"If he had any morals at all," Manning added, "he would decline and refuse it."īlair also sent thousands of troops to fight in the U.S.-led coalition war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, a conflict in which over 200,000 people were killed and millions more were displaced. It's just heartbreaking really to think he's being rewarded for all the deaths that have happened." "It's just a real insult to all those kids that have died and were injured and who are struggling with life," she said. Manning told The East Anglian Daily Times she was "absolutely disgusted" to learn of Blair's knighthood. Sharron Elliott, when the patrol boat she and three other British service members were traveling in was hit by a bomb near Basra on Remembrance Day in 2006. One of the petition's signatories, Elsie Manning, lost her daughter, Royal Army Staff Sgt. That's the second-highest total of coalition service member deaths after the U.S., which lost over 4,400 troops and Department of Defense employees in what the Bush administration initially called Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL).
PETITION RESCIND BLAIRS KNIGHTHOOD GETS HUNDREDS MOD
Ministry of Defense (MOD) reported that 179 British troops and MOD personnel died during Operation TELIC, which lasted from March 2003 through May 2011. 'Duped': Tony Blair Supported Bush's Iraq War Long Before Vote or Invasion "Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honor, particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen," the petition asserts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes." "He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts. "Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the Constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation's society," the petition states. Queen Elizabeth II announced Blair's knighthood on New Year's Eve. "He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts."Īs of Thursday afternoon, over 900,000 people had signed the petition seeking to have Blair's "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter"-one of the highest honors a British monarch can bestow upon a subject-rescinded. Citing his role in the Iraq War and other devastating conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people in the United Kingdom and beyond are calling for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be stripped of his newly bestowed knighthood.