Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George W Bush to be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over the Iraq war.
The Nobel peace prize winner said in The Observer the former leaders lied about weapons of mass destruction and that the controversial war “fabricated the grounds” for civil war in Syria and a potential conflict with Iran.
Tutu also said that different standards are applied to western and African leaders and that the human cost of the US-UK invasion was sufficient reason for Bush and Blair to be hauled before the ICC.
There were also critics of Tutu's statement.
The UK representative of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq thanked Tony Blair and said things were “much better” for them now.
"The Kurds of Iraq are especially grateful to Tony Blair given we lost hundreds of thousands to Saddam’s genocidal campaign to exterminate us.
"We are now free to comment and contribute to debates like this and to respectfully disagree with Archbishop Tutu about ignoring the evils of Saddam.
"We were Saddam’s victims as were other Iraqis who did not applaud his rule and he would have continued his campaign of oppression and killing had he been allowed to.
"Things are much better for us and for the vast majority of Iraqis now, even if mistakes were made by the Coalition after its intervention in Iraq."
