8/02/2013   The Iraq war “wasn’t worth it for the Iraqis, nor for the Americans and nor for the British”, said former cabinet minister Clare Short.  “We owe it to learn the lessons.  We could be a much more useful player in the world.  We must make our country stand up for justice and peace and a fair chance for everyone. If we had done that then, we probably could have constrained [George] Bush”.

Des Freedman opens the debate

Clare Short was just one of the speakers at last night’s debate on the Iraq War at Goldsmiths, University of London, sponsored by the Huffington Post. Other speakers were former shadow defence secretary, Bernard Jenkin MP, Iraqi writers and activitists Haifa Zangana, Ali Latif  and Shiraz Maher and commentators David Aaronovitch, Owen Jones and Mehdi Hasan.  It was introduced by Dr Des Freedman from Goldsmiths and chaired by Carla Buzasi, UK Editor in Chief of the Huffington Post.

Bernard Jenkin was clear that the war had led to the freedom of the Iraqi people, and his co-panellist, Ali Latif from the Iraqi Prospect Organisation  agreed, adding that ‘the chaos after the war cannot be blamed only on the war, Iraqis were coming from a dark place, a place of brutality and violence, the idea that there could be a peaceful transition to democracy is absurd”.  David Aaronovitch, also supporting the war, thundered that Saddam was “at the Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin end of the scale of dictators” and had to be deposed.  Many of the Iraqis in the audience – some of whom talked of how they go back and forth to Iraq frequently now – agreed.

But the biggest cheer of the night, from the packed hall (most of whom started and ended the debate opposed to the war) was for Owen Jones, author of Chavs .  He said the consequences of the war were worse than we could ever have envisaged when we marched to ‘Stop the War’ on that cold February day in 2003” .  Also opposed was Haifa Zangana, Author of Dreaming of Baghdad  who had been imprisoned by Saddam, and claimed that little has changed in Iraq since the war, that over the last 10 years the current regime has violated with impunity the human rights of its citizens, especially women and children.   Mehdi Hassan, political editor of the Huffington Post rounded off the debate with a passionate denunciation of the war claiming that “It led to millions of young men from the Middle East to the Midlands being radicalised, fanaticalised.”

This was a true multi-media event – with a bank of live bloggers on their Macs, print journalists taking notes, still photographers, Video cameras, the debate hashtag (#HPIRAQ10) being used by tweeters and of course Pod Academy recording the audio.

To get the highlights of the debate, see the Huffington Post’s coverage. And watch this space, we will be bringing you the full debate on the 10^th anniversary of the start of the war in early March.

Tags: Iraq War