Tony Blair says sorry for ‘Iraq war mistakes’

In an television interview with the US network CNN, he made apologies about aspects of the Iraq War for the first time and has said there are ‘elements of truth’ in the theory that the invasion helped feed the rise of the so-called Islamic State (Isis).

The former British Prime Minister He had been asked how he felt about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as he took questions from American political broadcaster Fareed Zakaria in an interview due to be broadcast by CNN Europe on Sunday.

It is as part of a longer documentary, Long Road To Hell: America In Iraq, set to be screened on Tueday.

With the cameras rolling, Mr Zakaria asked Mr Blair: “Given that Saddam had no WMDs, was the war a mistake?”

He replied: “I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong. I also apologise, by the way, for some of the mistakes in planning, and certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime. But I find it hard to apologise for removing Saddam.”

 

Mr Blair’s comments led to questions as to why he had chosen to be so candid to a US network before making such comments to British broadcasters or newspapers.

The war led to large scale public protests and rebellions against Mr Blair in the Labour Party. Saddam Hussein was toppled but up to 500,000 people are said to have been killed in war-related deaths from 2003.