- Ann Lawrence and her husband George are planning to emigrate.
Almost exactly a year ago, they lost their only son during the Iraq war.
They believe they have now given Britain enough.
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- Marc Lawrence died on 22 March - two days after the invasion
began - one of six Royal Navy officers and an American killed when their
two Sea King helicopters crashed head-on, in bitterly contested circumstances.
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- Since then the Lawrences' grief has hardened into anger,
and their dreams of eventually retiring to southern France have become
concrete plans. They are now convinced that Marc's life was wasted on an
"unjust" war - and have accused Tony Blair of doing so in writing.
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- In a forceful letter to the Prime Minister, written 16
days after they buried their 26-year-old son, a lieutenant, in June last
year, the Lawrences blamed Mr Blair directly for his death. Their letter
stung Mr Blair into a two-page response in which he sought to justify the
war.
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- The Lawrences wrote: "Our son had a bright future.
The choice you made has eliminated this future and that of other victims
of your war. [The] overthrow of the Iraqi regime was a good thing, but
the means by which you brought this about were at best questionable and
at worst dishonest."
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- Writing on Sunday 20 July, Mr Blair was under the greatest
stress of his political career. It was three days after the suicide of
Dr David Kelly, the biological weapons expert who was outed by the Government
as the source of a BBC story on the Government's Iraqi arms dossier.
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- And his hand-written letter, released by the family to
The Independent on Sunday, offers an unusually intimate insight into the
Prime Minister's thinking.
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- He admitted immediately "there is little I can say
to mitigate your grief or anguish", and, referring to the furore surrounding
Dr Kelly's death, said the "current public debate must make things
worse".
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- But he insisted the coalition would find definitive proof
that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. "Your son made
a sacrifice which, in time, will be recognised as being made to defeat
the criminal threat to our security in the modern world," he wrote.
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- The Lawrences profoundly disagree. Their trauma has been
worsened by the collapse of the Government's case for war, by the 73 days
it took before they found his body on the seabed, and, more recently, by
serious doubts about the true cause of Marc's death.
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- Earlier this year, The Independent on Sunday revealed
that an official board of inquiry into the crash had found potentially
fatal shortcomings in the equipment fitted to the Sea Kings and the operational
rules in force that night. But, to the couple's disquiet, senior Navy officers
and the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, have suggested the crew were
to blame. Under official flying rules, pilots are responsible for their
own safety.
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- The Lawrences' anguish will be intensified tomorrow -
the first anniversary of the Sea King crash. The couple will be in Portsmouth
for a private memorial service to the seven officers who died.
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- Mr Blair's distress at their grief has not impressed
them. "Would it have been any different if he had been run over on
his motorbike?" said Mrs Lawrence. "It was an accident that shouldn't
have happened and a war that was unjust."
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- The Lawrences are convinced the war is about Iraqi and
Middle Eastern oil reserves, not democracy. "There are other regimes
which are just as terrible in this world, but we're not so worried about
them. Presumably because they've not got oil," said Mrs Lawrence.
Mr Lawrence, speaking at the couple's home in the small Kent town of Westgate
on Sea, added: "Blair and Bush are two mischievous boys taking sticks
and disturbing an ants' nest, and the ants are going to fight back."
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- Ultimately, however, the couple have decided to emigrate.
"We want to get out. We'd already planned to buy a house in France.
Marc wanted us to do that," said Mrs Lawrence. "I can't stay
here. They've had too much from us. I don't want to give anything else
to this country. I'm a nurse, my husband a fireman and my daughter a teacher,
but I want to contribute nothing else. This country is corrupt and it starts
at the top."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=503450
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