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For Immediate Release
February, 10 2023, 10:39am EDT
Contact:
Email:,office@stopwar.org.uk
Stop the War's Iraq Demonstration 20 Years on
LONDON
Stop the War Coalition will be marking the 20th anniversary of the largest demonstration in British history on 15 February 2023. On this day over a million protestors took to the streets of London to join the Stop the War protest and oppose the Iraq war.
We predicted the war would fail to make the world a safer place and would cause untold misery in Iraq. Unfortunately these predictions proved all too correct with the war causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, a global refugee crisis, the shattering if Iraq's economy and the rise of Islamic State. The legacy of this illegal war lingers today both here and in Iraq, yet still no one has been held to account.
We are calling all those who took part in the March in 2003 to send in their photographs of the day to office@stopwar.org.uk and post on social media using #Iraq20years.
On 20 March, to commemorate the start of the US/British invasion, Stop the War will be holding an event at the Swiss Church in Covent Garden, London.
This 20th anniversary coincides with the one year anniversary of another major conflict - this time in Ukraine - which is threatening to become a major power confrontation in Europe. In opposition to the recent escalation and the key role played by the British government, Stop the War has called a Peace Talks Now - Stop the War in Ukraine demonstration on 25 February. Assemble at BBC, Portland Place, W1A 1AA at 12 Noon.
As Chris Nineham, Vice Chair of Stop the War said:
"This anniversary is important because the million plus who marched against the war in Iraq were tragically proved right. The war was a disaster for the people of Iraq and the wider region. The anti-war movement is once again gearing up to protest against escalating war, this time in Ukraine.
"We hope that our arguments prevail before further tragedy ensues."
Stop the War was founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11, when George W. Bush announced the "war on terror". Stop the War has since been dedicated to preventing and ending the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Stop the War opposes the British establishment's disastrous addiction to war and its squandering of public resources on militarism. We have initiated many campaigns around these issues.
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'A Lot of Words for Murder': US Military Says It Killed 4 in 'Lethal Kinetic Strike' in Caribbean
The latest strike brought the total death toll from the Trump administration's illegal boat bombing spree to at least 163.
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The US military said Wednesday that it killed four people in its latest attack on a vessel accused—without evidence—of smuggling drugs through routes in the Caribbean, bringing the total death toll from the Trump administration's illegal boat bombing spree to at least 163.
The US Southern Command said in a statement posted to social media that as part of an effort to apply "total systemic friction on the cartels," it "conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations." Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote in response, "That's a lot of words for murder."
Human rights organizations, UN experts, and legal scholars have condemned the US boat bombings, which began last September, as flagrant violations of international law. Earlier this month, following a previous US attack on a vessel in the eastern Pacific, Amnesty International reiterated its position that the strikes "constitute extrajudicial killings, a form of murder."
The boat bombings have continued apace even as they've faded from the headlines amid the Trump administration's illegal war on Iran. The US has carried out nearly 50 separate strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific over the past six months.
As with the war on Iran, which lawmakers did not authorize, Republicans in the US Congress have blocked resolutions aimed at preventing American forces from carrying out additional strikes on vessels in international waters.
Wednesday's bombing came a day after a New York Times investigation found that a strike carried out as part of a joint operation by the US and Ecuadorian militaries "appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound," as the Trump administration claimed.
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Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote a memo on Wednesday to a judge who last September ruled that courthouse arrests could continue, based on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guidance which indicated that "ICE officers or agents may conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information" that a person eligible for deportation would be present at a court.
That guidance from May 27 of last year "does not and has never applied to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near Executive Office for Immigration Review immigration courts," reads Clayton's letter.
"The undersigned were specifically informed by ICE that the 2025 ICE Guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests," Clayton wrote. "This regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error."
The letter represented a "jaw-dropping admission" by the DOJ, said New York University law professor and Just Security editor Ryan Goodman.
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Clayton said his office became aware of the far-reaching error on Tuesday when it received an email issuing a "reminder that the May 27, 2025 Guidance does not apply to Executive Office for Immigration Review (Immigration) courts, regardless of their location.”
The US attorney wrote that Castel's opinion from last September, in which the judge ruled ICE's guidance clearly allowed arrests at immigration courts, "will need to be reconsidered and re-briefed for the court to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ APA [Administrative Procedure Act] claims against ICE on the merits."
Clayton issued the filing as part of an ongoing case in which immigrant rights groups sued over the Trump administration's arrests at routine immigration court hearings.
That case, said Goodman, is now one of more than 90 that Just Security has been tracking in which a court either "determined the Trump administration submitted false information or the administration admitted it."
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We just caught ICE in a bombshell lie.
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Courthouse arrests must end now. There's never been a stronger case for why this rogue, lawless agency should be abolished. pic.twitter.com/MXIoJetffZ
— Brad Lander (@bradlander) March 25, 2026
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Sabah Al-Numan, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, called the attack an act of "heinous aggression" and a "crime." The US said it is "aware of the reports" of the strike on the clinic at Habbaniyah military base, but denied targeting the facility. Asked about the strike during a briefing on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that she would "have to check with the Pentagon on that."
The Iraqi prime minister's office said the nation's government and military "possess the right to respond by all available means in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations," calling the clinic attack a "violation of international law and the established norms governing relations between states" and warning that it "undermines the relationship between the peoples of Iraq and the United States of America."
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