. A report on Britain’s Iraq invasion in 2003 by John Chilcot once again confirmed Russia’s position on this issue, chairman of Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said on Wednesday.
The legal basis for Britain’s decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003 was "far from satisfactory," chairman of the inquiry John Chilcot said earlier today. "We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," Chilcot noted. "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been," he stressed.
"It took London seven years to come to the same conclusion that we reached 13 years ago - that Great Britain joined the military campaign in Iraq before possibilities of peaceful disarmament were exhausted," Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page.
"Have we not warned about all these consequences (of the military operation in Iraq) back then, in 2003?" he wondered adding that Moscow expressed similar concerns about the military operation in Libya.
It is hard to predict the consequences of this inquiry, he continued noting that such reports are often widely discussed "but do not lead to anything significant." "At best, participants of those events may be removed from their posts, but even this does not always happen," he noted. In any case, "no one will refuse those economic benefits that were received as a result of the military operation and pay enormous compensations to the Iraqi people for stripping them of statehood, security and prosperity ‘by mistake’," Kosachev said.
The lawmaker did not rule out that "years later ‘sensational’ reports may appear about those who really shot down the Malaysian Boeing, those responsible for the war in Donbass and numerous civilian casualties." "However, this will happen later. For now, decisions are made on tough sanctions, deployment of forces and severing ties without any inquiries of reports. These are not just mistakes but rather conscious harm to millions of people without exaggeration," he concluded.