RELATIVES of British Iraq War dead have raised more than £40,000 just hours after launching an online appeal to pay for help as they pursue legal action against Tony Blair and leading government officials.
The Iraq War Families Campaign Group launched the bid to
raise £50,000 to “bring to justice those responsible for the war and the deaths of our loved ones” on crowdjustice.co.uk on Tuesday morning.
READ MORE: Chilcot report: Holyrood urged to legislate to put Tony Blair on trial for Iraq war
It had passed 80 per cent of that total by Tuesday afternoon. It comes weeks after the Chilcot report tore into former prime minister Mr Blair, other leading politicians and senior officials over their actions before, during and after the conflict, in which 179 British service personnel died.
Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in September 2005, is one of those backing the campaign and said the fund would help with “bringing people to book”.
He said: “It seems important to us as families that we should take this kind of action, just to find out once and for all whether there are any legal proceedings that can be taken, if there was any illegality.”
He added: “It seems to us that the only way of making sure that the disaster that was Iraq never occurs in any future intervention, is by actually bringing people to book. That way, Parliament will make sure that it is done properly in the future.
“If as a consequence of the investigation that the lawyers take would result in some sort of legal proceedings, the person that we would most want to see answer for it is the architect of the Iraq War, which is of course Tony Blair.”
The fundraising effort is led by Mr Bacon and Reg Keys, whose son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, died in 2003.
READ MORE: Chilcot report: Holyrood urged to legislate to put Tony Blair on trial for Iraq war
On the fundraising page on the crowdjustice.co.uk website, they said there had been speculation that Mr Blair and others “can and should” be taken to court and “we, the families, wish to bring such legal proceedings against any state officials who might have acted unlawfully or in excess of their powers”.
The group is aiming to raise £150,000 in total to fund their lawyers, McCue & Partners – currently working free of charge – to fully analyse the 2.6 million-word report by Sir John Chilcot and prepare “a comprehensive opinion approved by expert senior counsel”.
The long-awaited Chilcot report strongly criticised the way Mr Blair took the country to war in 2003 on the basis of “flawed” intelligence with inadequate preparation at a time when Saddam Hussein did not pose an “imminent threat”.
Sir John also said the way the decision about the legal basis for the war was reached was “far from satisfactory”, but his report did not rule on the legality of the military action.
READ MORE: Chilcot report: Holyrood urged to legislate to put Tony Blair on trial for Iraq war
Mr Blair has defended the decision to oust Saddam and insisted that his efforts to form a close relationship with the US had persuaded President George W Bush to pursue a second UN Security Council resolution, which ultimately was not obtained.
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