FEW events in the 21st Century have been as controversial as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the US-coalition invasion in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US two years earlier.

Following the publication of a dossier in the UK that claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the British Parliament approved the use of British forces to invade Iraq, led by the US and a coalition of other countries.

The weapons of mass destruction were never found. Hundreds of thousands would lose their lives and the region would be thrown into turmoil from which it is still trying to emerge.

In the weeks leading up to the war thousands of people in Ireland and Britain protested on the streets as the conflict looked inevitable.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll was just one of the thousands who marched against the war in Belfast in February 2003. 

“I think it was important on that day. It was very, very important that we stood up in solidarity," he recalled. “That demonstration happened and obviously it kind of started my path to politics. War leads to millions of working class people getting slaughtered. It enriches the arms companies and the oil companies. It serves no purpose for working class people."

Carroll spoke about the political spin and subsequent media coverage at the time of the war.

“A free press in Britain, when anti-war voices were either sacked or suppressed, shows that that’s obviously not true,” he said.

“There were spin doctors claiming there was weapons of mass destruction and I think most people did not believe them. I was obviously disgusted. Those people should be held to account for the lies they told and the lives that they destroyed.”

Carroll praised Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party and was clearly far than impressed by the Blair years.

“For Corbyn and his leadership, it was important that there was a challenge to Blairism, Thatcherism and Centrism because they’re all pretty much the same thing in many ways.

"Thatcher said her best creation was Tony Blair basically continuing on her policies.”

The war had tragic consequences. Thousands of people lost their lives, ordinary civilians felt misled by their Government and Iraq was plunged into chaos. It is clear, therefore, that the consequences that this event created 20 years ago, still hasn’t gone away.