"I can say that I
apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong because,
even though he had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people,
against others, the program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in
the way that we thought," the former British prime minister said in an
interview with CNN.
Blair was referring to the
claim that Saddam's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, a claim the
US and its allies used to justify the Iraq invasion. But the intelligence
reports the claim was based on turned out to be false.
Blair, who served as prime
minister between 1997 and 2007, has repeatedly denied rushing to war. Under his
leadership, Britain made the second biggest troop contribution to the Iraq
invasion, and British forces were stationed in the country until 2011.
The US-led invasion toppled
Saddam Hussein's government and pushed Iraq into chaos, resulting in years of
deadly sectarian violence and the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq, a precursor of the
extremist group now known as Daesh.
The decision to back the
Iraq invasion is now deeply unpopular in Britain and has haunted Blair's Labour
Party ever since. Although Blair said he apologizes "for some of the
mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what
would happen once you removed the regime", he stopped short of a full
apology for the war or for ousting Saddam and eventually sending him to his
death.
"I find it hard to
apologize for removing Saddam. I think, even from today in 2015, it is better
that he's not there than that he is there," Blair said.
Blair also admitted partial
responsibility for eventual the rise of the extremist group Daesh and that the
2003 Iraq invasion was the principle cause behind it.
"Of course, you can't
say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the
situation in 2015," he said. "But it's important also to realize,
one, that the Arab Spring which began in 2011 would also have had its impact on
Iraq today, and two, ISIS actually came to prominence from a base in Syria and
not in Iraq."
Blair committed UK to Iraq
war year before invasion: report
The former British PM's
apology comes on the heels of a report that claims he was committed to joining
the United States in the Iraq war a year before the 2003 invasion.
The revelations from
documents obtained by a UK newspaper focus on a memo allegedly written by
former US secretary of state Colin Powell on March 28, 2002 to then president
George Bush a week before the US leader's meeting with Blair at his ranch in
Crawford, Texas.
"On Iraq, Blair will be
with us should military operations be necessary," wrote Powell, in a
document the Mail on Sunday published on its website.
"He is convinced on two
points: the threat is real; and success against Saddam will yield more regional
success," Powell said, referring to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein,
who was eventually ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.
The newspaper, the Mail on
Sunday, said the memo and other sensitive documents were part of a batch of
secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton which US courts have forced her to reveal.
A separate quote from Powell
assured Bush "the UK will follow our lead in the Middle East", while
other statements suggest Blair's willingness to present "strategic,
tactical and public affairs lines" to strengthen public support for the
Iraq war.
A controversial inquiry by
former civil servant John Chilcot into the decisions leading up to the war was
expected to take a year to report, but is still not public despite being
announced by the government six years ago.
"This story is nothing
new. The memo is consistent with what Mr Blair was saying publicly at the time
and with Mr Blair´s evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry" said a
spokesperson for Blair's office.
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