GLASGOW, 01 June (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – The mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq ten years ago has told RIA Novosti she wants former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“As Prime Minister at the time Blair was responsible for my son getting killed,” Rose Gentle told RIA Novosti.
In June 2004 Gentle’s son, Gordon, was killed after the armored vehicle he was travelling in was destroyed by a roadside bomb. A subsequent civilian Inquest concluded his death was “unlawful”.
Gentle’s demand for Blair to face the ICC came after Sir John Chilcot, who is leading the Iraq Inquiry into why Britain joined the US-led invasion, announced communications between Tony Blair and George Bush would not be published.
Instead Chilcot will publish “the gist” of what was contained in the correspondence, a decision which has led to widespread accusations of a whitewash and a cover-up by the British establishment.
“I’m very disappointed and angry about the agreement that Chilcot has reached,” Gentle said. “It is meant to be an Inquiry, so everything should be published.”
Gentle told RIA Novosti that the credibility of the entire Inquiry was now undermined by the refusal of Blair and Bush to allow 25 notes and 130 records of conversations between the two men to be published.
“We don’t feel that the Inquiry will deliver what we expected from it. We feel very let down by it,” Gentle, who is a founding member of Military Families Against the War – an organization that campaigned for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, said.
“We’ll be left wondering for the rest of our lives why our sons died in Iraq,” Gentle added.
Despite repeated requests Tony Blair refused to meet Gentle to discuss her concerns, but in 2009 former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the Iraq invasion, visited the soldier’s mother.
“There was no apology from Brown when he met with me, even though he bankrolled the war,” Gentle told RIA Novosti. “I think a lot of the politicians who were involved in the decision to go to war know themselves it was wrong, but they won’t say that publicly.
“Blair is the one that went to America and gave these assurances and made these agreements with [President] Bush that Britain would take part in that war,” Gentle added. “Blair did that behind everybody’s back and the decision he took was illegal so I definitely think he should be brought before the International Criminal Court for that.”
Approaching the 10th anniversary since her son was killed in Iraq, Gentle said it was vital for the families of soldiers killed in Iraq to learn the whole truth about why Britain went to war.
“It’s really important to get to the truth. We’re left hanging on and this decision [not to publish the Bush/Blair communications] is like they are walking over the top of Gordon’s grave and we’re not getting the truth,” Gentle added.
Former Conservative Prime Minister, John Major, said the decision not to publish the communications will prove embarrassing for Tony Blair.
Major said the decision, “will leave suspicions unresolved and those suspicions will fester and maybe worsen.”
