Rhetoric is the least wanted, but as the World Tribunal on Iraq came together, a fierce condemnation of the US-led war against Iraq was the result, reports Gareth Jenkins from Istanbul The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) on Monday condemned the 2003 United States-led attack on Iraq as "one of the most unjust, immoral and cowardly wars in history". Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, the WTI denounced the governments of the US and UK for what it described as the "supreme crime of a war of aggression in contravention of the United Nations Charter and Nuremburg Principles." The WTI also charged the UN Security Council with "failing to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity." Formed in 2003, the WTI brings together over 200 NGOs from across the world as well as a number of prominent intellectuals, such as linguist Noam Chomsky, international law professor Richard Falk, Egyptian sociologist Samir Amin and Indian novelist Arundathi Roy. It is modelled on the 1960s Russel Tribunal, which was established by British philosopher Bertrand Russell to denounce the war in Vietnam. The WTI meeting in Istanbul represented the final session in two years of deliberations during which 20 hearings have been held in more than a dozen countries across the globe. Over a period of three days, a Panel of Advocates comprising 54 expert witnesses presented testimony to "The Jury of Conscience," a 17-person jury drawn from 10 countries and chaired by Arundathi Roy. In addition to testimony on the illegality of the decision to invade Iraq, the jury heard evidence about the impact of the war on the Iraqi population, including the torture of prisoners, the unlawful imprisonment of Iraqis without charges or legal defence, the use of depleted uranium weapons, the effects of the war on Iraq's infrastructure and the destruction of the country's cultural heritage. As she announced the jury's verdict to cheers and applause from the participants in the meeting, Roy called for an "immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the coalition forces from Iraq". "Our aim is to have the US and British forces out of Iraq," she said. "The Bush and Blair administrations blatantly ignored the massive opposition to the war expressed by millions of people around the world," read the jury's verdict. "The Anglo- American occupation of Iraq over the last 27 months has led to the destruction and devastation of the Iraqi state and society. Law and order have broken down completely, resulting in a pervasive lack of human security; the physical infrastructure is in shambles; the healthcare delivery system is a mess; the education system has ceased to function; there is massive environmental and ecological devastation; and the cultural and archaeological heritage of the Iraqi people has been desecrated." Perhaps most controversially the WTI jury's verdict extended implicit support to the insurgents in Iraq. It recognised the "right of the Iraqi people to resist the illegal occupation of their country and to develop independent institutions" without any clarification as to whether any of the methods used by the insurgents in Iraq did, or did not, constitute a legitimate means of resistance. The jury's verdict merely read: "the right to resist the occupation is the right to wage a struggle for self- determination, freedom, and independence as derived from the United Nations Charter." The WTI jury harshly condemned what it described as "Major Corporate Media" for "disseminating deliberate falsehoods and failing to report atrocities". It also issued a call for consumers across the world to boycott the goods and services of US and British companies which were benefiting financially from the war. In issuing the jury's verdict, the WTI stressed that the process of trying to bring those responsible for the Iraq war to justice would continue. The charges and evidence presented during the different sessions around the world over the last two years will now be published in book form. The WTI is also committed to supporting any legal initiatives, whether in individual countries or international courts, such as the International Court in The Hague, even though its jurisdiction is still not recognised by the US. However, despite the elation in the conference hall when the jury's verdict was announced, some of the participants expressed concerns that the WTI was making only a symbolic gesture and that more practical measures needed to be taken. Hanin Tarvat, a student at Baghdad University and a member of the nine-person Iraqi delegation attending the meeting, commented: "The statements were very superficial. The session did not produce the concrete decisions we had wanted and hoped for."
