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Live updates: Fallout from Chilcot Inquiry

  • Tony Blair's reputation lies in tatters in the wake of the report into the Iraq War
  • Sir John Chilcot's inquiry said the six-year conflict was unnecessary and disastrous
  • The ex-prime minister was accused of exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein
  • A memo also revealed that Blair promised George W Bush: 'I will be with you, whatever'
  • An emotional Blair defended the war, saying he would make same decision again
  • Families of some of the 179 military personnel killed in described Blair as a "terrorist"
  • Jeremy Corbyn apologised on behalf of Labour, calling the war a "stain on our party"
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Hammond: Removal of Iraqi government officials a mistake

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond gives evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Credit: PA

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that it was a mistake to remove members of Saddam Hussein's government from positions of power following the Iraq War.

Many Ba'athist military officers who were in positions of responsibility under Hussein are now in senior positions within the fighting force of so-called Islamic State, Mr Hammond told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

Maybe it was too great an ambition to try to simply dismantle a quite sophisticated country with a long-established civilisation, traditions and cultures of its own and recreate a sort of mid-Atlantic construct of what governance should look like, often going against the grain of local culture and local tradition.

– Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond

As a result of the aftermath of Iraq, the reconstructing of Syria following its current civil war needed to take place with "an appropriate degree of humility", the MP for Runnymede and Weybridge said.

I think nobody really thinks that in one bound we should turn Syria into a European-style democracy overnight. That's not a realistic or perhaps even a desirable outcome.

– Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond

Mr Hammond also resisted pressure to declare that military action in Iraq had been a mistake, instead saying that lessons could be learned.

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