We're finishing our live page coverage, following the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq War earlier today. 

Sir John Chilcot said - in the report that was years in the making and comes to more than 2m words - that then prime minister Tony Blair's government overstated the threat of Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and did not have adequate plans for its aftermath. 

Mr Blair has apologised for any mistakes made, but not for the decision to go to war. 

Prime Minister David Cameron said it was important to "really learn the lessons for the future", saying that "sending our brave troops on to the battlefield without the right equipment was unacceptable". 

A spokesman for some of the families of the 179 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq during the conflict said their relatives died "unnecessarily and without just cause and purpose".

You can scroll down for updates as they happened - or click on these links for more information: 

• Findings at-a-glance
• Tony Blair stands by war decision - but says sorry to families
• Jeremy Corbyn: Invasion was "catastrophe"
• What Blair said to Bush

You can read our main story here as well as keep up to date with any further developments on the BBC News channel. 

The report can be downloaded on the Iraq Inquiry website, external.

The Guardian

Labour MP and former director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer writes in the Guardian that the lessons learned from the Chilcot inquiry should be enshrined in law. 

He writes:

He says a "robust and agreed framework, underpinned in law" is needed before the UK engages in any future military action. 

Mr Starmer adds:

He concludes by saying he hopes divisions can "start to heal" now and that "we can start to ensure similar mistakes will not be repeated".

The Daily Telegraph

Image source, AFP/Getty

Michael Deacon, parliamentary sketchwriter at the Daily Telegraph, says that Tony Blair looked "a broken man" when he spoke earlier today, following the publication of the Chilcot report.

But he adds:

A photograph of Tony Blair addressing reporters after the publication of the Chilcot report appears on the front page of Thursday's edition of the International New York Times.  

The paper's headline says the report was "unsparing" of the former prime minister. 

Its findings "amounted to a moment of searing public accountability for Mr Blair, who perhaps even more than Mr Bush has been defined in his own country almost entirely, and almost entirely negatively, for his decision to go into Iraq alongside the United States", it says.

Image source, International New York Times

Press Association

Image source, PA

The father of a soldier killed serving in the Iraq War has called for Tony Blair to face court action in the wake of the Chilcot Report.

Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, 28, from 1 (UK) Armoured Division HQ & Signal Regiment, died in a road accident in Iraq in March 2003.

Peter Brierley, 65, said his son had believed he was protecting the country's security before he died - but had he survived he would have joined families and veterans at the release of the long-awaited Iraq Inquiry report on Wednesday.

And he said the next step for the families and campaigners was to seek legal action. He told the Press Association:  

Pat McFadden, an adviser to Tony Blair at the time of the Iraq War, told the BBC it was wrong to say the prime minister had given unconditional support to US President George W Bush over Iraq.

"All the effort from the British end was to persuade the Americans to go down the UN route - to broaden the coalition and the basis for any possible action," he said.

Mr McFadden, who was elected as Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East in 2005, added: "Much of the discussions of the consequence of the Iraq War has been in such a way that it seems like history began in 2003 - that all the extremist violence we've seen in the Middle East and elsewhere stemmed from that. 

"It's important to stress that is not the case. We had 9/11 two years before this, we had Bali and we also had Saddam's regime which had indulged in horrific killing of its own population."

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has posted a copy of this afternoon's statement to the press, external on his website. 

Mr Blair defended his conduct over Iraq as he spent near two hours addressing journalists in London following the publication of the Chilcot Report.

Image source, AFP

The US diplomat, who who administered the coalition provisional authority after the Iraq War, has accepted several criticisms made in the Chilcot report but maintains that "history will agree that it was the correct, if difficult decision to remove Saddam".

In an article for the Guardian, Paul Bremer says pre-invasion planning was “inadequate” , externaland agrees the coalition “never got on top of security”.

But he says he does not share the report's assumption that a “strategy of containment” of Saddam Hussein was adequate or criticism of moves to remove senior Ba’ath party officials from government posts after the war.

Image source, AP

Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East editor

Iraqis are preoccupied with Eid al Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan - and with survival. Not with the Chilcot report. 

Most people made their minds up about the invasion long ago. I've met only one man who thinks they're better off because of it. 

A group of men I interviewed outside Baghdad's main Sunni mosque despaired at the violence and lack of personal security - and echoed a warning that Chilcot says was ignored by Number 10, about Iran pursuing its interests in Iraq if its enemy Saddam Hussein fell.

Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Crispin Blunt told the BBC the report would be "invaluable" for learning lessons.

He said he had been "entirely convinced" by the case made by former prime minister Tony Blair at the time. 

But he added: 

He described that situation as "ludicrous", adding: "If Parliament was going to be invited to make this decision, it needed to make it considerably in advance."

Mr Blunt, who voted in favour of the war, added that he felt "misled" by "the way in which the intelligence was made to fit the assessment the prime minister wanted to present". 

Image source, AFP

The Chilcot report includes many memos sent between George W Bush and Tony Blair.

In one of them, Mr Blair assures Mr Bush of his support, telling him: "I will be with you, whatever...". 

The former US president, who turned 70 on Wednesday, was spending the day cycling with wounded veterans. 

Here is some more from Jack Straw's statement, following the publication of the Chilcot report. 

The Labour former foreign secretary said the inquiry did not claim that Parliament and the public were wilfully misled about the intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction - or that the decision to take military action was unlawful. 

He added that he had worked "ceaselessly" to try to gain agreement on a second United Nations Security Council Resolution, which, he believed, could have led to war being averted.

Margaret Beckett, a former cabinet minister under Tony Blair, said she did not feel duped or deceived by the former prime minister's case to go to war in Iraq.

She said that "what the prime minister said to cabinet is what he genuinely believed" and that it was "pretty much what every other intelligence service believed at the time". 

Image source, Getty Images

Former US president George W Bush's spokesman has made a statement following the publication of the Chilcot report. 

His communications director Freddy Ford said: 

Labour former home secretary David Blunkett says he accepts his share of responsibility for the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Responding to the Chilcot report in the House of Lords, the Labour peer said the government had made "an enormous effort" to get a second resolution approved by the UN. 

He said it would be "perverse in the extreme" if, in future, the UK wasn't able to join its allies, "because our action was vetoed by Vladimir Putin, at a moment when he himself is bombing civilians in Syria without any process or authorisation sought by this government and the previous government". 

The deputy leader of the Lords, Lord Howe, told peers that it wasn't just Russia which had opposed the second resolution, but he said the Russians were "extremely unhelpful and uncooperative at that time".