Meanwhile, a group of prominent Iraqi lawyers said at a conference in Baghdad this week that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried as war criminals for the occupation of Iraq, highlighting the massive assaults on the city of Fallujah. They echoed earlier claims by an official from the US-backed Iraqi Health Ministry who charged that the US had used banned weapons against Fallujah. The lawyers called for establishing a truth commission to investigate US crimes in Iraq and demanded an end to what they called immunity for US occupation forces.