[Peace-discuss] Blair condemned over Iraq war by dead soldier's family (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This comes as I hear of the death of a friend's nephew, a Marine in Iraq.
The papers say that the Marines have gone nuts and are attacking Sadr's
militia on their own, altho' it looks much more like a stealth Neocon
operation, bypassing the Pentagon, State Department and White House, and
working thru their experienced mass-murderer, John Negroponte, US
"ambassador" to Iraq. --CGE]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Blair condemned over Iraq war by dead soldier's family

LONDON (AFP) - The family of a British soldier killed in Iraq stormed out
of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair s deputy, saying they blamed
the premier personally for the death.  Rose Gentle and her teenage
daughter travelled to Downing Street to deliver a letter to Blair, who is
currently out of the country on holiday, expressing their anguish at the
death of 19-year-old Gordon Gentle.

A roadside bomb claimed Fusilier Gentle's life on June 28 in the southern
Iraqi city of Basra.

His mother and sister were unexpectedly invited to meet Deputy Prime
Minister John Prescott when they arrived to deliver their letter, but the
discussion lasted only minutes, Rose Gentle said.

Prescott apologised for the fact it had taken seven weeks for Blair to
write a letter of condolence to the family over the death, Gentle said,
but she dismissed the rest of the meeting as a waste of time.

"I then walked out. He was just talking a lot of rubbish," she said.

The mother has demanded that Britain withdraw all its soldiers from Iraq,
and has accused the government of sending her teenage son to the country
too soon after he had completed basic training.

The family delivered a letter from 14-year-old Maxine Gentle calling Blair
a "bad prime minister" and blaming him personally for her brother's death.

The US-led conflict in Iraq was "not our war", and was instead "a war over
oil and money", the teenager said.

"But I don't just blame Gordon's death on the Iraqis that made the
roadside bomb, I blame you as well because it is your fault that our
soldiers are over there in the first place," she wrote.

Blair, who is currently holidaying as the guest of his Italian counterpart
Silvio Berlusconi, has seen his popularity badly hit after deciding to
back last year's war on the basis of Baghdad's supposed stocks of
unconventional weapons.

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