THE verdict of the Chilcot inquiry, released yesterday, came as scant consolation for many of those who had opposed military intervention in Iraq from the beginning.
The Iraq war – which began on March 20, 2003 – was widely criticised by politicians, world leaders and ordinary members of the public before it even began. Pro-war leaders faced criticism from the very moment George W Bush began to argue, in an address to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, that an attack against Iraq may be necessary to protect the US and its allies.
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Evidence which supported claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was too often unsatisfactory, prompting anti-war protests on an unprecedented scale.
Protests were staged around the globe in the months leading up to the war. On February 15, 2003 alone, between 10 and 30 million people took to the streets to display their disapproval. Approximately two million marched in London with a further 100,000 in Glasgow. A world record was broken in Rome, where three million gathered.
In total, protests took place in as many as 60 countries, including South Africa, Syria, India, South Korea and Russia. The protest even spanned as far as Antarctica.
One poll in Britain recorded public approval for the war at a level as low as 29 per cent after the protests on February 15. Despite the overwhelming consensus in public opinion, government leaders in the UK and US were not to be deterred.
British protesters were often joined by members of parliament, many of whom directly criticised Tony Blair’s decision-making throughout the period. Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour backbencher at the time, addressed the two million protestors in London.
He predicted that a war in Iraq would “set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression and the misery of future generations”.
He then went on to cite the conflict in Afghanistan as a warning leaders should heed.
He said: “For those who say that this is a necessary and just conflict because it will bring about peace and security: September 11 was a dreadful event, but 8,000 deaths in Afghanistan brought back none of those who died in the World Trade Centre. Thousands more deaths in Iraq will not make things right”.
Another speaker that day, the late Charles Kennedy, the former Liberal Democrat leader, questioned the legitimacy of Bush and Blair’s reasons for going to war, describing them as “deeply worrying”.
Kennedy was frustrated in his attempts to coax a satisfying explanation from Labour leaders of why they were seemingly determined to invade Iraq with or without prior approval from the UN. At a conference later that year he said Britain had been led to war by a “leadership of charlatans and chancers”.
Perhaps the most famous anti-war demonstration by a British politician came from former foreign secretary Robin Cook.
The Labour politician was so outraged with his leadership’s decision-making that he resigned on the eve of war. He refused to support “a war without international agreement or domestic support”.
Calls for the war not to go ahead were also voiced by international leaders in France, Germany, Russia and China. They blocked Bush and Blair’s attempts to secure a mandate for the war through the UN Security Council.
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