Tony Blair branded 'war criminal' after Iraq memorial service

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Tony Blair was branded a "war criminal" today by the father of a soldier killed in the Iraq war after a memorial service to honour the dead at which the Archbishop of Canterbury criticised "policy makers" for failing to consider the cost of the conflict.

Rowan Williams, who has previously described the decisions that led to the war as "flawed", praised the "patient and consistent" efforts of troops on the ground.

But he used his address at the national service of remembrance in St Paul's cathedral to remind his audience that the conflict, which claimed the lives of 179 British service personnel, remained highly controversial.

Among those in the congregation listening to his words was former prime minister Tony Blair, who led the country into war and who was confronted at a reception after the service by Peter Brierley, whose son, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, 28, was killed in March 2003.

Brierley refused to shake Blair's proferred hand, saying: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it".

"I understand soldiers go to war and die but they have to go to war for a good reason and be properly equipped to fight," Brierley said.

"I believe Tony Blair is a war criminal. I can't bear to be in the same room as him. I can't believe he's been allowed to come to this reception. It comes back to me every day, every time I see a coffin come off a plane; it reminds me of what happened to Shaun."

Addressing the congregation, Williams said: "Many people of my generation and younger grew up doubting whether we should ever see another straightforward international conflict, fought by a standing army with conventional weapons.

"We had begun to forget the realities of cost. And when such conflict appeared on the horizon, there were those among both policymakers and commentators who were able to talk about it without really measuring the price, the cost of justice."

The archbishop alluded to the controversial nature of the campaign, known as Operation Telic, which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets in protest in the runup to the war.

"The conflict in Iraq will, for a long time yet, exercise the historians, the moralists, the international experts. In a world as complicated as ours has become, it would be a very rash person who would feel able to say without hesitation, this was absolutely the right or the wrong thing to do, the right or the wrong place to be."

Iraq veterans and bereaved families joined the Queen, Gordon Brown and senior military leaders for the service.

Servicemen and women injured fighting during Operation Telic, and the families of those killed in the conflict, were also among the congregation.

Other senior royals attending included the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William, the Earl and Countess of Wessex and the Princess Royal.

In April, Britain ended combat operations in Iraq with a sombre remembrance service for the 178 service personnel and one civilian Ministry of Defence worker who died during Operation Telic. The event brought to a close the six-year campaign that began in March 2003.

In July an inquiry into the Iraq war, headed by Sir John Chilcot, was formally launched.

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