The verdict: A fiasco, disgrace and utter failure
Tony Blair given softest of rides by Iraq Inquiry

Over one issue after another, the Iraq inquiry proved entirely unwilling or unable to challenge Blair. The boos that accompanied him as he left were the most troubling opposition he experienced all day in front of this pitiful committee of establishment fogeys.

Seumas Milne

This morning's failures have turned to fiasco. Over one issue after another, the members of the Chilcot inquiry proved entirely unwilling or unable to challenge – or apparently even recognise – Tony Blair's most damaging admissions, obfuscations and falsehoods on the Iraq war.

How come none of them pressed the former prime minister over the fact that most Iraqis opposed the occupation and supported the inevitable and predicted armed resistance? Instead, they allowed him to claim the opposite and insist it was all a problem of "outside elements, al-Qaida and Iran". Nor did they seem to remember that it was the invasion that brought both into Iraq.

When Blair claimed it was terrorists who were responsible for Iraq's bloodbath, no one thought to mention that for the first couple of years at least the majority of civilians were killed by the occupation forces.

What about the impact of the aggression against Iraq in fuelling terror attacks in Britain and elsewhere? Not a word. And when Blair claimed "we didn't end up with a humanitarian disaster" in Iraq and cited a string of misleading statistics on Iraq's "remarkable" progress, the inquiry members seemed happy to accept that too, whatever the UN might say.

There were startling admissions: "unfortunately, what we thought would be the problem wasn't the problem" after the occupation began, Blair said. Al-Qaida and Iran had "nearly caused the mission to fail" – but, in the end, he declared, "it didn't". The US troops had gone in "too hard, too heavy" in Falluja. If anything, his Atlantic love affair has deepened since he left power.

Some may hope that the rebuttal will come in the inquiry report. But the spectacle of official indulgence of a man many here and abroad regard as responsible for a devastating war crime has been sickening. John Chilcot said at one point that the lessons of occupation had been "expensive, but very necessary". Millions of Iraqis who have actually paid that price take a very different view.

Henry Porter

Blair's appearance in front Chilcot was like a fireside chat, no more testing than facing a committee from one of the more bufferish London clubs.

Not once did the inquiry members effectively challenge the outrageous conceit that to believe something to be right when you are prime minister is very nearly the same as being right, or the idea that to make a judgment decisively possesses merit in itself.

This was – unsurprisingly – an utter failure and a disgrace. Whatever Chilcot's report concludes, the hearing gave scant satisfaction to the nation, to people who have lost loved ones in the armed services or the Iraqi people. After a few exchanges with the historians on the panel – Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman – it was plain to a well-prepared Blair he would not have to break sweat during the next six hours: it would simply be a matter of sitting there and humouringthem, which he did by diversion, making concessions on unimportant points and looks of earnest statesmanship.

By the afternoon the inquiry had been reduced to a platform for his delusional worldview, which holds that the invasion of 2003 saved a much greater crisis in 2010. How could they let him get away with that one? They didn't test him properly on the intelligence about WMD, the confusion of WMD and toppling of Saddam as the casus belli, his stifling of legal opinion or the failure to plan for post-invasion Iraq. They did not squeeze the slightest regret from him nor voice surprise when he expressed no penitence.

The boos that accompanied Blair as he left the inquiry were the most troubling opposition he experienced all day in front of this pitiful committee of establishment fogeys.

Haifa Zangana

It was excruciating watching Tony Blair's testimony at the Iraq inquiry. Blair was the same smooth talker as he was throughout his career, repeating his "absolutely clear" visions, how options are quite simple, and "when you're right, it is the right thing to do". He kept to his usual script, including reading from his speeches and preaching at length on why he feels stronger now about WMD and managed to manoeuvre the committee on to "the danger of Iran", though never mentioning Israel's arsenal. He was so self-righteous, I got the impression that he was about to stand up holding the bible ranting "God will judge me on the Iraq war"!

But how often do war criminals admit their crimes? He was in a warm, well-lit hall, conversing with gentle folk in an academic conversation that could have lasted forever. Undergraduates would have asked more probing questions.

Sabiha Khudur Talib, a 62-year-old grandmother from Basra, was led away from her house in 2006 by British soldiers, according to her son. Her tortured body was found dumped on a roadside in a British body bag. The Royal Military Police, we are told, is investigating. Should not Blair be investigated too? Contrast Blair's questioning with the questioning of Iraqis initiated by Blair and Bush.

Abu Ghraib was just the start for the terror campaign unleashed by the "liberators". The legacy is still there, by mercenaries and US-UK trained Iraqi guards: midnight raids, people led into darkness in their underwear with hands shackled and sacks on their heads, to be tortured about allegations that can be later dubbed "mistakes". Last month alone nearly two thousands Iraqis were arrested, accused of terrorism.

Blair's polished performance only confirms to Iraqis, Arabs and Muslims what they experience on the ground: racist, colonial foreign policy.

This inquiry can only be meaningful if it leads to the re-establishment of justice and international law. Without that we can only imagine what the growing orphans will do to Iraq and the world in a few years. A humanitarian worker, quoted in the latest Red Cross report, said: "Once I was called to an explosion site. There I saw a four-year-old boy sitting beside his mother's body, decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened." He will be asking the living too. Current UN estimates are of 5 million Iraqi orphans, holding the UK and the US responsible. It is up to the British people who had twice democratically elected Blair and co to make amends to the victims, to hold their government responsible for the damage to Iraq and to the world.

George Galloway MP

It was pitiful the way he was allowed to dominate the room, to avoid questions being asked, and to mislead the public when challenged. The ghosts of the people killed in Iraq were not represented in the room either. He was allowed to report that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions in general and 1441 in particular. But in fact, they weren't in breach of it. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Not only should Iraq not have been invaded, but there should have been no sanctions. This was entirely absent from the discourse today.

He was allowed to go on and on about "Saddam's last chance to comply", but Iraq was not in breach and had not been since 1994. Blair was allowed to tell a blatant lie and the panel ignored it.

One of the reasons for the material breach, he said, was that Iraq had broken the terms of the resolution that called on them to allow weapons inspectors to interrogate army officials outside the country. In fact, the resolution authorised the arms inspectors to request army officials outside thecountry, but no such request was made.

So Iraq could not have refused and it could not have been in breach of 1441. Either the panel didn't know it or, if they did know, they didn't have the courage to confront him on it – and that's a whopper.

We have no closure. The campaign to hold these people to account continues and will, no doubt, continue into the general election.

Rose Gentle

When I got into the room, I was shaking and my stomach was churning, because I couldn't say anything to him. I wanted to say: "Tell the truth. Why lie? Why not put your hands up and say you made a mistake?"

The last bit, at the end, was disgusting. Sir John Chilcot asked him if he had any regrets and he said no. There were [bereaved] families in there, but there was not a bit of compassion, not a bit of anything like that. It was very hard to take.

He just sat with his back to us, and refused to meet us afterwards, which is typical of him. I am glad I saw him, but I would have preferred to see his face. He wouldn't look at us.

I think he got a lot of good questions put to him, but he didn't really answer any of them. He kept bringing things back to the paper, the dossier and he even tried to put the responsibility for the 45 minute claim on the media.

I don't think we have learned anything new, and when the inquiry ends there's not much we can do.

I will never forgive him and I believe he should stand trial. I will be angry with him for the rest of my life.

Ronan Bennett

"I only know what I believe." Sincerity has always been Tony Blair's first and last line of defence. When his back is against the wall, when the evidence of miscalculation or worse is incontrovertible, he will acknowledge common human fallibility with the British public school version of an "Aw, shucks" shrug.

His Fern Britton interview? A self-deprecating smile and a little rehearsed joke about still some things to learn on the communication front.

When Sir Lawrence Freedman asked if he believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Blair answered: "I did believe it. And I did believe it beyond doubt." He reiterated his belief in 45 minutes, that sanctions were not working, that a second UN ­resolution was possible, that war was legal, that Iraq posed a threat, shamelessly conflating 9/11, al-Qaida and Iraq.

So much sincerity, so much belief. "His evidence has been that of a man who believed he was doing the right thing," BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell said. We can all think of other leaders who have, in their time, believed they were doing the right thing – quite a few of them were monsters.

The only point of what the elected leader of the country believed is whether it corresponded with the facts. Because when what we believe becomes what is true, the road is open to take any action that suits our purpose. Tony Blair had a purpose. For all his "third way" twaddle, he is an ideologue.

The unspoken assumption that he and Bush had a right to wage a war in which thousands of civilians died went ­unchallenged by the baroness, the knights and mandarins who make up the inquiry. Nasser? Suez? Mosaddeq? The west can always find a way to justify its purpose.

In office, Blair was notorious for his dislike of paying his own way. As he slips out of the side door to rejoin his hedge fund friends, the people whose countries he bombed will be picking up the tab for his sincerity for a long time to come.

The protestors

Two of the audience who listened to Tony Blair told him he was "a liar" and "a murderer" after he had finished.

For hours the audience had listened in silence. But near the end he was interrupted by a single heckler, quickly stamped on by inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot. After the TV cameras stopped broadcasting, one member of the audience in the chamber shouted at him, "you're a liar"; a second added, "and a murderer".

The families of British military personnel killed in Iraq said that the former prime minister had been "smug". One asked that he look her in the eye and say "sorry" for the loss of her son.

Anne Donnachie, from Reading in Berkshire, lost her 18-year-old son, Paul, killed by a sniper in 2006. She blamed Blair. "From what I have heard this morning, he is just denying everything. He will just not face up to the facts. I believe he made a massive mistake when he sent my son to Iraq."

Therese Evans, from Llandudno in north Wales, lost her 24-year-old son, Llywellyn, when died in a Chinook helicopter crash in 2003. She said: "I would simply like Tony Blair to look me in the eyes and say he was sorry. Instead he is in there smirking."

Afterwards protesters waited for Blair's departure, clasping placards reading "Bliar". In the morning he avoided them by slipping in to the QEII centre in Westminster through a side entrance at 7.30am.

Outside lines of police stood between protesters and the inquiry.

"He does not have the integrity to come and face the people," said Lindsey German, convener of the Stop The War Coalition. "Sliding in by a back door entrance is typical of his lies, deceit and evasion."