It is now thirteen years since US and British troops entered Iraq and the significant costs are still being counted: hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of refugees, increased insecurity for the UK, enormous financial cost, and the emergence of Daesh contributing to an increasingly volatile region. Will the much-delayed report sufficiently address the UK’s widely criticised involvement? We will be joined by a panel of experts to hear their initial reactions – and without the power to assign criminal culpability, we will consider the report’s potential impact in bringing those accountable to justice and in assuring that a foreign policy disaster of this scale is not repeated.

Chaired by Channel 4 News international editor, Lindsey Hilsum.

The panel:

Hayder al-Khoei is an associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House and research director of the Centre for Academic Shi’a Studies. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Task Force on the future of Iraq.

Carne Ross is the executive director of Independent Diplomat. He is a former British diplomat who resigned in 2004 after giving evidence to the Butler Inquiry into the Iraq war.

Emma Sky is a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute. She worked in the Middle East for twenty years and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in Iraq. She is the author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

Christopher Elliott, retired as a major general from the British Army in 2002. He is currently a visiting professor of Cranfield University, an associate fellow of RUSI and author of High Command: British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Friday’s screening of The Alternative Iraq Inquiry was a premiere of filmmaker David Lawley-Wakelin’s documentary-making debut. His journey around Iraq included frank interviews with ordinary people and military officials to find out what Iraqis thought of the US led invasion and whether they believe Blair should be tried as a war criminal in The Hague.

A panel discussion followed the screening of the short film, with former cabinet minister and MP Clare Short and Major General Tim Cross CBE. As promised to those who had foregone bonfire night festivities to attend the event, the debate mustered some fireworks of its own. David Lawley-Wakelin’s article on The One Click Group summarises the outcome of the debate, moderated by Mark Seddon. A straw poll at the end of the discussion found that a huge majority of the audience concurred with David Lawley-Wakelin’s premise, that Tony Blair was guilty of war crimes and should be put on trial.

Below is a slideshow of Frontline Club member Chris King’s photographs of the debate.