Roundup: Commenting on Chilcot report, Sudan experts say Britain, U.S. must take moral responsibility for Iraq mess

The Chilcot report on the Iraq War in 2003 constituted an explicit confession of the mistakes made by Britain and the United States, which shall take moral responsibility for the post-invasion mess, Sudanese politicians, analysts and media professionals said Thursday.

"The report clearly recognized the mistakes made by London in alliance with Washington," Rabie Abdul-Atti, adviser to Sudan's information minister, told Xinhua.

He was referring to the conclusions released Wednesday of an inquiry led by Britain's former civil servant John Chilcot, who said the invasion started before all peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted and that the planning and preparations for post-war Iraq were wholly inadequate.

Abdul-Aftti said the report did not go far enough, and that it should be followed by a correcting move -- backtracking the wrong polices and removing the impacts of the mistakes.

"The invasion into Iraq had huge negative effects that led to the disturbance of the new world order," he said. "If Britain is ready to admit what it has committed, it must seek, with its ally the United States, to remove those effects."

Abdul-Atti holds the United States and Britain responsible for the ongoing issues in the Middle East.

"The emergence of extremist groups such as Daesh was a reaction to the invasion," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group.

Abdul-Rahim Al-Sunni, a Sudanese political analyst, said that after 13 years, Britain reaffirmed the intervention was neither legitimate nor justified.

"This report is a complete condemnation of Britain and the United States, and they should take the moral and legal responsibility for their mistakes that have generated negative effects on the entire world," he said.

In the meantime, Hassan al-Saouri, a political science professor at the University of Khartoum, said the report was not a condemnation of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"The report is a condemnation of Britain and its polices but not of Tony Blair because he was then representing the country and its government," al-Saouri said.

He said the report reaffirmed the fact that Blair government had not exhausted the options for peaceful settlement, but had instead opted for an unjustified war.

Al-Saouri predicted that there will be further consequences of the report on Britain and the United States.

"The report will trigger formation of investigation committees," al-Saouri said.

Al-Fateh Al-Sayed, former secretary general of the Sudanese Journalists Union, stressed the need for Britain to fix the damage caused by its alliance with the United States in the war against Iraq.

"The entire world has been politically and economically affected by what happened in 2003, including the world financial crisis, the growing illegal migration and emergence of extremist groups," Al-Sayed said. "All these were the consequences of the Iraq War."

The investigation committee led by Chilcot was formed to consider British policy on Iraq from 2001 to 2009, including Britain's involvement in the 2003 Iraq War.

The report said Britain "chose to join the invasion into Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted."

According to the report, Britain's policy on Iraq at the time was built on false and inaccurate intelligence information. Endit