Iraq, five years on

The attack was preceded by months of debate and controversy.

We went back to some of the people who made the news in the Daily Echo then for being for and against the war, and asked them: Were you right or wrong?

Peace activist Joe Letts, 57, from near Sherborne, drove 200 volunteer human shields to Iraq.

He said: "I thought it was going to be appalling and it's turned out to be worse. It's just a huge crime.

"There won't be peace until the Americans pull put. The region can sort out its own problems and it can't do that with America trying to be a colonial power.

"It's absolutely not true that a pullout will lead to chaos. They are suffering from fatigue and the last thing they want is more fighting.

"I think the human shield protest was very badly reported but it was hugely successful.

"I am sure the presence of shields at the water purification plant, the two power stations, and food storage and distribution facility, and the oil refinery, meant all those places were saved, because they were bombed in the first war."

Jim Knight, schools minister and Labour MP for South Dorset, said: "Some of the justification around weapons of mass destruction has been found to be questionable but I still have no doubt it was legal to have removed the dictatorship.

"It's a good thing for the people of Iraq in that we have a democracy and we can now look forward to an increasing proportion of the country being policed by local security forces.

"It's worth bearing in mind Saddam Hussein was guilty of genocide, and that we would have seen instability to some extent when his regime ended in the power vacuum that followed."

Nick Grieff, 52, the head of the school of finance and law at Bournemouth University, said five years ago that Tony Blair could be indicted under the same law used for Nazi war criminals He said: "I am still of the opinion that the Iraq war as unlawful.

"There were no grounds for a claim of self defence or humanitarian intervention. Regime change has no basis in international law.

"Aggression is a crime in international law for which leaders can be held responsible but the International Criminal Court cannot currently exercise its jurisdiction."

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood, a former soldier, was at the time a Conservative election candidate and came out against the war.

He said: "It's absolutely worse than I thought it would be.

"I never felt an invasion was appropriate. We had Hans Blix and his team all over Iraq. There was no plan for the peace. And if Iraq had used aggression the world would have come down on Iraq. We cherry-picked the intelligence for the benefit of the Americans who were more gung-ho than us.

"There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the invasion but the invasion has created a vacuum which has been filled by the militias and Al-Qaeda.

"Many of my fellow MPs feel misled.

"It's not the military's fault. We have leaned on them to answer all the questions it has posed. We tried to do reconstruction on the cheap."

Harry Harrison, 43, the Royal British Legion's Dorset secretary, served in Afghanistan. He said: "For some people, deploying can be quite a nerve-racking experience, but soldiers don't sit down and I say I am worried', because you have peer pressure and you get the mickey taken.

"My experience is that soldiers think there's been a real different made to people's lives in Iraq, that we are helping them have a say in their future.

"I think the hearts and minds approach has changed the American approach because in some ways they were the biggest cause of problems.

"I had 20 of them under my command at one point and they were a very strange group of people. Not particularly intelligent, and much more difficult than British soldiers."

Sir John Butterfill. Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, said: "I voted in favour of the war but if I were given my time again I would not have voted for it because I think we were misled.

"Whether it was innocently or deliberately, only history will tell.

"I don't think it was worth the cost in lives to the population, to us, and to others."

Eric Johnson, 86, and wife Daphne from Christchurch are veteran CND campaigners. Eric said: "War is terrible, but it's also terribly profitable - that's what I think it's all about. It hasn't surprised me it's gone like this because the more they bombarded and killed Iraqis the more likely there would be terrorists. The start of the war where they bombarded the country reminded me of when my wife and I visited Dresden."

Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, said: "I was the only one of the Dorset MPs out of eight who voted against the war. I didn't think there was the evidence.

"Saddam Hussein has been removed and he was an evil man, but you have to look at the lives that have been lost and are still being lost.

"Yes, there is some limited democracy, but how stable is it?

"We should be very proud, though, of the contribution our troops have made."

Desmond Swayne, MP for New Forest West, served with the TA in Iraq from June to December 2003. He said: "It's been a disaster, there's no two ways about it.

"Knowing what we do now, it's unlikely I'd have voted for the war, but that's not to say we made the wrong decision.

"The biggest problem was appalling planning. There was a window of opportunity after the invasion but huge mistakes were made and the biggest the disbanding of the Iraq army. And we had too few troops on the ground."