Iraq always illegal and unwinnable. Gordon Brown must name the date for withdrawal By Bianca Jagger

[Demeter]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19546.htm


Five Years Of Failure


16/03/08 "The Guardian" --

In January 2006, General Sir Michael Rose called for Tony Blair's impeachment over Iraq. I would make a different, more modest claim on Blair's successor: Prime Minister Brown, I urge you and the British government to announce the date of our withdrawal from Iraq, and to do so today.

I agree wholeheartedly with the statement by Amnesty International this week that on top of a much-needed independent enquiry, the government should unambiguously condemn all "renditions", secret transfers and the programme of "ghost detentions".

History should have taught us by now that we will not bring democracy at gunpoint.

Surely it is time now to admit that the war was a disaster. I urge Brown to have the strength and the integrity to do the right thing, to admit the mistakes of his predecessor and to withdraw completely and immediately from Iraq.

At a press conference held to promote the Stop the War Coalition's fifth anniversary protest march in London tomorrow, I called on the public not to vote for any MP who refuses to give his support to a full parliamentary enquiry. Politicians must be held to account for this colossal failure.