Hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets in Britain and around the world today to protest over the presence of British and American troops in Iraq, amid increasing official recognition that the country is slipping into civil war.Organisers of the mass demonstration, timed to mark the third anniversary of the morning President George Bush declared war on Iraq on 20 March 2003, hope it will attract similar numbers to the million who protested in London in February that year.In London this morning, protesters will gather in Parliament Square and march to Trafalgar Square for a rally to be addressed by MPs and other anti-war activists. Similar protests will take place in Basra and Baghdad, as well as in New York, Madrid, Rome, Sydney and many other major cities, calling for the removal of troops.
The march will pass the offices of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to underline the allegation that the war was illegal and that Britain and the US are guilty of war crimes. Both Lord Goldsmith's office and the United Nations are already considering a letter, drafted by Tony Benn, the veteran peace campaigner, and co-signed by more than 1,000 leading figures, detailing 28 alleged breaches of the Nuremberg Charter and the Geneva and Hague Conventions.In Iraq, there were suggestions that the much-trumpeted assault on insurgents, code-named Operation Swarmer, around the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, was little more than a show of strength designed to intimidate the insurgents. United States military officials claimed the operation, involving 50 helicopters, was the biggest "air assault" since a similar airlift across Iraq just after the war in late April 2003.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article351986.ece
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