Try Blair and Bush over lies to start Iraq war, Desmond Tutu urges
African peace icon says both men lied about WMD to initiate the conflict in Iraq
Archbishop Desmond Tutu called yesterday for British ex-leader Tony Blair and former US president George W. Bush to face trial in The Hague for their role in the Iraq war.
The South African peace icon, writing in The Observer newspaper, accused the pair of lying about weapons of mass destruction. Tutu said the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history".
Tutu argued that different standards appeared to apply for prosecuting African leaders than western counterparts, and said that the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict was sufficient for Blair and Bush to face trial.
"On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague," Tutu wrote in the weekly Sunday newspaper.
"But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world."
Tutu, a long-standing vocal critic of the Iraq war, also defended his decision not to attend a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair was attending.