How George Bush and Tony Blair destroyed Christianity in Iraq.

George W. Bush (right) and Tony Blair (left), were responsible for the invasion of Iraq

Presently, a vast exodus has taken place in Iraq following an ultimatum given by ISIS to Christians in that country that if they did not convert to Islam by noon on July 19, they would pay a fine or be executed.

This is a Christian community that was one of the oldest in the world. The murals of the earliest church building to have been discovered in that part of the world was painted between 232 AD and 256 AD, three-quarters of a century before the Roman emperor, Constantine, recognised Christianity.

The travails of the Christians living in Iraq began with the invasion of that country by Britain and the United States under the leadership of Tony Blair and George Bush.

The naive and stupendously ill-conceived foreign policy of Britain and the United States over the issues in the Middle East in 2003 is about to wipe out the practice of the Christian religion in Iraq.

Because Saddam Hussein refused to reduce the price of crude oil sold by his country and perhaps because he made a mistake by annexing Kuwait, the Government of the United States plotted his downfall by alleging that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Even when no evidence was found in support of that claim, the US government kept on insisting that Iraq had chemical weapons and later, George bush convinced the then British Prime minister, Tony Blair to join him in the plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

In the end, Hussein’s government was toppled and himself executed by the US government.

For however revolting Saddam Hussein may have been, he did at least tolerate Iraq’s Christian community, which at one time was almost 1.5 million-strong. In the years following the invasion, the number of Christians dwindled to 300,000.

Then, last month, Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, which still had a sizeable Christian minority

Meanwhile, in the north of Iraq — a country allegedly delivered into freedom from Saddam Hussein in 2003 — the Islamic State (previously known as ISIS) is executing thousands of Shia Muslims and Christians as the central government in Baghdad looks on, powerless to intervene.

According to Canon Andrew White, a brave Anglican priest resident in Baghdad: ‘It looks as though the end [of Christianity in Iraq] could be very near.

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