THROUGHOUT his evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry, Tony Blair was not cross-examined to any great extent.

Instead he made erroneous statements which were neither questioned or challenged.

He tried throughout to attempt to link the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq with what happened in the USA on 9/11.

He did, however, admit that there wasn’t the slightest evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein had links with Al Qaeda or terrorism.

He continued to pretend that he wasn’t aware that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction until some time after the invasion.

That, though, draws into question why he deliberately misquoted ‘intelligence’ in the run-up.

For example, Mr Blair misquoted Saddam’s brother-in-law, Hussein Kamel, who had been in charge of Iraq’s weapons programme, but who defected in 1995.

Kamel, when questioned on weapons of mass destruction, said “nothing remained”.

He also described the elimination of prohibited missiles.

Therefore, Kamel admitted that Iraq had previously had weapons of mass destruction, but this was made out by Mr Blair to mean that Iraq still had WMDs.

Mr Blair’s linking of the illegal invasion with 9/11 ignored the obvious fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was on the table before 9/11 even occurred.

During his questioning Mr Blair did, however, admit the fact that the reference in the ‘dodgy dossier’ to Saddam being able to hit the West within 45 minutes was false.

He admitted the 45 minutes actually referred to the mobilisation of Iraq’s local defence missiles.

But if he knew that, why didn’t he make that clear before the invasion?

It was a key factor in obtaining support from Parliament and the subsequent unnecessary loss of British lives.

Blair once again stated clearly that even if he had known Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction he would still have gone ahead with regime change.

Even overlooking the fact that there can be little doubt that he did in fact know, invasion for regime change is illegal under international law.

Also, it was not mentioned at any time that Saddam had actually agreed to leave Iraq at least a month previous to the invasion on the payment of around half a billion pounds.

It sounds a lot, but compared to the cost of this war in lives and cash, it was peanuts.

Nothing I have heard from the Chilcot Inquiry changes my view that the invasion of Iraq was for anything other than the control of the Middle East, control of oil supplies and protection of the US dollar as the currency used in oil transactions.

Interestingly, during his questioning, Mr Blair drew attention to Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program, of which there is no evidence.

I can’t help feeling that it’s a case of deja vu.

R Lee, Burford Road, Witney