The Observer - 2 Sept 2012
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush
to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and
delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation
caused by the Iraq war.
Tutu,
a Nobel peace prize winner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement,
accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass
destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and
divided "than any other conflict in history".
Writing in the Observer,
Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust
Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria
and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran.
"The
then leaders of the United States and Great Britain," Tutu argues,
"fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us
further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we
now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us."
But it
is Tutu's call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is
most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for
prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll
during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair
and Bush to be tried at the ICC