THE war on Iraq was illegal, immoral and devastating. In the region of half a million people died. Many thousands more suffered from, and often died from, preventable diseases, from the impact of cluster bombs and from cancers caused by radiation poisoning from depleted uranium munitions. 

That the British government took us into that war on the basis of a tissue of lies demonstrates the extraordinary moral bankruptcy of our political system. 

President George W Bush attempted to use the tragedy of September 11 2001 to further US interests in the Middle East by imposing regime change on Iraq, and the craven Tony Blair backed him up, first with falsehoods, then with weapons and lives, telling us that Britain had to pay the “blood price” for our alliance with the US.