UK/Iraq: Families fight to force independent war inquiry
01 September 2005
On 17 August, the families of 17 British soldiers killed in Iraq went to the High Court in London, to demand an independent inquiry into the legality of the war. Documents were lodged at the court by lawyers seeking a judicial review of a ruling last May that refused to order an inquiry into the invasion. The family members argue that under the Human Rights Act the government is obliged to establish such an inquiry - however, their call has already been rejected by government lawyers and prime minister, Tony Blair. The families are now relying on the advice given by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to ministers in the run up to the invasion. Goldsmith's advice only became public after it was leaked to the media during last year's general election campaign and it raised questions as to why he abruptly changed his mind from the equivocal position he held a few days earlier. The families also want the inquiry to examine the basis upon which the former chief of staff, Lord Boyce, was given an unequivocal assurance that the invasion was legal.
Among those who attended the court were Reg Keys, the father of Tom Keys, who was killed near Basra on 24 June 2003 and Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in Basra in June 2004; Gordon Gentle was 19-years old at the time of his death. Mr Keys said:
I would say that Rose [Gentle] and I would not be here today if weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. We most strongly feel that our sons were sent into conflict not backed by international law or the United Nations.
The Prime Minister says that Britain took part in the invasion of Iraq because of the danger of Sadam's weapons of mass destruction, although it was widely acknowledged by experts in the field that they did not exist. He failed to persuade the United Nations to issue a mandate for an attack on Iraq, but proceeded on the basis of an earlier, equivocal, resolution, despite substantial opposition at home.
The families' lawyer, Phil Shiner, said:
Why were these soldiers sent out to Iraq when it appears from everything that is in the public domain that the Iraq war was illegal and that, therefore, the sons and daughters of these families died for no good reason.
In a letter to the families, government solicitors argued, among other points, that military action was not "the immediate and direct operative cause" of the soldiers' deaths.
Times, 18.8.05; See Military Families Against the War website, http://www.mfaw.org.uk