US, allies used WMDs lie to access Iraq’s energy resources: Iran MP
A senior Iranian lawmaker says the United States and its allies used Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) claims to access Iraq’s energy resources during the 2003 invasion of the Arab country.
"It was quite obvious from the very first day that the United States and its allies devised the operation to access Iraq’s energy resources," Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Friday.
They then used "the issue of WMDs only as a pretext" to reach their objectives in the Arab country, he added.
The senior Iranian lawmaker's remarks come hot on the heels of a much-anticipated Iraq Inquiry, or the Chilcot report, that investigated Britain’s most significant military engagement since Second World War.
The report, released on Wednesday, found that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took the country into the US-led invasion of Iraq only based on “flawed intelligence” about former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's WMDs.
In his report, Sir John Chilcot slams security agencies such as MI6 over major errors in their intelligence gathering and assessments. Chilcot said it worked on the “misguided assumption” that Saddam had WMDs.
"Britain's official admission that Iraq's possession of WMDs was a lie is a very significant development," the Iranian legislator said.
He emphasized that the US and its allies must be held accountable for the killing of the Iraqi people and crimes committed against them during the invasion of the country.
The Iraqi government can pursue the issue judicially through international bodies, Boroujerdi said.
During the war, nearly 120,000 British military personnel were deployed to Iraq with 179 of them killed in combat.
Britain officially ended its involvement in the war in 2009, and Blair received a Medal of Freedom from then US president George W. Bush.
According to California-based investigative organization Project Censored, the invasion and its subsequent occupation claimed the lives of more than one million Iraqis.
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