Tony Blair’s book tour is a blatant attempt to exonerate his role in the mass murder of people in Iraq in order establish hegemony for Anglo-American imperialism.

Since leaving office Blair has gone on to make his fortune and is now reputed to be worth £60 million. Meanwhile the country he rescued for Western democracy has become a devastation zone.

There is no elected government because the British and the American overlords deliberately stoked up sectarian division to help consolidate their rule.

No one knows exactly how many died as a result of Blair’s war but the Lancet estimated that up to 1 million might have been killed. Based on studies undertaken by local NGOs, at least 15,000 Iraqis disappeared during the first four years of US occupation.. An estimated 30,000 untried detainees are currently being held by the Iraqi authorities. Most are housed in overcrowded and unsanitary facilities controlled by the Ministries of Justice, Interior and Defence.

In February 2010, US forces turned over thousands of their prisoners to Iraqi authorities – they were still holding 5,800 people. Despite claiming to withdraw, 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq.

Saddam-era laws have been left in place to crush Iraqi trade unionism. Just last month the Electricity ministry issued an order banning "all trade union activities at the Ministry and its departments and sites". The police were instructed "to close all trade union offices and bases and to take control of the union's assets, properties and documents, furniture and computers". For good measure, the government is to take legal action against trade union officials under the Terrorism Act.

Banning trade unionism hasn't helped with electricity supply either. In Baghdad's poorer districts power is only available for one or two hours a day. And the government recently doubled electricity charges to around 100 dollars per month.

More than eighty per cent of Iraq's water remains untreated, according to the United Nations. More than half of Iraqi children do not complete primary school, and youth unemployment runs at thirty per cent. And UNHCR has reports a big rise in the sex trafficking of Iraqi women across the region, among the more than four million Iraqis internally or externally displaced from their homes.

Iraq's child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150% since 1990, when draconian UN sanctions were first imposed. During the embargo, which lasted until May 2003 and prevented the rebuilding of water and sanitation infrastructure by banning chlorine and spare parts, the leading cause of death for children under five was waterborne illness. An estimated 500,000 children died in the first 5 years of the embargo.

In 2008 only 50% of primary school-age children were attending class, down from 80% in 2005. Approximately 1,500 children were known to be held in detention facilities. In 2007 there were 5 million Iraqi orphans, according to official Government statistics. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28% in 2007.5

Vast numbers of Iraqi’s have been displaced due to sectarian conflict. This occurred because the imperialist powers resorted to their old divide and rule tactic – just as they did in Ireland, India and Sri Lanka. Displacement is largely a result of sectarian cleansing in mixed neighbourhoods.

Sunnis have fled Basra, while Shi'as were driven out of areas north of Baghdad such as Samarra and Baquba. The US 'surge' did not create peace, but rather cemented sectarian segregation. In Northern Iraq, Saddam's old policy of 'Arabization' has been reversed as thousands of ethnic Kurds forced out 100,000 Iraqi Arabs.Sunni Arabs have driven out at least 70,000 Kurds from Mosul's western half and Assyrian and Turkmen villages have formed their own militias to defend themselves from both Arab Islamist and Kurdish Nationalist groups.

All of this resulted from a policy of invading Iraq to safeguard oil supplies to the US. It was part of a deliberate strategy to use the oil of the Middle East as a lever to pressurise other countries to conform to the demands of the US.

As long as capitalism continues to exist it will promote similar wars into the future. Organising for its demise could not be more urgent.

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