BRITAIN: Calls for the impeachment of Tony Blair over the Iraq war were backed yesterday by a former senior soldier, who said the British prime minister should not be allowed to "walk away" from the conflict without being held to account.
Gen Sir Michael Rose, who commanded United Nations forces in Bosnia, will use a TV documentary this week to call for Mr Blair's impeachment.
Yesterday he accused Mr Blair of misleading parliament and the public about his true motives for going to war in Iraq.
Despite publicly insisting that his aim was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Blair "probably had some other strategy in mind", said Gen Rose.
"Certainly from a soldier's perspective there can't be any more serious decision taken by a prime minister than declaring war," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"And then to go to war on what turns out to be false grounds is something that no one should be allowed to walk away from."
The general described Mr Blair's actions in the run-up to war as "somewhere in between" getting the politics wrong and actually acting illegally.
"The politics was wrong, that he rarely declared what his ultimate aims were, as far as we can see, in terms of harping continually on weapons of mass destruction when actually he probably had some other strategy in mind.
"The consequences of that war have been quite disastrous, both for the people of Iraq and also for the West in terms of our wider interests in the war against global terror."
Gen Rose is one of a number of retired soldiers taking part in a documentary by former war correspondent and independent MP Martin Bell, entitled Iraq: The Failure Of War.
He told Bell he would have resigned his commission rather than take troops to war on the flimsy basis offered by Mr Blair.
And he said: "The politicians should be held to account, and my own view is that Blair should be impeached. That would prevent politicians treating quite so carelessly the subject of taking a country into war."
In his documentary, Bell denounces the war as an "ill-considered adventure" and suggests it may prove more damaging to those who launched it than even America's involvement in Vietnam.
Bell wrote yesterday: "We have entered a tunnel with no light at the end of it. The mission has not been accomplished."
Iraq: The Failure of War can be seen on Channel 4 at 7.30pm on Friday. - (PA)