Tony Blair says he's sorry for Iraq War 'mistakes,' but not for ousting Saddam

[Eugene]

Source: CNN

Tony Blair says he's sorry for Iraq War 'mistakes,' but not for ousting Saddam

By Jethro Mullen, CNN
Updated 1122 GMT (1922 HKT) October 25, 2015 | Video Source: CNN

(CNN) - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he's sorry for "mistakes" made in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he doesn't regret bringing down dictator Saddam Hussein.

"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," Blair said in an exclusive interview on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS that airs Sunday.

Blair was 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.

The ensuing war and dismantling of Saddam's government plunged Iraq into chaos, resulting in years of deadly sectarian violence and the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq, a precursor of ISIS. Tens of thousands of Iraqis, more than 4,000 U.S. troops and 179 British service members were killed in the lengthy conflict.

As the most high-profile foreign ally of former U.S. President George W. Bush in the Iraq invasion, Blair has found his legacy overshadowed by the war, with questions and criticism following him wherever he goes.

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Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/25/europe/tony-blair-iraq-war/

[TwilightGardener]

1. Ousting Saddam was the core mistake.

[PatrickforO]

2. Ousting Saddam was the mistake because it

destabilized the whole region.

Blair, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeldt, Rice and the rest of the neocons really need to be tried for war crimes. Up to a million Iraqis DIED in our shock and awe campaign, and there's NO WAY that hundreds of thousands of those weren't civilians.

We need to rethink what our term 'collateral damage' actually means when people bandy it about so frequently.

Imagine if the US was the third world country, and Pakistan the superpower. Let's go on and say that Pakistan wanted our oil reserves, which are considerable, so they lied to the rest of the world that we had WMD (yes, I know we do, but pretend for a minute that we are a third world country and do not). Then, Pakistan decides to attack us with shock and awe.

Now, pan the camera in to your own neighborhood. It's got a 'target' in it, so they come along with bombers and carpet bomb the whole area, killing thousands of innocent people along with the 'target.'

Oh, but that's collateral damage, Pakistan's leadership says smugly, but we got the target! And, hey, it's OK because we'll PAY you for the innocent people we killed.

That's what WE do. Are Iraqi, Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan lives worth LESS than ours? It's easy to merely feel uncomfortable at this concept of collateral damage when it happens over in the mid-East, but how did you feel imagining it happening in your own neighborhood?

[pansypoo53219]

3. both leaders asshats.