Eli Lake, Columnist

Blair Didn't Lie His Way Into Iraq. Neither Did Bush.

He believed reports that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. That was a mistake, not a crime.

July 6, 2016 at 4:14 PM EDT

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

You can put it away, now.
Photographer: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

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Sir John Chilcot has some bad news for the many Britons pining for the day Tony Blair will be tried for war crimes. The former prime minister didn't lie the U.K. into the Iraq war.

This is the clear conclusion of a sweeping inquiry into the war released earlier today by Chilcot's committee, a report that took longer to produce than the British military involvement in Iraq. The closest Chilcot comes to criticizing Blair's use of the intelligence produced by his government is that he at times didn't express the full nuance and uncertainty contained in those reports. But Blair's statements about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs were consistent with what the professional analysts, spies and military officers were telling him.

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