Ex-PM Tony Blair pictured yesterday ahead of the long-awaited publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq War
There are growing calls for the former Labour leader to be tried for war crimes
TONY Blair is looking very nervous as the hours tick down before the Chilcot Report is finally published - with families calling for him to go to jail over the Iraq War.
The long-awaited official inquiry report into Britain's invasion of Iraq is finally being published tomorrow and there are growing calls for Blair to be tried for war crimes.
Sir John Chilcot has said he will not rule on whether Britain and the USA going into the country in 2003 was legal in terms of international law.
Instead he has said he has pledged to provide a “full and insightful” account of the decision making process.
But this has not stopped families of servicemen and women who were killed in the conflict, and MPs, calling for legal action against Blair.
Nurse May-Helen Forsberg was five months pregnant with Major Jason Ward's child when he was killed in a helicopter crash on the first night of the Iraq War.
She told Sky News that she and her 12-year-old son, also called Jason after his father, believe the invasion was based on the untrue assertion that Saddam had access to weapons of mass destruction.
Miss Forsberg said: "I think Tony Blair and George Bush are to blame and I've always thought that. I would ask them to apologise to all those who are left behind."
When asked what kind of punishment Blair and Bush should receive she replied: "What is it Jason says? They should go to jail forever."
Tony Blair, prime minister when Britain went to war in 2003, has said he will not make any comment until the report is made public.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicated the former Labour leader will not be liable for prosecution, reiterating its conclusion 10 years ago that the decision to go to war is not within its jurisdiction.
However, General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded British troops in Bosnia in the 1990s and has been advising the families of some of the British dead and injured, said they were preparing to launch a civil action against Mr Blair.
"He has a personal responsibility as leader of this country to properly assess the intelligence and information that he is using to justify going to war," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.
"The consequences of that war have been utterly catastrophic.
"The families want to see justice and if it proves as a result of reading the report that there was dereliction of duty, malfeasance in public office, intelligence was negligently handled, then they will take action."
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Some of those whose loved ones died in the war between 2003 and 2009 fear the report will not give them the answers they desperately want.
David Godfrey, whose grandson Daniel Coffey, 21, was killed in 2007, said: “I’m quite apprehensive at the moment.
“People say this should bring closure but it won’t. It might give us information but what we need is closure.
“It can’t bring anybody back and won’t stop us feeling what we feel. It’s just another step forward on another long journey.”
He branded Mr Blair a “war criminal” and said “he has to be held responsible”.
A number of MPs are expected to try to use an ancient law to try to impeach the former prime minister once the findings are published.
Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said there “has to be a judicial or political reckoning” for Blair’s role in the Iraq conflict while shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the “processes” of how Britain ended up at war must be examined “so we never ever get into this tragic, tragic mess again with such loss of life”.
And Jeremy Corbyn is said to be prepared to call for Tony Blair to be investigated for alleged war crimes during the Iraq War.
Last summer Corbyn said Blair will have to "explain" his involvement in the Iraq war once the Inquiry is published.
On the leadership election campaign trail he was asked if Blair should be charged for war crimes and he replied: “If he’s committed a war crime, yes. Everyone who’s committed a war crime should be.”
Corbyn added: “I think it was an illegal war, I’m confident about that, indeed [former UN secretary general] Kofi Annan confirmed it was an illegal war, and therefore he has to explain to that.
“Is he going to be tried for it, I don’t know. Could he be tried for it? Possibly.”
The Chilcot inquiry was set up in 2009 by then prime minister Gordon Brown after the withdrawal of the main body of British troops earlier that year.
The inquiry examined the lead up to the 2003 invasion, and the years up to the 2009 withdrawal.
The report’s long-awaited publication follows 130 sessions of oral evidence and the testimony of more than 150 witnesses.
The inquiry has analysed more than 150,000 government documents as well as other material related to the invasion.
With the final report running to 12 volumes plus summary with 2.6 million words, much of the focus will be on the section dealing with the decision to go to war.
The inquiry heard evidence that Blair and George W Bush reached an agreement "signed in blood" that they would topple Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein when they met at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, a year before the invasion - a claim Blair denied.
However, issues covered by the report run far wider - from the diplomatic build-up to the invasion following the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001 through to the end of the UK occupation in 2009.
They include the intelligence on Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction - the original justification for military action - and the legal advice of attorney general Lord Goldsmith who finally gave the green light just days before the invasion having previously warned that further authorisation from the UN Security Council was needed.
It will also look at the equipment supplied to British troops, amid claims they were not given adequate protection, and the descent of Iraq into a bloody civil war in which tens of thousands - some estimates say hundreds of thousands - of civilians died.