A repentent Blair?

Press Release Tuesday 18 March 2008
Judges for Justice

10.30am, 20 March 2008, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand: To mark the 5th anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, ten 'Judges for Justice' will frog-march a handcuffed Tony Blair through central London this Thursday, demanding war crimes prosecutions for the former PM and his successor. The procession – which will start at 10.30am outside the High Court – will pass through some of the busiest areas of central London before terminating at Tony Blair's office in Grosvenor Square [1].

The judges – dressed in their wigs and robes – will also be displaying a 'Justice for Iraq' banner, picturing Blair and Brown behind bars, clutching blood-spattered bank-notes.

Justice Gabriel Carlyle said, "Five years ago today, the US and Britain invaded Iraq, in an illegal [2] war of aggression, based on lies [3]. Since then over a million Iraqis have been killed, and a further 3 million forced to flee their homes [4].

"In 1946 the Nuremberg Tribunal set up to try Nazi war criminals, concluded that '[T]o initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' [5].

"Yet today, the Iraq war's primary British architects – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – remain at large. Indeed, Brown – who financed the war – has become Prime Minister, and Blair 'is well on course to becoming the richest former prime minister in [British] history' [6].

"Today, as we mark the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, justice demands accountability – and prosecutions - for the 'supreme crime'."

NOTES
[1] 'Blair to move to Grosvenor Sq as peace envoy', The Telegraph, 24/10/07, http://tinyurl.com/3bz96x

[2] 'Iraq War Was Illegal, Says Annan', BBC, 24/09/04, http://tinyurl.com/4ndcw

[3] In July 2002 in a secret memo subsequently leaked to the press, the head of MI6 noted that, 'Military action was now seen as inevitable' and that in Washington 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' ('Blair planned war from the start', Times, 01/05/07, http://tinyurl.com/2klag5).

[4] 'New analysis 'confirms' 1 million+ Iraq casualties', ORB Survey, 28/01/08, http://tinyurl.com/yozd8j. 'Statistics on displaced Iraqis around the world', UNHCR, 09/07, http://tinyurl.com/24g3ny.

[5] 'The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany', The Judgement, p.13, HMSO 1946, http://tinyurl.com/2b65ov

[6] 'Tony Blair to earn £2mn as J.P Morgan adviser', Telegraph, 11/01/08, http://tinyurl.com/3742gf. However, according to a 'source close to the couple', Cherie Blair – a QC with the human rights lawyers Matrix Churchill – 'has private fears that her husband could face a war crimes trial over the invasion of Iraq.' "[S]he still thinks it is a real possibility," a friend explained ('Blairs at a loss as sun sets on their decade', Sunday Telegraph, 10/07/07, http://tinyurl.com/36op9c).

Blair is held at the High Court

Blair tries to use some of his ill-gotten gains to get out of the situation

The Judges pronounce Blair guilty of war crimes outside his old Downing Street office where his corruption took hold

The Judges knock for the real Tony Blair to come out and stand trial at 9 Grosvenor Square - where Blair has rented offices.