ON this day 16 years ago, President George W Bush stood shoulder to shoulder with his closest ally, Tony Blair, at Camp David. He announced that the war effort would “demand further courage and require further sacrifice.”

Sixteen years later, the war has caused untold misery, and widespread destabilisation across the region. The conflict has been largely sanitised. And the true scale of the destruction has been all too often hidden from public view.

One hundred and seventy-nine UK soldiers died. Some of their families went on to campaign to hold Tony Blair accountable. Figures of Iraqi deaths range from 655,000 to one million.

At least four million have been displaced. That’s before we get to the devastation of the environment, cultural sites, the privatisation of oil and natural resources, and the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib.

At the same time the key architects of the Iraq war have been attempting to rehabilitate themselves. That is an affront to natural justice and a reflection of the moral hollowness of our politics.

Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s right-hand man. He prepared the infamous “dodgy dossier” and was central to organising the propaganda to take the UK to war. By taking the UK into the conflict, this gave vital diplomatic legitimacy to the US-led invasion.

While Iraq remains in ruins, Tony Blair is called upon by the media as an authority and the institute set up in his name has made millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia. Mr Campbell was spin doctor in chief, and played a critical role in the war.

This is not simply a “policy mistake” that can be papered over. It was an illegal war of aggression.

Cross-party dialogue and consensus building is important but not at the expense of seeking justice or of holding those responsible to account. To fail to recognise that Mr Campbell and others are on an exercise to re-invent themselves, and to avoid being liable for their actions, endangers the pursuit of justice.

Nicola Sturgeon is widely seen as a politician with soaring credibility. As First Minister, there is a duty to ensure that engagements with those responsible for Iraq are conducted in a manner that holds them to account.

We commend her long-standing opposition to the Iraq war. But this also aids Mr Campbell, who should face ongoing public scrutiny from anti-war advocates, rather than being accepted and promoted uncritically, as Saturday’s Instagram picture denotes.

This is not a small question. Iraq has been a running sore in the politics of this country. It is a large part of the reason why we have got to the place we are now.

And it is regrettable that this should be apparently forgotten, just 16 years on.

Arthur West, Chairman, Scottish CND

Derik Durkin, Trade Unionists For Independence

Gail Lythgoe, Yes Scotland staffer 2012-2014

Huda Abdulgader, Chair Muslim Women's Association Edinburgh

Suki Sangha, Anti-Racist Campaigner and STUC General Council

Rory Steel, Co-Founder SNP Socialists

Richard Haley, Scotland Against Criminalising Communities

Tam Wilson, President Abertay Students Association

Robert Somynne, Foreign Affairs Journalist & MENA Analyst

Haifa Zangana, Iraqi Women Solidarity

Dr Nick McKerrell, Lecturer in Law and Civil Liberties

Tariq Ali, Writer and veteran anti-war campaigner

Pete Stoddart, Unite Youth

Sarah Collins, GMB Representative

Layla-Roxanne Hill, Writer, NUJ NEC and SEC Rep and STUC Black Workers Committee Chairwoman.

Thomas Brotherston, Upper Clyde Ship Building work-in veteran

Neil Davidson, University of Glasgow

Smina Akhtar, PhD researcher Glasgow University and anti-war campaigner

Dr. Sarah Glynn, writer and academic

Zareen Taj, Muslim Women's Association Edinburgh

David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology and Editor of Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq

Jay Sutherland, Organiser for Scotland Against Militarism and Youth Activist

Derek Watson, musician and Lanarkshire Forum for Independence

Cat Boyd, co-founder Radical Independence Campaign

Henry Bell, author

Stella Rooney, Vice-Chairman of Unite Young Members Scotland

Doug Haywood, Aberdeen CND

Michael McFarlane, Unite Community

Pete Ramand, Editor, Old Nations, Auld Enemies, New Times: The Selected Works of Tom Nairn

Morgan Horn, Unite Youth Committee

Kirsty Hague, Scotland Against Trump

Vivian Al Haddad, Three Rivers (Scottish-Iraqi cultural organisation)

Tommy Morrison, Clydebank Trades Council

Mark Curtis, Author, historian and journalist

Henry Maitles, Professor in Education, University of the West of Scotland

Pete Cannell, Edinburgh Stop the War Coalition

Angela McCormick, Glasgow Stop the War Coalition

Morgan Finnie, USDAW Youth

Tejas Mukerji, Neutral Scotland

Jonathon Shafi, independence campaigner and anti-war activist

Frankfort Street,

Shawlands, Glasgow.

GIVEN the turmoil of present times, I would have thought that Nicola Sturgeon is doing exactly what she should be doing by raising awareness abroad of Scottish businesses and promoting Scotland as a place to invest in.

I find it strange that Jill Stephenson (Letters, March 22) should criticise Ms Sturgeon’s ambition and aspirations for Scotland and her desire for the Scottish Government to be “a core leader in the international community”.

The First Minister has been recognised by the United Nations for her leadership in advancing gender equality, and that Scotland is recognised as a world leader in renewable energy.

Douglas Cowe (Letters, March 22) accuses Alex Salmond and Ms Sturgeon of creating “anger, animosity and bitterness” in Scotland; on the contrary, I would suggest that the 2014 independence referendum, and its aftermath, sharpened the eyes of the people of Scotland, and the result has been that the SNP holds the majority of Scotland’s Westminster seats, and is in its third term of office at Holyrood.

Given the disunity at Westminster and the childish petulance demonstrated by both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn over recent days, it is clear which union would better serve an outward looking, world-embracing Scotland.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, have raised heckles amongst many Scottish taxpayers.

They have encouraged councils to introduce a workplace parking levy which, in some instances, may cost commuters £500 a year for a parking space at work.

There is also the decision in the Scottish Budget to make taxpayers here fork out higher rates of income tax than in the rest of the UK.

This is only a minor example of what the people of Scotland could expect to happen if they voted for independence. Methinks shades of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times?

With slightly more than two million income taxpayers, and a fairly limited number of corporation taxpayers, Scotland, as an independent country, would be hard-pressed to cope economically.

The State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme figures already indicate this problematic position.

So why should any clear-thinking Scots think about voting to exit from the rest of the UK?

I am fairly certain that any future referendum on Scottish independence, if the holding of such an is agreed with Westminster, would result in another defeat for the Nationalists, but on an even greater scale than in 2014. So why bother?

Robert I G Scott,

Northfield,

Ceres, Fife.

NICOLA Sturgeon has more or less committed the Scottish National Party into demanding a second referendum on independence by April. Meantime, the Scottish NHS is getting deeper in trouble.( “Hundreds of patients left waiting in agony for hip operations”, The Herald, March 26.)

This is a very serious situation and the best “excuse” the Scottish Government can come up with is to trot out meaningless statistics and promise a waiting-times improvement plan that will “substantially, sustainably and progressively” improve these times by the spring of 2021.

This statement guarantees precisely nothing in terms of both timeframe and outcome.

If all these claimed new doctors and nurses are being effective, how can it be that the situation in the NHS has deteriorated to this

extent?

The money being wasted on an unwanted independence referendum could be put to far better use at present in the Scottish NHS to help at least 2,418 people to walk again. The SNP are not “standing up for Scotland” in this case.

Dr Gerald Edwards,

Broom Road, Glasgow.