Hussam, 13, and Muhammad, 14, were killed by air-dropped cluster bombs. These bombs were made by the United States and were dropped in a military campaign supported by the British government. Hussam and Muhammad were born in Baghdad and died in 2003. “The bomblet ripped off their legs and ultimately killed them,” according to Human Rights Watch. They were two of about 200,000 civilians who were killed in the Iraq war.
For years after that conflict, the government tried to resist several attempts to establish an inquiry into the policymaking of British officials. However, it could not prevent the inevitable – and in 2016 we had the publication of the Chilcot inquiry. I was the leader of the Labour party when the report was published, and it found grave failings within the British government. After I had responded to the Chilcot inquiry in parliament that day, I then went over the road to Church House, where we had invited war veterans, Iraqis and the families of British soldiers who had lost their lives. I apologised on behalf of the party for its catastrophic decision to go to war in Iraq. Today, history is repeating itself – and a Labour government is making another grave mistake.
