{"id":249084,"date":"2010-01-29T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T16:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-2055879665683707374"},"modified":"2010-01-29T11:17:49","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T16:17:49","slug":"protests-outside-iraq-war-inquiry-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/249084","title":{"rendered":"Protests Outside Iraq War Inquiry in London"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Demonstrations took place outside the UK inquiry into the Iraq war. Tony Blair testified and upheld the same claims that the invasion and occupation of this middle-eastern nation was justified.<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Friday, January 29, 2010
17:09 Mecca time, 14:09 GMT <\/p>\n

Protests outside Iraq war inquiry <\/p>\n

Protesters outside the inquiry read aloud the names of civilians and military personnel killed in Iraq <\/p>\n

Protesters chanting “Tony Blair, war criminal” gathered outside the inquiry into the Iraq war as the former British prime minister gave evidence. <\/p>\n

Families of some of the 179 British soldiers killed in Iraq joined about 200 anti-war demonstrators shouting and waving placards outside the building hosting the inquiry in central London. <\/p>\n

The decision to send 45,000 British troops to Iraq was the most controversial of Blair’s 10-year premiership, provoking huge protests, divisions within his Labour party and accusations he had deceived the public about the justification for war. <\/p>\n

Seven years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi leader, and almost three years after Blair handed over to Gordon Brown, the issue still provokes deep anger. <\/p>\n

‘Military adventure’ <\/p>\n

Blair arrived early for the inquiry and entered by a back door amid heavy security and large numbers of police on standby. <\/p>\n

Barbara Serra, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in London, said: “A lot of people here are disappointed as they wanted to confront Blair when he came in, but he entered through a back entrance.” <\/p>\n

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Sabah Jawad, an Iraqi activist, said: “We are hoping at best for Tony Blair to admit that he made a mistake, that he regrets the action. <\/p>\n

“The action he took in 2003 with president Bush had a devastating impact on the people of Iraq, and Iraq as a country. <\/p>\n

“A million people died as a result of this military adventure and the Iraqi people are still suffering daily. <\/p>\n

“All the opinion polls still indicate that the British people are very much bitter about what happened to them because they think they have been deceived by Tony Blair. <\/p>\n

“By his lies about the weapons of mass destruction, about the link to terrorism and so on.” <\/p>\n

‘Accomplished actor’ <\/p>\n

As Blair testified, demonstrators outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre read aloud the names of civilians and military personnel killed in Iraq.
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Demonstrations took place outside the UK inquiry into the Iraq war. Tony Blair testified and upheld the same claims that the invasion and occupation of this middle-eastern nation was justified.Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Friday, January 29, 2010 17:09 Mecca time, 14:09 GMT Protests outside Iraq war inquiry Protesters outside the inquiry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}