The Chilcot Report is unlikely to lead to the prosecution of the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The report concluded that the UK had undermined the UN’s Security Council with its actions in Iraq, but the report did not give a view on the legality of the war as the author said that that could “only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognised court.”

Despite this the US and UK invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been labeled as illegal by leading politicians in the UK.

The report, which is also known as the Iraq Inquiry, was published on 6 July, seven years after initial research on the report started.

In his opening statement John Chilcot, who has been leading the report, said the circumstances “in which it [the invasion] was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory.”

The inquiry also said that although military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point, in March 2003 Iraq posed no imminent threat and that a strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time. The majority of members on the Security Council had favoured supporting UN inspections before any decision on military action was to be made.

Since 2003 and the subsequent downfall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has fallen into a civil war that has been exacerbated by existing tribal tensions and a dire economic situation over the past decade.

The emergance of jihadi terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda and more recently the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) has fueled Iraq’s downfall since the invasion. Many analysts have pointed to the UK and US decision to disband the Iraqi army in 2003 as a driver for radicalising young men during times of high unempoyment. 

Tony Blair has since spoken out and said that he did not lie to the British Public in the lead up to the war, although he did regret the preparations that followed the invasion.