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Soldier’s mother wants Blair to answer for Iraq war

The mother of a teenage soldier killed in Iraq broke down on Friday as she told an inquiry she wanted former British prime minister Tony Blair to be held to account for the “illegal war.”

Anne Donnachie, whose son Rifleman Paul Donnachie was killed in Basra in April 2007, was among a number of families addressing the Iraq inquiry committee at a regional meeting in Bristol.

Earlier this month in a similar meeting in London, Sir John Chilcot, the committee chairman who had invited the bereaved families to tell him the issues they believe he should focus on, was left in no doubt what they wanted investigated — legality, equipment and the role of Blair.

On Friday, it was the turn of Donnachie to add her voice to the growing clamor for accountability, as committee members Sir Roderick Lyne, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert looked on.

Accompanied by her husband James, she wept as she made her plea. Echoing the sentiments expressed earlier in the hearing by the family of Territorial Army soldier Corporal Dewi Pritchard, who was killed in Basra in 2003, she said: “I lost my son and he was only 18, and I blame Tony Blair.”

Donnachie, from Reading, Berkshire, who served with 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by small arms fire during a routine patrol in the Ashar district of Basra City on April 29, two years ago, during one of the worst periods of fighting in the area since the start of the conflict.

Pritchard, 35, from Rhondda, south Wales, was one of three military police officers who died when their civilian 4x4 vehicle was ambushed by gunmen.

His uncle, Brynley Pritchard, spoke on behalf of his family, including the soldier’s father Tony, who also attended.

He told the committee: “We believe the war on Iraq was wrong and unlawful. The UK and US could not justify getting it past the UN because of vetoes by other member countries.”

“So we believe a conspiracy was formed by Tony Blair and [US] President [George W.] Bush to invade Iraq under the pretense that [then-Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and was preparing to use them against other countries of the world,” he said..

“We believe the true reason for the war was to protect the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and was therefore motivated by greed. The protection of the oil fields could have been done by the UN and this could have saved 179 British personnel, numerous United States personnel and countless Iraqi civilians,” he said.

“Mr Blair should be taken to task by the UK judicial system for lying in parliament,” he added.

The inquiry’s meetings with 50 of the bereaved families will end in Belfast on Wednesday. In addition to Bristol and London, it met in Edinburgh and Manchester.
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