Thousands of people protested Saturday against the war in Iraq as British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a gathering of his ruling Labour Party.
The two-hour demonstration snaked through the centre of Manchester, north-west England, where Blair was speaking to Labour delegates at the party's spring conference.
Protestors toppled a mocked-up statue of the premier, mimicking the fate of a huge statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad when the city fell to US troops almost a year ago.
The Stop the War Coalition, which organised the march, said around 3,000 people had turned out. "We are trying to oppose a war which turned into an unmitigated disaster," said Coalition spokesman Richard Searle.
"Our prime minister went to war on the most outrageous lies so today we are saying: 'Tony Blair, it is time you went.'"
Blair was Washington's closest ally in the conflict, committing around 40,000 British armed forces personnel despite widespread public scepticism as to the reasons for the war. The prime minister insisted it was necessary because Saddam possessed stockpiles of illegal chemical and biological weapons, and his popularity has suffered after no such armaments were found following the conflict.
Last month Blair announced an inquiry into intelligence into Iraq's weapons ahead of the war.
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