Former PM Tony Blair makes a passionate statement during his press conference to address the Chilcot report into the Iraq War. 

There were 19 Scottish service personnel who died during the Iraq campaign following the invasion. 

Diane Douglas, from Aberdeen, is the mother of Lance Corporal Allan Douglas, 22, who was shot in January 2006. 

She told the Evening Express newspaper, external that the hole her son had left "will never be filled".

Alex Salmond says access to the Chilcot Report is a further injustice to the families of those who died following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Tony Blair has finally finished speaking, an hour and 50 minutes after he first began his statement about the Chilcot report on the invasion of Iraq. 

Mr Blair says he still believes "history will take a different view" on the Iraq War.

"I hope in the end, and I believe in the end, Iraq will stabilise, and the Middle East will stabilise... My analysis of the Middle East is that it is one big struggle to get rid of sectarian politics and replace it with pluralistic religiously-tolerant politics...

"Iraq under Saddam had no chance, Iraq today has a chance."

Some people in the West say it would have been better to leave the dictators in power but they are forgetting there was no stability in Iraq if you were Kurdish or Shia, he says.

Image source, PA

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

“There’s a melancholy aspect to all this,” said Daniel Benjamin, a former state department counter-terrorism coordinator under the Obama administration. “Tony Blair was one of the UK’s finest prime ministers, but I guess he put too much priority on maintaining a close relationship with the US – and not enough on maintaining independent judgement.”

“The Chilcot report confirms most Americans’ understanding of what went wrong and suggests the British government – like their own - didn’t do due diligence. The Bush administration was determined to go to war. For the British government, it’s much the same.”

“It adds another level of confirmation of what we already know about the Bush administration’s rush to war and the shoddy job that was done in evaluating the true situation in Iraq. It’s more of an exercise to assess culpability.”

Image source, Getty Images

Mr Blair has been speaking for more than an hour. He is still taking questions from journalists, having said he would answer as many questions as they wanted to ask.

He has reiterated many of the points he already made within his statement.

To recap:

• "The intelligence was wrong. I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know"
• “Please stop saying I was lying, or I had some dishonest or underhand motives”  
• "I cannot accept that troops died or were injured in Iraq did so in vain"  
• "I believe I made the right decision and the world is better without Saddam Hussein."
• "It's my belief if we learn the right lessons, the next generation will see peace in the Middle East" 

"I acted both in good faith and genuinely believed the intelligence I was given," Mr Blair says.

He adds: "I say to right-minded people 'Go and read the reports and tell me you wouldn't have made the decisions I made'."

He makes the point again that he believes there is "no inconsistency in saying I'm sorry for the loss of life but not being sorry for the decision I made".

More from Tony Blair on the decisions he made prior to the Iraq War:

During his press conference, Tony Blair was asked for his response to calls that there should be some kind of consequences for him personally:

Buzzfeed UK's editorial developer Chris Applegate has created an account that will be tweeting out every single word of Sir John Chilcot's report. 

He says it may take some time for all of the tweets to be sent, however. 

At the time of this update, just 37 of those tweets had been sent. The first was: 

Mr Blair says he cannot accept criticism that British troops were not fighting for a cause in Iraq.

Service personnel did not die in vain, he adds.

"They were fighting the forces of extremism we see in the world today," he says. 

Former prime minister Tony Blair has been speaking for well over an hour now. 

He has seemed emotional at times, and animated and passionate at others, as BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams' tweet - and these pictures - suggest.

Mr Blair acknowledges the decision to go to war "obviously overshadows everything people think about me".

"Please stop saying I was lying or had some kind of dishonest or underhand motive," he adds.

Mr Blair says he apologies for mistakes in planning but the "fundamental problem is people want me to apologise for making that decision and I can't do that".

He emphasises several times that the report does not cover what could have happened if Saddam Hussein had not been removed.