Saddam Hussain's regime has been toppled but peace campaigner Monica Frisch still says the war in Iraq was never justified. She talks to Women's Editor Christen Pears.

IT was one of the most memorable moments of the war - a crowd of Iraqis pulling down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad square. They kicked it, struck it with hammers and trampled it underfoot, venting their anger and frustration against the regime that had systematically repressed and tortured them for more than two decades.

But while they celebrated their new-found freedom, and the Coalition claimed victory, there were peace campaigners voicing dissent. For them, the number of casualties was too high a price to pay for freedom.

"Just because it appears to have got rid of the regime fairly quickly without enormous bloodshed doesn't mean the war was right or justified," says Monica Frisch, a former treasurer of the CND.

"I think justification for the war was very thin in the first place. It looks more and more as if the threat of weapons of mass destruction has been exaggerated."

Tony Blair remains confident the remains of Saddam's cache of chemical and biological weapons will be found. Earlier this week, he said hundreds of sites had been identified and would be searched for weapons of mass destruction, but so far, there has been little evidence to support his view. It reinforces Monica's opinion that the war was not morally justifiable. She would have liked the weapons inspectors to have been given more time to carry out their task and wanted the United Nations to have been given the opportunity to seek a diplomatic solution. She would also have liked Britain and the US to have supported resistance in Iraq before intervening directly themselves.

"There were people in Iraq who were saying they wanted to get rid of Saddam but when you're living under the effects of sanctions and struggling to survive, it's difficult to try and build democracy.

'I am sure that many Iraqis are delighted Saddam Hussein is no longer in charge but it is not really up to another government to decide that another regime isn't to their taste. I think it is quite wrong to go to war to change regimes but is seems that was the motivation. There was no real threat to us or the US all along."

Monica, who lives in Ryton, near Gateshead, is the daughter of Otto Frisch - one of the scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb - and has been involved in the peace movement since she was a teenager. Although she's no longer CND treasurer, she still sits on its board of directors and is a member of the Stop the War coalition. She was one of thousands of people who demonstrated against the war, organising rallies and meetings in Newcastle.

On February 15, more than one million peace campaigners took to the streets of London to protest against impending military action. There were smaller demonstrations across the country, and schoolchildren walked out of lessons to express their opposition. But once the invasion actually got underway, opinion polls showed increased public support for the war, and the peace campaign was pushed off the front pages by events in the Gulf.

"This does not mean that we just accepted what was happening," says Monica. "The peace campaign carried on. People are still very concerned about what's going on. They're still concerned about the unfinished business in Afghanistan, which still isn't a peaceful, democratic country, and that could be what happens in Iraq.

"It is hard to know what the best thing to do is when you are in the middle of a war but we've carried on demonstrating and explaining why we think military action is wrong. We've argued that war should have stopped sooner and that we should leave as quickly as possible and leave the Iraqi people to govern their own country."

On April 12, up to 150,000 people staged an anti-war march in London. In the North-East, demonstrators have continued to protest at ongoing military action, organising lectures and rallies, and distributing newsletters. But the focus of the campaign has shifted. The fighting is all but over now and peace campaigners are turning their attention to what they see as the Coalition's occupation of Iraq.

"There are certainly some Iraqis who feel that they are under occupation, that they have been invaded. The Stop the War movement is looking for that to end as soon as possible. It is not the place of the US or UK to rule or govern Iraq.

"Right from the start, people felt that this war was about oil, regime change and the Americans increasing their influence and control in this region and what is happening now only reinforces that. The Americans are now saying they want to negotiate for a permanent military base and that's a worrying sign."

She, and many of her fellow peace campaigners, are worried that a precedent has been set for war against other countries deemed hostile by the US; there has already been talk of action against Syria.

"There is a danger that the Americans will think that because they have had a fairly quick resolution here, they will be able to do the same in Iran, or Syria - or wherever else they don't like the government.

'The problem is that what governments they don't like are fluid. Saddam Hussein was once seen as the Westerners' friend. That's why we sold him weapons."

The Stop the War coalition will continue to campaign against what Monica describes as America's "imperialist manner" and she is hopeful that both the international community and voters in the US and Britain won't be dazzled by the hype and rhetoric surrounding Bush and Blair's self-proclaimed victory.

"I saw something on television about Bush starting to plan his re-election campaign on the back of what has happened in Iraq. I hope that the American people will be given some alternative and have a bit more sense than to vote for a man who didn't kill as many of their soldiers as he might have."

Casualty figures for the war vary but it is generally agreed they are not as high as they could have been - fewer than 150 Coalition troops, 3,650 Iraqi soldiers and at least 1,250 Iraqi citizens. But for Monica, the number of injuries and deaths is still too high. She talks about Ali Ismail Abbas, the 12-year-old boy who was orphaned when his Baghdad home was hit by a missile. He lost both his arms and suffered 60 per cent burns to his body, becoming a national symbol of the suffering of the Iraqi people.

"I am relieved for the people of Iraq that the number of casualties was no higher but I still think it was too high a price to pay. You can look for silver linings. The silver lining in this case is that Saddam Hussein's regime appears to have gone, although we don't know where he is himself. I am not sorry to see a tyrant go but that still doesn't justify the means. I think there were plenty of other ways of working with the system that we didn't even begin to explore."