Iraq

News

Tony Blair and Jack Straw insist that the events in Iraq have nothing to do with the recent terrorist bombings in London. Almost everyone else, though disagrees, including a recent report from respected independent foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House (formerly the Royal Institute of International Affairs). More here

Meanwhile, leaked official memos have revealed that not only was the decision made to go to war with Iraq in 2002, with intelligence ‘fixed’ to justify war, but that the UN would be used to trap Saddam into a war, and that Iraq would be provoked by intensified bombing. See this report.

Iraq didn’t use weapons of mass destruction in the war - but we did use “weapons of indiscriminate effect” - Depleted Uranium and Cluster Bombs. Both of these cause suffering and death to civilians long after war has ended. See this page for more information.

See the News page for the latest update on the Iraq situation and this Media page for links to interesting reports and analysis.

On February 15th 2003 up to 2 million people attended the biggest ever peace demo in London. Reports on this and other events are on the Reports page

Actions

See the Actions page for things to do from your own armchair - web petitions, email an letter campaigns etc, and for local and national protests, vigils, demonstrations.

What has CND done, and why?

Check this section if you wonder why CND opposed the war, or want to know more about White Ribbons for Peace.

War, legality and war crimes

Unlike the UK Attorney general, most international legal opinion said that the war would be illegal without a new UN Security Council resolution explicitly authorising it. This is a letter from legal experts saying that war was illegal without explicit authorisation in a UN resolution. A CND Press release about the legality of war can be found here.

CND and other NGOs have served legal papers on Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon to take a case for prosecuting them for war crimes to the International Criminal Court because we believe that the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs, attacks on the civilian infrastructure, and direct attacks on civilians in Iraq, break International Humanitarian Law. More here

Alternatives to War

It is never true that there are only two alternatives - war or do nothing. Here are a number of suggestions for actions that could have be taken, by the west or the Iraqi people themselves, to contain Saddam Hussien, to delegitimise him, and/or to overthrow him. They are out of date now but could apply to any similar situation:

1. The director of the United Nations Association suggests that Saddam Hussein and his close advisors shound be indicted for war crimes / crimes against humanity and an investigation started. This will help to delegitimise him and limit his movement. It will not cause his immediate downfall, but look where Slobodan Milosevic is now.
2. Non-violent action by the Iraqi people could bring Saddam Hussein down. See this well argued article.
3. An article in the Guardian about alternatives here. Interviews with 48 people suggesting alternatives here
4. An Alternative to War for Defeating Saddam Hussein

Iraqi exiles

Whilst Tony Blair quoted letters from Iraq exiles when trying to make his moral case for war, it was not true that all Iraq exiles were in favour of war to remove Saddam. See this Guardian article by an Iraqi exile for a different picture, and this article about some Iraqi opposition groups which are against war.

Links

English version of Al Jazeera website
Antiwar.com - more anti-war headlines and reports
Electronic Iraq
Iraqi Body Count Project - a count of Iraqi civilian deaths (largely absent in our media)
Nottingham Stop the War Coalition website
Nottingham Veggies Anti-war pages
National Stop the War Coalition
Rice for Peace Campaign

Iraq • News • Reports • Actions & Events