Meanwhile, relatives of other British troops killed in Iraq are going to take the government to court and will serve papers to Downing Street today. The action will outline the group's legal case against the war under the European Convention of Human Rights. A private prosecution against the prime minister is also planned.

With two and a half days to go to the general election, the BBC, which has been hiding the iraq war away from the punters, finally asks: "Is Iraq a key election issue for you?" even now, with the issue having been foisted on the corporation by the death of a British soldier who leaves three young children to be consoled by a "defiant" tony blair, BBC news only manages to put this issue across doubtfully in the form of a question.

There is no doubt. Everybody in the UK now knows that the iraq war was organised to:

1) send the united states to war so a right-wing republican government could push through extremely repressive domestic policies under cover of a national emergency to make the control of government by the wealthy unassailable.

2) put the massive US military machine into operation so some equally massive get rich quick schemes could be got underway to the benefit of america's rich and to the cost of america's poor and to the cost of the people of iraq. destroy a country and then get the contract to rebuild it. nice work if you can get it.

3) conquer a foreign country with vast oil reserves so a puppet government could be installed which would open the doors to privatisation of natural resources and industry by american corporations (and later by other corporations) and which would guarantee the free flow of oil for years to come.

4) give the US military new bases in the middle east - just like those in Saudi, close to the centre of a vast oil supply.



The amount of pre-planning which went into the organisation of this war by the bush government shows that the first and only consideration in the whole venture was economic. the threat of 'international terrorism' was fabricated as a justification for this project. tony blair insists that in supporting american inspired intelligence he was acting in good 'faith'. but only a political half-wit would have been unable to see the economic imperative driving the whole bush project. Why was blair so credulous? Because he knew that by supporting the latest episode in the US imperial project, he was supporting the british economy. It was the decision of a cold blooded nationalist. Look around and ask yourself which other leaders supported the invasion and draw comparisons with blair: the right-wing aznar in spain, the right-wing berlusconi in italy, the right-wing howard in australia. 'faith' in the security intelligence seems to have been determined by relative 'faith' in the free market ideology.

So this is the question the british people have to ask: are you happy to vote for a government which knowingly killed 100 000 iraqis to get cheap oil so corporate globalisation could keep ticking over, bringing low taxes, low unemployment and cheap food and clothes from sweated labour and occupied lands far far away? is the prospect of a shiny new car and cheap air tickets worth the cost of a couple of already dead shia muslim kids? because, despite the insidious BBC and it's sanitising banality, you can't say you didn't know that's what it was all about.