Was it really worth it?

Among the first tasks by the US-led coalition was a bold attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein with a precision strike.

It failed and it was a further nine months before he was captured, hiding in the cellar of a farmhouse just outside Tikrit.

Although the fighting is now over the country is still far from peaceful. Every day, British and American troops attempt to safeguard a fragile peace.

This week a 1,000lb car bomb was detonated outside the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad, killing 17 people, including Scott Mounce, 29, from Inverness. A bomb blast at a Basra hotel also killed two people.

Swindon was involved with the campaign in many ways, with many officers from the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham and reservists all heading for Kuwait.

RAF Lyneham was one of two RAF bases which played a key role in getting troops, equipment and supplies out to the region, many crews flying via Cyprus before flying on to the dangerous skies around Baghdad and Basra.

But receiving the most attention were the aircrews and aircraft of the 457th Air Expeditionary Group at RAF Fairford.

Every day the lumbering B-52 bombers could be seen launching into skies loaded with thousands of pounds of bombs for their long flights to Northern Iraq.

Today, ANTHONY OSBORNE speaks to the politicians, protesters, decision makers, supporters and those on the front line about what lessons have been learned and whether the war was really worth it.

North Swindon MP, Michael Wills (Labour)

'Brutal terrorism still threatens all of us and the war in Iraq will not be the last difficult decision governments have to take to protect all of us'

Going to war against Saddam Hussein was an agonising decision for the government. And not surprisingly it has convulsed British politics.

Polls show a majority supported the decision but a significant minority did not and were profoundly distressed by it.

There were no easy answers to the problem caused by Saddam Hussein's refusal to comply with UN resolutions. To do nothing could have exposed the world to grave risks from a dictator who had launched two bloody wars in the last 20 years.

To wait might have seen years of stalemate while the threat from international terrorists linking up with the Saddam regime persisted.

And yet any war involves a tragic loss of life and the question of whether it was worth it.

A year on I still believe it was. But only after considerable heart-searching.

No one should ever contemplate the loss of life with equanimity.

But the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found does not alter my view.

We know Saddam possessed them. He used them against his own people and his neighbours.

And he refused to account for what had happened to all the weapons materials the UN inspectors said was not accounted for.

If he had done so, there would never have been a war. What has happened to all that terrible material is still unclear but I have never heard even the most vehement opponents of the war claim those weapons never existed.

This century has begun with an unpre-cedented threat from international terrorists whose hatred for their opponents and the numbers of innocent civilians they are prepared to kill appear to have no limits.

A year on, the debate continues, brutal terrorism still threatens all of us and the war in Iraq will not be the last difficult decision governments have to take to protect all of us.

North wiltshire MP, James Gray (Conservative)

'In my view, he (Blair) was desperately spinning to justify what was in real terms an eminently justifiable war anyhow'

Most of us are glad that Saddam Hussein has gone.

The Iraqi economy is better; the human rights abuses on a massive scale are ended; the Middle East is a more stable place, and Iraq is no longer such a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

Of all of that there can be no doubt.

But that was not why we went to war this time last year. Mr Blair's sole reason under international law was the removal of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, which "formed a real and present danger to the west."

We were even told that these weapons could be deployed against us at 45 minutes notice, although now it transpires that the Prime Minister was not aware (although apparently the Foreign Secretary was) that that referred to "battlefield weapons", not long-range ones.

Anyhow, the supposed threat to our troops in Cyprus is belied by the fact that on March 18, 2003, the Foreign Office website was still advising tourists that travel to all parts of Cyprus was perfectly safe. A little at odds with the oft-quoted dossier!

So while I personally welcome the outcome of the war the removal of a vile dictator it is clear that invading sovereign territory for that purpose alone would not have been justifiable under international law, and that Tony Blair therefore duped us with his WMD arguments.

In my view, he was desperately spinning to justify what was in real terms an eminently justifiable war anyhow.

Andy Newman, Stop the war coalition

'I have no doubt that Tony Blair is a war criminal and one day will be held to account'

The Government lied about the real reasons for war.

We now know that military intelligence told Tony Blair that if Britain participated in the attack on Iraq it would increase the terrorist threat to the UK.

Blair did not share that information with parliament until after they had voted to support war.

Instead government sources were claiming that they knew where the weapons were in Iraq and there was an imminent threat to Britain from Saddam. This was untrue.

I believe the Americans decided to attack Iraq soon after George Bush was elected, motivated by oil and a desire to prove their power.

Tony Blair has only one foreign policy to support whatever the Americans do so the reasons given for war were simply a smokescreen.

Of course Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, but there are many countries with despotic regimes supported by the US and UK.

Many Iraqis who opposed Saddam also opposed the war, and in some respects Iraq is a more dangerous place to live now than under Saddam.

In fact the whole world is more dangerous than it was a year ago.

Ironically some countries may now conclude that the best way to protect themselves from an American attack is to develop nuclear weapons.

Britain went to war despite the fact that most people were unconvinced.

Parliament voted to support war based upon the deliberately falsified dossiers of misinformation about WMD.

This raises big questions about our democracy.

I have no doubt that Tony Blair is a war criminal and one day will be held to account.