CONFRONTING AN IRAQ WAR ARCHITECT!

Here's a flashback to 2019, when African Stream's future founder and editor-in-chief confronted one of the architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ahmed Kaballo spotted Alistair Campbell on the other side of a London train station - and wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to give him a piece of his mind. Campbell served as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications chief. He played a key role in drafting intelligence assessments in the build-up to the invasion.

As Washington's sidekick, the UK rolled into Iraq, justifying its involvement using false claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Campbell was instrumental in selling that lie!

The war resulted in the deaths of 654,965 Iraqis, with 601,027 of these being violent deaths, according to the Lancet Medical Journal. Research conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) puts the number even higher at over 1 million. Whatever the figure is, the war was undoubtedly a disaster, causing regional instability and the rise of the ISIS terror group, which now has operations in Africa too and is one of the key insurgent groups destabilising the Sahel.

Far from spreading democracy, the US unleashed an era of terror in the region, with effects felt to this day. The town of Fallujah, for example, has abnormally high rates of cancer and congenital disabilities, as reported by truthout.org. One of the authors is quoted as saying Fallujah had 'the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.'

Still, folk like Campbell get to retire peacefully and enjoy a pension without facing the consequences of the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Feel free to tell @campbellclaret (X) what you think about that. Let us know if you agree with @AhmedKaballo (X) 's view.