Chilcot's Iraq war report due

Sir John Chilcot - credit PA images

Sir John Chilcot will today publish the report of his inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Britain's involvement in the war in Iraq under Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2003.

It has been seven years since the inquiry began, and was only supposed to take a year long. The report is now 2.6m words long.

Chilcot told the BBC he believed the report's findings would mean it would never be possible for Britain to enter a war again without more careful scrutiny and analysis.

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"The main expectation that I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavour on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgement being applied to it," he said.

Potentially, the report could raise questions about the legality of the case for war in 2003 which would prove damaging to Blair.

Current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has already indicated he will apologise for his party's role in taking the country to war. He was one of 140 Labour MPs who were opposed to the war in 2003.

The SNP's Foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster Alex Salmond said he expects the report to be "damning", promising that a cross-party group of MPs would use it as evidence to hold those responsible for the war to account.

“For those expecting answers today we must be clear – this report will not provide a verdict, and far from being the final word on the Iraq war it will just be the start of a process – providing some of the evidence and findings from which we can then determine those responsible," he said.

“I want to reassure the families of those who died, and everyone living with the consequences of this conflict, that there is renewed cross-party determination to ensure Mr Blair and all those responsible for the lies and failures are held to account."