Tony Blair said sorry for the Iraq War – and admitted he could be partly to blame for the rise of Islamic State.
The extraordinary confession by the former Prime Minister comes after 12 years in which he refused to apologise for the conflict. Blair made his dramatic confession’ during a TV interview about the ‘hell’ caused by his and George Bush’s decision to oust Saddam Hussein on CNN In the exchange, Blair repeatedly said he was sorry for his conduct and even referred to claims that the invasion was a war ‘crime’ – while denying he committed one. Blair was asked bluntly in the CNN interview: ‘Was the Iraq War a mistake?’ and he replied: ‘I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong. (referring to the claim that Saddam’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, which was used by the U.S. and British governments to justify launching the invasion. But the intelligence reports the claim was based on turned out to be false.) ‘I also apologise for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.’ Challenged that the Iraq War was ‘the principal cause’ of the rise of Islamic State, he said: ‘I think there are elements of truth in that.
‘Of course you can’t say those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.’
Blair’s confession comes a week after The Mail earlier on Sunday published a bombshell White House memo revealing for the first time how Blair and Bush agreed a ‘deal in blood’ a year before the invasion. The size and magnitude of the confession spured a flow of regional discontent that such a catastrophic invasion and its outcome invasion that lead to killing thousands, destroying Iraq’s infrastructure, torturing acts by Military personal, as well as, leading Iraq into tribal disputes and chaos is a war crime.
