Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was told: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it."from Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley died in a road accident while on service in Iraq barely a week after the invasion in March 2003.
Six-and-a-half years after he sent British forces into battle in Iraq, Tony Blair today came face to face with the uncomfortable consequences of his decision when the father of one of the 178 military personnel who died in the conflict refused to shake his hand, denouncing him as a "war criminal".
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The incident followed a a very crtical sermon given by Rowan Williams, the Archibishop of Canterbury, speaking at a memorial service commemorating those who served in Iraq.
"Many people of my generation and younger grew up doubting we should ever see another straightforward international conflict, fought by a standing army with conventional weapons," Williams said. "We had begun to forget the realities of cost. And when such conflict appeared on the horizon, there were those among both policymakers and commentators who were able to talk about it without really measuring the price, the cost of justice."
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, and Iraq's president, Jalal Talibani, were joined at the service by a dozen senior members of the royal family, including the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince William, bereaved family members, and 2,000 of the 100,000 personnel who served in Iraq during Britain's six-year engagement, which formally ended in April this year.
Williams criticised the "invisible enemies – letting ends justify means, letting others rather than oneself carry the cost, denying the difficulties or the failures so as to present a good public face" – that had menaced those involved in the conflict.