stopwar.org.uk

The people's dossier: if you could ask Tony Blair one question

The Iraq Inquiry committee needs your help. Its weak, deferential questioning of witnesses has been widely criticised as inadequate for an inquiry into the most disastrous foreign policy decision of the past half century.

This doesn't augur well for Tony Blair's much awaited appearance on Friday 29 January. Stop the War wants your help in providing suggestions for the type of questioning which will be required to expose the lies and deception that Blair used to take Britain into an illegal war.

Stop the War is inviting questions from all of our supporters, which we will publish on our website and then collate for presentation to the Iraq Inquiry committee on the day Blair gives evidence, when we will organise an all-day protest (details...).

Send us an email with your question to Tony Blair

Write "Blair question" in the subject title and send your question to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Questions are flooding in. Here's a selection:

• The Daily Mail
When you come to give your own evidence, could you explain precisely why you shouldn’t be put before a court? More...

• Sami Ramidani, writer, academic and member of Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
You have often said that you "strongly believed" you were doing "the right thing" when you sent British troops to invade and occupy Iraq. Considering that Hitler and other war criminals strongly believed that what they were doing was right, do you think that strongly believing in something makes it right, or pardonable if it proved to be terribly wrong?

• Peter Brierley, father of soldier killed in Iraq and member of Military Families Against the War. In 2009, Peter refused to shake Blair's hand at a memorial for soldiers who died in Iraq, saying it had his son's blood on it.
Most of the evidence heard so far at the Iraq Inquiry vindicates the opponents of your decision to take Britain into the Iraq war. When will you admit you were wrong to invade Iraq, admit your lies, and give the millions you have made on the backs of our sons to the rehablitation of the young men and women whose lives have been destroyed forever by injuries they suffered in the war.

• Tracy Emin, artist
Would you have been happy for your son to have fought in Iraq?

• Sue Vosper, mother of British soldier
My son was in Iraq and survived but many of his fellow soldiers did not. Do you think the Iraq war would have been worth your son's life?

• Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist and mother of American soldier killed in Iraq
How do you feel about the fact that your complicity with Bush's crimes has led to the death of so many people? How do you sleep at night?

• Sue Fraser
Why did you ignore the massive body of public opinion, as demonstrated by the march to Hyde Park on 15th February 2003, showing that your electorate were wholly against the war?

• Roger Bacon, father of Major Matthew Bacon, the highest ranking officer to be killed in Iraq
Why did you not consider as part of your duty of care to the armed forces that you should as a matter of course meet the families of those servicemen and women who lost their lives in the service of their country in Iraq, rather than refusing boint blank to meet any of them?

• Michael Rosen, Writer and broadcaster
You say that the war was right and that it was worth it, so this is a question about your level of acceptable death and destruction: at what number of deaths and at what level of destruction would such a war become not-worth-it?

• Neil McFerran
As a Catholic, forgiveness for your lies for which thousands of innocent people died requires that you tell the truth. Why not now?

• Brian Eno, musician and record producer
1) Do you think it is legitimate for a leader to justify his actions on the basis of a claim to religious guidance?
2) Do you accept that it is on exactly this basis that Osama bin Laden (for example) would justify his actions?
3) What makes you think the religion you've chosen to be 'guided' by is superior to his?
4) Do you consider you deceived people by not disclosing your secret - religious - agenda?

• Deirdre Gover, 63, whose son, Flight Lieutenant Kristian Gover, died in Basra in July 2004
As a Catholic you can now obtain forgiveness of your sins, but can you admit that your deceit and lies to your cabinet, your Government and the British people sent our sons and daughters to die in a totally unjustified war?

• Jan Woolf, London
Did you ever look at your children at breakfast in 2003, and imagine their counterparts in Iraq with wounds, burns and lost limbs? If not, why not?

• Hans von Sponeck, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998-2000)
The 2003 invasion was no more than the culmination of years of destruction of Iraq by other means. In fact, Tony Blair and his government led a war by any means including sanctions and the establishment of two no-fly-zones not mandated by the UN and therefore illegal. The questions I would like to ask Tony Blair therefore are: "You were fully aware of the deepening humanitarian crisis in Iraq resulting from a sanctions regime that your government insisted to put in place. You were leading a war by other means despite your knowledge of its devastating consequences. Why did you not listen to the chairman of a UN Security Council panel, Ambassador Celso Amorim of Brazil, investigating in 1999 the impact of sanctions? Why did you and your government ignore the many warnings of UN officials in Baghdad of the devastating impact of the UK/US blocking of upto USD 5 billion (!) of vitally needed humanitarian supplies from reaching Iraq? Why did your air-force bomb civilian targets in Iraqi air space that your government illegally declared its own? Why did you and your foreign minister of state Peter Hain continue to make totally false statements to the UK public about the causes of Iraqi suffering? What do you answer to people around the world who point to you as one of the persons primarily responsible for much death and destruction because of your war of sanctions and the subsequent war of weapons?"

• Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in 2003 and who famously stood against Tony Blair in the 2005 general election
How can it be that two men supposedly at the top of their professions -- yourself as head of the government and Sir John Scarlett head of MI6 -- could get in such a muddle about what constitutes definitive evidence regarding weapons of mass destruction? How did Sir John Scarlett's reference to battlefield munitions get 'spun' as weapons of mass destruction that could be launched within 45 minutes?

• Lowkey, musician and poet
Would you say to the countless mothers giving birth to deformed babies with tumours in Basra because of Britian and America's illegal use of Depleted Uranium, that the war was worth it? What do you expect these mothers to to say to their children. How should they explain it? Saddam, though a brutal dictator, never did that to the people of Iraq. How can you justify your barbaric actions?

• Jan Colomb, Arts College Director at Corsham School, Wiltshire
What gave you the right to make war in Iraq without concrete proof of weapons of mass destruction when we, in our daily lives, always have to justify our actions? By doing this you set yourself above the people you have promised to serve.

• Lance Ciepiela, former US marine, Gilbert, Arizona, USA
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote you a letter in July 2002, a full eight months before the war, telling you that attacking Iraq without a second United Nations Security Council Resolution and deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law. Didn't you ignore this legal opinion and issue instructions to gag Lord Goldsmith, ban him from attending your Cabinet meetings, and order a cover-up to stop the public from finding out. Didn't you conceal the information from your own Cabinet and isn't it true the only people you told were a handful of your associates who you swore to secrecy?

• Graham Derrick, West Yorkshire
Do you have any conception of the fact that over 1,000,000 men, women and children have been killed in Iraq and that, due to depleted uranium munitions used by the US and UK, the DNA of the Iraqi population has been irrevocably damaged, now causing an epidemic of malformed births into the forseeable future and the huge suffering that will bring?

• The King Blues band
Could you look an orphaned Iraqi child in the eye and tell them it was worth it?

• Haifa Zangana, Iraqi author
Saddam Hussein was tried for crimes against humanity and executed for the killing of 148 Iraqis from the town of Dujail. The war you waged on Iraq to change Saddam’s regime led to the killing of over a million Iraqis and the destruction of a country. The question is: shouldn’t you be equally treated?

• John Stocks, Newport-on-Tay
In a recent television interview you said that, even if you had known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, you would "still have thought it right to remove him"but "would have had to use and deploy different arguments". How do you square that with the view you expressed shortly before the invasion that, if only Saddam came clean about his WMDs, the war could still be averted?

• Roger Lee, Witney
In your speech to Parliament on 18 March 2003, asking MPs to vote for the war that started the next day, why did you claim that Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, who had recently defected, had "disclosed an extensive biological weapons programme which had been weaponised, when you must have known that when interrogated by the UN weapons inspectors on 22 August 1995 , Kamal actually said, "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed."? This must have been a deliberate misquotation of evidence in order to justify the illegal invasion.

• Roger Lloyd Pack, actor
How do you square your belief in Christianity with your willingness to tell lies in support of a war that has cost the lives of thousands and will have repercussions for children for years to come?

• Antonia Yeo
I became a christian a few years ago and there is nothing in you that makes me believe that we worship the same God. How can you sleep at night knowing that you lied and that your hands are covered in the blood of innocent people? Please don't use Our Lord as a shield for your crimes. History will be the judge of what you and others have done, even if this inquiry might absolve you. I leave you with a line from Bob Dylan's Masters of War: Even Jesus will never forgive what you do.

• Glen Rangwala, academic, Cambridge University
Why didn't you order a reassessment of intelligence on Iraq's WMD when it had become clear by December 2002 that much of the purported intelligence that the UK had disseminated to the public was incorrect?

• David Reynolds
Do you believe that people, politicians, and national leaders who, prima facie, have committed war crimes and/or crimes against humanity as defined by the United Nations should be tried in the international law courts for those crimes?

• Chris Minhall
With two million marching in London and the weapons inspectors finding no evidence of WMDs and pleading for more time, what was the rush to invade?

• Tiina Edstrom
On what basis did you dismiss Hans Blix’s statement in early 2003, that he and the UN inspectors had found no evidence of WMD in Iraq?

• Bryan Andrews
Do you feel no guilt that but for your decision hundreds of thousands of Iraquis and hundreds of British soldiers would still be alive, living their lives as they were entitled to? Mr Blair,this inquiry is the perfect place to admit your guilt and apologise for unforgivable behaviour which went against the wishes of the people who elected you and were an offence against justice.

• William Alderson
You have said that your job as Prime Minister involved making "tough decisions", but no decision is "tough" if one does not have to take responsibility for it. Given that the vast majority of people did not want Britain to be involved in the invasion of Iraq, that they have been proved right in their reasons for opposing such an invasion, and that you made strenuous efforts to make sure that your decision was acted upon despite this opposition, are you prepared to take the full responsibility for that decision, including facing trial for misusing government money and recklessly causing thousands of deaths?

• Jacqueline Mulhallen, Kings Lynn
I myself don't believe in capital punishment, but Saddam Hussein was hanged for his crimes. What do you think the punishment for a war criminal should be?

• Brendan Davis
Tony Blair, you and your successor have often told us that by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are making the UK safer. Do you think the UK would have been attacked on 7th July 2005 if you had not gone to war? If so, then please explain why Germany and France, known to oppose the invasion of Iraq, have escaped attacks of that kind?

• Michael de Whalley, Norfolk
Dr David Kelly, who has been described as "An honest man for whom the truth is paramount", is also believed to have taken his own life as the result of immense stress after having publicly aired his concerns over the reasons for going to war. Would you agree that if this pressure had been brought upon him deliberately, then those responsible should also face prosecution?

• Jean Shaik
We all agree that Saddam's Iraq was an awful place with a terrible record on human rights, but if this justified going to war to liberate it, when will we go to war to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza?

• Peter Whitworth
Why do you consider it in our national interest to support the United States no matter what they do?

• Jonathan Livingstone, author
No weapons of mass destruction. No threat to the UK. No relationship with Al-Qaeda (at that time) or collusion with 9/11. Yet you did the ‘right thing’; you ‘believe’ the invasion to have been justified: presumably because your behaviour helped to ‘liberate’ the Iraqis from a terrible dictator. Isn’t it obvious that Iraq, and the rest of the world, is more dangerous, fearful, hateful, prejudiced, divided and bereaved, and that the suffering is far greater as a result? How can such a decision (to invade another country) have been right when (1) the premises were wrong (whether or not there was an intention to deceive); and (2) the consequences have been utterly disastrous and tragic on a historic and worldwide scale?

• Peter Reilly, Merseyside
How do you justify years of harsh sanctions and a devastating war with Iraq on the grounds of suspecting the development of WMD and breaking a couple of UN Resolutions, yet favour “constructive engagement” and trade privileges for Israel, which has a massive nuclear arsenal, and broken scores of UN Resolutions? Cannot you not see this double standard is a major grievance and the cause of terrorists act against us?

• Saeed Ahmed, Rochdale
Over a Million people marched in protest. I was one of them. There was an outpouring of rejection to 'your war' on Iraq. We shouted 'not in my name'. I painted the slogan and filled my shop window for all to see. Why did you ignore us? Was there really no other way?

• John Norton
Given the importance in the coming General Election of knowing the extent of Gordon Brown's involvement in the decision to invade Iraq, and given the fact that he is not to be interviewed by the Iraq Inquiry until after the election, I would like to ask you: To what extent was Gordon Brown involved in, and in agreement with, your decision to invade Iraq, and in particular did he agree that Iraq 'beyond doubt' had WMDs, and that even if they didn't it was right to invade, and that the war was fully in accordance with international law?

• Colin McGeachie
Did it never occur to you that the best way of countering weapons of mass destruction would have been instruments of mass creation? If you spent one tenth of the military budget on education in those places you bombed and killed innocent people, the world would have become a far better place.

• Allen Jasson
How do you plead to the indictment that you committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, beginning with the initiation of an illegal war based on deception and fraud?

• John Sadler
Alistair Campbell told the Iraq Inquiry that you would have stopped Britain going to war if you had been advised that the intelligence was wrong. Will you acknowledge that you were so advised by Dr David Kelly, a leading expert in the field, and will you now accept responsibility for his death?

• Tom Curd
Whilst the war has proven to be so successful, contrary to the predictions of the anti-war fanatics, there does remain a minority of paranoid conspiracy theorists who claim that, rather than being about any real threat to our security, this war was actually about oil. As a way of proving to these delusional fools that oil was not the reason for war, did you or would you ever consider allowing Iraq's oil reserves to be nationalised in order to keep it in Iraqi hands for the benefit of the entire population rather than western multinationals?

• Rick Burgess
As the Iraq Inquiry does not require testimony under oath, it appears it is solely an exercise in face saving for the British establishment. Given your experience in high office do you think enough citizens are sufficiently gullible, misinformed and powerless -- and the government sufficiently corrupt -- to enable further criminal wars of aggression?

• Jim Rogers
Prior to the invasion, Iraq was subject to the most intense and prolonged scrutiny with all manner of intelligence gathering devices -- including satellites, aircraft, electronic communications monitoring and sources on the ground. How then do you justify your statement that Iraq possessed the capability to launch weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes notice against British targets, for which no corroborating intelligence has ever been produced.

• John Pooler
Unless you took the country to war blindly, you will know that there are many ethnic groups in Iraq some of whom are bitter enemies. Armenians were killed by Turks two generations ago. Bathists were killed by the Communists, Communists were killed by Bathists, and Turks were killed by Kurds in the 1960's. Kurds were killed by Arabs in the 1980's and Shias were killed by Sunnis in the 1990's. What preparations did you take, before invading Iraq, to control the inevitable hornets' nest that would be stirred up by the invasion, or did you consider the loss of Iraqi lives is of no consequence?

• Thomas Corden
Now that we all know the truth regarding WMD's, what would you say to the families and friends of the hundreds of soldiers and thousands of innocent civilians killed as a result of the false information presented which initiated the war?

• Tansy Hoskins, London
Since leaving Downing Street you have earned over £12 million pounds. This includes the £2.5million you get each year from JP Morgan, the company which took over the banking system in post-invasion Iraq. Isn't it the case that you are now being richly rewarded for your lies which inflicted such immense suffering on the Iraqi people?

• And hundreds more, which we will publish soon

Donate to Stop the War

Your support can make a difference...

Get our e-newsletter

Lobby your MP on Afghanistan

Parliament will debate Afghanistan on Thursday 9 September. Please lobby your MP to attend the debate and to vote for all British troops to come home.

Lobby your MP here...

Viva Palestina 5 aid for Gaza