{"id":18782,"date":"2026-04-12T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T08:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18782"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:18:29","slug":"end-iraq-invasion-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18782","title":{"rendered":"End Iraq Invasion – 2003"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

End Iraq Invasion<\/strong>: Saturday 12 April 2003 saw another protest (there had been one a week earlier<\/a>) against the invasion of Iraq<\/a> which had begun on 20th March 2003 with US troops supported by those from the UK, Australia and a few from Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before the invasion UN weapons inspectors had reported that they had found no evidence of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq. But US and British politicians still insisted Iraq had these, but had just hidden them well. We now know that there were none. It was an invasion and war fought on known lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"End<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Almost certainly both the US and UK authorities at the time of invasion knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq, but the US had been planning and working up to the invasion for several years and were not going to let the facts get in the way of their war. The US had also carried out a long campaign to link Saddam Hussein and the 9\/11 attacks although there was no evidence for this and later “assertions of operational links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have largely been discredited by the intelligence community<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bruce Kent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The British public were also clear we should not go to war, with the largest protest ever in London in February 2023 demanding we not not invade Iraq. This had followed a unprecedented long campaign across the country with many local groups out on the streets in protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Regime Change Begins At Home – a call to get rid of warmonger Tony Blair<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were similar protests in other countries, with the largest of all in Rome where over three million took to the streets – roughly twice as many as in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This was a protest with flowers for the dead<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many of our allies also came out against the invasion – including France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand, but Prime Minister Tony Blair was determined to support the invasion – using misleading claims and lies to persuade MPs to back it – including that infamous ‘dodgy dossier’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"End
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By April 12th Baghdad and Kirkuk had been captured, and on May 1st President Bush announced the end of “major combat operations’ although the war continued with an insurgency against the occupying forces<\/a> and the new US-backed Iranian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The insurgency continued after the US pulled out of Iraq in 2011, eventually resulting in the rise of ISIS. Various studies and experts conclude that the invasion and occupation resulted in a huge rise in Islamic terrorism and the global Juhadist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2004 “UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the invasion illegal under international law, as a breach of the UN Charter.” It was an event that showed the US’s contempt for a rules-based international order or at least their assertion that the rules did not apply to them, operating under the simpler principle that US might is US right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All pictures from Saturday 12 April 2003. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More on My London Diary.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

End Iraq Invasion: Saturday 12 April 2003 saw another protest (there had been one a week earlier) against the invasion of Iraq which had begun on 20th March 2003 with US troops supported by those from the UK, Australia and a few from Poland. Before the invasion UN weapons inspectors had reported that they had … Continue reading End Iraq Invasion – 2003<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[5303,23979,15038,17255,6286,23975,20059,755,82,23982,17,244,23978,83,22040,16,11957,23976,23980,4756,12529,11953,23981,23977,12248,23549],"class_list":["post-18782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues","tag-5303","tag-9-ll","tag-al-qaeda","tag-blair-lied","tag-civil-war","tag-end-iraq-invasion","tag-insurgency","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-jihadists","tag-london","tag-march","tag-no-wmds","tag-peter-marshall","tag-president-bush","tag-protest","tag-saddam-hussein","tag-stop-war-crimes","tag-tony-balir","tag-uk","tag-us","tag-us-invasion","tag-warmonger-blair","tag-weapons-inspectors","tag-weapons-of-mass-destruction","tag-wmds"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18783,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18782\/revisions\/18783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}