Iraq War did not have to happen, and certainly not when it did

Richard N Haass says the Chilcot Report should be widely read because the Iraq War was costly enough without people learning the wrong lessons from it

SEVEN years, 12 volumes of evidence, findings, and conclusions, and one executive summary later, the Report of the Iraq Inquiry, more commonly referred to as the Chilcot Report (after its chairman, John Chilcot), is available for one and all to read.

Few people will get through all of it; the executive summary alone (well over 100 pages) is so long that it calls for its own executive summary.