UK intervention in Libya based on 'flawed intelligence', MPs release damning report

Britain’s intervention in Libya in 2011 was based on ‘flawed intelligence’ and hastened the country’s spiral into political and economic chaos. That was the verdict delivered in a damning report by British MPs.

It stated that former leader David Cameron bears the ultimate responsibility and that his government failed to identify the threat to civilians was overstated.

“The decision makers here were being presented with a blood-curdling assessment as to what was going to happen in Benghazi and therefore the need to act. Overhanging that was the history of Srebrenica and the failure of the international community to protect the people of Srebrenica back in 1995 (when some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serb troops), and it was in that climate that decisions were taken,” said Crispin Blunt, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

MPs say the intervention drifted from protecting civilians in Benghazi to regime change and then had no plan for reconstruction after the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi.