Iraq War: Tony Blair Apologies For Iraq War ‘Mistakes,’ Admits Invasion Played

Tony Blair has apologised for “some of the mistakes” of the Iraq War, it was revealed on Saturday. The former Prime Minister was the key political figure who pushed the United Kingdom into the Iraq conflict.

Mrs Long, from Salem Street, Jarrow, said: “Him coming out and saying this means nothing to me now”.

He added: “Of course you can’t say those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015”.

The US-led coalition in which British were ally was strongly criticized for the devastation in Iraq.

His comments came as Blair issued a partial apology for the Iraq war, telling the USA news channel CNN that he was sorry for intelligence “mistakes” in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. What then happened was a combination of two things: there was a sectarian policy pursued by the government of Iraq, which were mistaken policies. “It is not clear to me, even if our policy (in 2003) did not work, that subsequent policies have worked better”.

In the past, Blair has been less candid about what went wrong.

In 2009, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown established an inquiry, led by John Chilcot, into the Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War, but the finally conclusions of the inquiry have not been published yet.

Former Liberal Democrat party leader Menzies Campbell said Blair’s admission of mistakes “will do nothing to change public opinion that his was a major error of judgment”.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described Blair’s apology as a “spin operation”.

But Mr Blair’s office denied the interview was an attempt to set out his version of events before facing probable criticism.

“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”, said Blair, while giving interview to the CNN. But although he sought reassurances from U.S. vice president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld about a plan for “the day after” Saddam was removed from power, he said he “did not receive that reassurance”.

“He did not say the decision to remove Saddam in 2003 caused ISIS, and pointed out that ISIS was barely heard of at the end of 2008, when al Qaeda was basically beaten”.