In what is the latest of many calls for the trial of former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner has demanded that both leaders be tried for their role in the Iraq war. Given the tremendous loss of lives and the perversion of international law that war has caused, Tutu's recommendations should be seriously considered.
According to Tutu, the decision to invade Iraq has had major costs. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died since the beginning of the conflict and millions of Iraqis have been displaced. In addition, by the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded and left with serious injuries. Tutu says that those responsible, notably Bush and Blair, should tread the same path as some of their Asian and African peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.
Blair tried to refute Tutu's assertions, and claimed that Iraq was now a much more prosperous country than under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid — where we were on the same side of the argument — but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every independent analysis of the evidence has shown," said Blair. In his response to Tutu, however, Blair doesn't address the charge of the essential illegality of the Iraq war and the consequences it has had on the international rule of law.