It was a war that began in extreme controversy and during which the moral reputation of British intelligence and the nation’s armed forces was tarnished for a generation, long after the last of the fighting stopped.
Before a shot was fired in Iraq by the US-led coalition, British intelligence, led by MI6, produced flawed evidence about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, which in turn was simplified and amplified by then prime minister Tony Blair, including in his foreword to the notorious Iraq dossier of September 2002. But it was not true and proven not to be so after the initial invasion was over.
