"I Am Sorry" Tony Blair Apologizes For Iraq War

Tony Blair has finally 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 makes his dramatic ‘mea culpa’ during a TV interview
about the ‘hell’ caused by his and George Bush’s decision to
oust Saddam Hussein.
In the exchange, Blair repeatedly says sorry for his conduct
and even refers to claims that the invasion was a war ‘crime’
– while denying he committed one.
Blair is asked bluntly in the CNN interview, to be broadcast
today: ‘Was the Iraq War a mistake?’
He replies: ‘I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we
received was wrong.
‘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.’
In the ‘trial by TV’, respected US political broadcaster Fareed
Zakaria accuses him of being President Bush’s ‘poodle’ over
the conflict. Blair’s confession comes a week after The Mail
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.
A 2002 briefing note from US Secretary of State Colin Powell
to the President showed Blair had secretly pledged to back
the conflict – while telling MPs and British voters that he was
seeking a diplomatic solution.
In his CNN interview, Blair candidly asks for forgiveness for
his blunder in not realising ‘what would happen once you
removed the regime’.
The admission makes a mockery of the statement in the
Powell memo that Blair would ‘demonstrate [to Bush] that
we have thought through “the day after” ’ – a reference to
the consequences of invasion.
However, the bloody chaos in the region continues to this
day. And in a separate development, former Labour Home
Secretary David Blunkett has revealed that he challenged
Blair before the war about avoiding chaos after Saddam’s
downfall.
Lord Blunkett says Blair failed to give him such
‘reassurances’ – and instead placed blind faith in the two
main ‘hawks’ in the US administration, Vice-President Dick
Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Lord Blunkett also vented his fury that Sir John Chilcot, who
is leading the long-delayed inquiry into the Iraq War, had
failed to ask him to give evidence.
Given my front-row seat at these events, I am mystified
Chilcot has not asked me to provide either oral or written
evidence,’ Lord Blunkett told The Mail on Sunday.
‘I would have thought that over the six years the inquiry has
been going on, Sir John would have found the time to ask
the then-Home Secretary what he knew.’
Blair’s confession about the Iraq War and the rise of IS is in
stark contrast to his repeated refusal to shoulder the blame
for the conflict, or its long term consequences. In 2004, he
told MPs: ‘I will not apologise for the conflict. I believe it was
right.’
He stuck to his hard line in 2007, saying: ‘I don’t think we
should be apologising at all for what we are doing in Iraq.’
Remarkably, Blair himself predicted how the apology U-turn
he finally makes today would be reported.
In his 2010 memoirs, he explained why he had so far
refused to say ‘yes’ when asked if he was sorry, because he
knew it would prompt damaging headlines.
‘Answer “Yes” and I knew the outcome: “BLAIR APOLOGISES
FOR WAR”, “AT LAST HE SAYS SORRY”. I can’t say sorry in
words.’
His apology is bound to prompt claims that he is trying to
head off the scathing criticism of his handling of the Iraq
War expected to be included in Chilcot’s findings.
All the key figures, including Blair and other senior Labour
politicians, are understood to have been given notice of the
broad thrust of Chilcot’s verdict on them, expected to be
made public next year.
As a master of public relations and media manipulation,
Blair may have calculated that since Chilcot is likely to
accuse him of major errors of judgment, it is better for him
to volunteer an apology now, rather than be forced to do so
if, as seems certain, Chilcot’s damning assessment gives him
little choice. The former Prime Minister’s decision to make
his apology in the US, as opposed to the UK, is also
significant.
Far from presenting his apology in a harsh critical light, CNN
interviewer Zakaria, a personal friend of Blair, showers
praise on him for being the only interviewee in the
programme who ‘took responsibility for Iraq’ on camera.
Most of the others involved in the show, senior US political
and military figures, blamed each other.
The Colin Powell memo – which this newspaper found
among declassified US State Department documents while
searching through a cache of Hillary Clinton’s recently
released emails – was written in March 2002, a week before
Mr Blair met Mr Bush for a summit at his ranch in Crawford,
Texas.
In our report, which made headlines around the world, we
revealed that Powell had said Blair ‘will be with us’ should
the US take military action in Iraq and that the ‘UK will follow
our lead’.
Blair would handle ‘public affairs lines’ for persuading
people that Saddam posed a real threat – in fact, after the
war, it was discovered Blair’s claims following the Crawford
summit about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were
false.
Lord Blunkett told The Mail on Sunday yesterday how he
challenged Blair during Cabinet meetings prior to the war
about the level of post-conflict planning for Iraq.
As one of Blair’s most loyal Ministers, Lord Blunkett said he
repeatedly sought reassurances that the US had a coherent
plan to govern Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
He added: ‘I did not receive that reassurance. Tony was not
able to say what was going to happen when combat
operations were over. He just decided to trust Cheney and
Rumsfeld.
‘With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that they had
decided to embark on the complete de-Ba’athification of
Saddam’s Iraq by dismantling the entire Government
infrastructure.
‘This led to the disintegration of any form of functioning
government, creating a complete power vacuum. Terrorists
infiltrated Iraq and stirred discontent.
‘I am not seeking to scapegoat Tony Blair; we were all
collectively to blame for deluding ourselves into believing
that we had much greater sway over Washington.’ Lord
Blunkett echoed calls for Chilcot to release an interim copy
of his findings immediately or ‘risk his entire exercise being
entirely discredited’.
Significantly, in the CNN show, host Zakaria gives his own
apology, telling viewers that he regrets his own initial
support for the war.
He says he changed his mind after watching the post-war
turmoil unfold and witnessing the bloody rise of IS. Viewers
may draw the conclusion that Blair came to the same
decision for the same reason.