At their own press coneference, held immediately after Sir John delivered his findings, Sarah O'Connor, the sister of one dead soldier was cheered as she decribed Tony Blair as "the world's worst terrorist".
Ms O'Connor, whose brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor was killed in 2005 when the aircraft he was in was bought down by insurgents, said: "There is one terrorist that the world needs to be aware of and his name is Tony Blair, the world's worst terrorist."
The bereaved families made clear they would now be considering legal action on the basis of the Chilcot and that Tony Blair was likely to be one of their targets.
Grieving mothers, fathers, partners and other family members were present in the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London to read as much as they could of the 2.6 million-word, 12-volume tome, and to hear Sir John Chilcot read a summary of the findings.
They had arrived saying that had Sir John’s report not given grounds for them taking legal action in relation to the war, there would be “something terribly wrong with our political process”.
In the event, families burst into loud applause after hearing Sir John deliver a summary which including searing criticism of the failure to equip troops in Iraq properly and which stated that in the run-up to the war the alleged threat posed by Iraq was “presented with a certainty that was not justified.”
They also heard Sir John say that "Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were under-estimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate. The Government failed to achieve its stated objectives."
The Ministry of Defence was "slow" to respond to the threat from insurgents' roadside bombs, resulting in delays in the supply of armoured vehicles to protect troops which "should not have been tolerated".
This appeared to echo the comments of Richard and Maureen Bacon whose son Matthew died when his Snatch Land Rover was hit by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in Basra in September 2005.
Hourse before Sir John delivered his verdict, Mr Bacon told The Independent, that Tony Blair had delayed military planning and equipment procurement for the war “Because he didn’t want it to be seen that he was pre-empting any UN resolution. He was manipulating the system.”
The result, said Mr Bacon, was that his son died in a Snatch Land Rover with inadequate detection systems to protect against IEDs that could go through the insufficiently armoured vehicle “like a knife through butter.”
Mr Bacon said: “There were 27 incidents in which a serviceman got killed by an IED while travelling in a Snatch Land Rover. The first incident had been in 2004. With Snatch Land Rovers it was like Russian roulette.
“If the IED had been laid on that patrol’s route, and if the insurgents had people in place to set it off, then that vehicle was going to get hit.”
Mr Bacon, a retired police officer, added that there had to be “consequences” for leaders who sent soldiers to war unnecessarily.
“Because the consequences for the people they send is that some of them die doing the job they were told to do.”
As a result of the Chilcot Report, he added, “There has to be a basis for some kind of [legal] action, to ensure this never happens again. If not, I would say there is something terribly wrong with the political process.”
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