Face the reckoning

The Tories were, if anything, at least as gung-ho as Tony Blair in backing every statement and demand emanating from the White House even before they had seen it.

With one or two honourable exceptions, they disregarded international law in favour of its criminal alternative, the contention that might is right.

Mr Hague, who nailed his colours to US imperialism's mast from the outset, would, no doubt, like to exercise his House of Commons wit and repartee to embarrass Gordon Brown and his government.

In such circumstances, there may be a natural reluctance to join in, but that reticence must be put aside.

It is vital that a full, open and informed inquiry should be set up in order that those primarily responsible for dragging Britain's reputation in the dirt by tailing along behind George W Bush should have to answer for their crimes.

It is significant that current Justice Minister Jack Straw, who was Tony Blair's foreign secretary at the time, could not bring himself to tell John Humphrys on the Radio 4 Today programme that, five years on, the war had been a success.

The reality, of course, is that it has been a disaster for this country, with 176 soldiers losing their lives in a worthless war which has cost billions of pounds.

It is even more of a disaster for the US, which has lost over 4,000 troops and countless hundreds of billions of dollars.

But, above all, it has been a disaster for the people of Iraq, most of whom probably believed that nothing could be worse than the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

But they have been proved wrong. The aftermath of the US-British illegal invasion has brought about the unnecessary deaths of over a million Iraqis.

People are denied jobs, electricity, drinking water and sewage facilities.

Iraq's health service, which was previously among the most impressive in the region, is now a shadow of its former self, with the majority of doctors having fled abroad.

The once multinational and multicultural state has been turned into a patchwork of single-nationality or single-sect areas, which partially explains the recent drop in civilian casualties.

The sectarian slaughter has succeeded in carving out confessional and national ghettos that reduce the possibility of ongoing internecine strife.

The responsibility for this chaos does not lie with the Iraqi people. The insistence on early elections, using an electoral system that was bound to encourage voting according to ethnic or religious roots, came from the occupiers.

People must understand how this fast train to hell was sent on its way and by whom, otherwise, the next time that a British prime minister starts banging the war drum to support Washington on its latest humanitarian intervention, we'll still be unprepared to prevent him from committing our troops to a repeat of Iraq.

Gordon Brown's claim that there can be no inquiry before British troops' work is complete in Iraq is pathetic.

The war criminals and liars must face the reckoning.