Blair braces for grilling

LONDON – Former British prime minister Tony Blair will face a public grilling on Friday over his decision to wage war on Iraq, seven years after a bloody conflict that still divides his country.

Blair is the star witness in a long-awaited inquiry that commentators hope will finally resolve questions about the intelligence that justified the March 2003 invasion, and whether the US-led war was legal.Anti-war campaigners, who held a million-strong march against the invasion at the time, have promised protests for the hearing in London, while the public interest is such that organisers had to hold a ballot for spectators.Relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in the war will also be there, many of them keen to confront the man who they hold responsible.Britain and the United States justified the invasion of Iraq with the threat posed by its possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in defiance of United Nations resolutions, but they did not have explicit UN approval.Concerns this meant the war was illegal were compounded by the failure to find the WMD, raising questions about the reasons for the conflict.The inquiry panel, led by former top civil servant John Chilcot, is intended to learn lessons, not apportion blame, but it has vowed ‘not to shy away from making criticism’ – and the focus has inevitably narrowed onto Blair. – Nampa-AFP