Widow feels 'misled' over war

Mrs Seymour says she does not want to believe it was all in vain

A war widow said her husband will have died in vain if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq.

Lianne Seymour, the wife of 28-year-old Royal Marine Ian who died in the opening days of the conflict, said she felt misled about the reasons for the war.

The widow from Poole, Dorset, said if weapons of mass destruction were not found she would "feel even more misled, if that's at all possible".

Her husband was killed when an American helicopter crashed in Kuwait.

I don't want to think to myself that this has all been in vain.

Lianne Seymour

Shortly after her husband's death the Ministry of Defence wrote to Mrs Seymour asking for part of his salary back.

It also later emerged that some parts of her husband's body were still in Oxford, while others were in America.

She told Radio Five Live: "I have to justify to myself why my husband's not at home with me and at home with his son so it makes a lot of difference to how I feel about the whole situation.

"At the end of the day, the servicemen were going out there to do a job on the understanding that there were weapons of mass destruction.

Husband's sacrifice

"To find out now that there wasn't, or there may not have been is just misleading - the fact that they've risked everything and ultimately some aren't coming home, like my husband.

"I don't want to think to myself that this has all been in vain.

"I can't imagine how it's going to make me feel any better to know that my husband's sacrifice has been in any vain attempt to ... improve Mr Blair's political career."

Mrs Seymour said she took some comfort in the fact that the conflict had resulted in the downfall of Saddam and the rebuilding of Iraq.

"When my husband left he said to my little boy (Beck, 3) that he was going away to make the world a better place for other little boys and girls.

"That's how he justified it to himself and to my son."