London (AFP) - John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister, now believes the 2003 invasion or Iraq - carried out when he was Deputy PM to Tony Blair - was illegal, he admitted this morning. Lord Prescott made the admission in a newspaper column just days after Sir John Chilcot's report into the lead-up to the war was published and savaged Blair.
The Labour heavyweight used his strongest language yet to condemn Blair's decision to take party in the Iraq War, a decision he supported at the time. Prescott, now a member of the House of Lords, wrote in the Sunday Mirror: 'I will live with the decision of going to war and its catastrophic consequences for the rest of my life.
'In 2004, the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said that as regime change was the prime aim of the Iraq war, it was illegal. With great sadness and anger, I now believe him to be right.'
On Wednesday, the Chilcot report returned a damning verdict on Britain's role in the US-led war, finding it joined the conflict before all peaceful options had been exhausted and that judgements about Iraq's capacities were 'presented with a certainty that was not justified'. It also disclosed Blair had written to then US president George W. Bush that 'I will be with you, whatever' eight months before the invasion.
Lord Prescott said the Chilcot report was a "damning indictment of how the Blair government handled the war - and I take my fair share of blame".
"As the deputy prime minister in that Government I must express my fullest apology, especially to the families of the 179 men and women who gave their lives in the Iraq War."
He also welcomed current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's decision to apologise on behalf of the party for the war.
Blair this week voiced 'sorrow, regret and apology' over mistakes made in the conflict. But he insisted the war was right and the world was safer without toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The Chilcot report strongly criticised the way former prime minister Mr Blair took the country to war in 2003 on the basis of "flawed" intelligence with inadequate preparation at a time when Saddam Hussein did not pose an "imminent threat".
