London, Mar 1, IRNA — Peace campaigners are planning to stage a protest when Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives evidence to the Iraq inquiry on Friday.
The demonstration outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre is being organised by Stop The War Coalition (STWC), which has accused the prime minister of having “as much blood on his hands as Tony Blair for the illegal war in Iraq.”
“As chancellor of the exchequer, Brown bankrolled the war and never distanced himself from the invasion plans as they were hatched,” an STWC spokeswoman told IRNA.
The protest is being joined by bereaved relatives of the 179 British soldiers killed during the war, who will be seeking to see if the prime minister shows any signs of expressing regret over the 2003 invasion, unlike his predecessor when he gave evidence last month.
When the former prime minister was questioned, hundreds of protesters paraded coffins, calling Blair “a liar” who deliberately misled the country and demanding that he be prosecuted for war crimes.
According to former International Development Secretary Clare, who resigned over the war, Brown was “very unhappy and marginalised” by Blair at the time of the invasion and wanted to replace him.
“Tony Blair is obsessed with his legacy and he thinks he can have a quick war and then a reshuffle,” Short quoted Brown telling her, when she was questioned by the inquiry in February.
The inquiry is also taking evidence from the current International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander on Friday and Foreign Secretary David Miliband next Monday, before the inquiry adjourning until after the UK’s forthcoming general elections.
Sir John Chilcot, chairing the panel inquiry, said the next few months would be spent examining tens of thousands of government documents, many of them are highly classified, to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.
“Only then can we decide the further evidence we need, the issues and points which need to be clarified, and the identity of witnesses we may wish to question in the next round of public hearings in the summer,” Chilcot said.
He did not say whether Blair would be recalled to be further questioned but hinted that a number would be held in private “to get to the heart of some very sensitive issues.”