Former British PM Tony Blair apologised for Iraq war mistakes

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologised for mistakes in Iraq war in TV interview on Sunday.

“I can say that I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong because, even though he [Saddam Hussein] 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,” he said in a interview.

“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,” he added.

However, some observers consider his apology “hardly an apology”.

George Joffe, a research fellow and lecturer at the center of international studies, University of Cambridge, said “it was an acknowledgement. All he said basically that he made mistakes but getting rid of Saddam was not.”

At the same time, Mr.Blair admitted that the Iraq war was partly to blame for the rise of the ISIS.

“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.

Iraq with or without Saddam would have been affected with the Arab Spring began in 2011, and to his defence, he said “ISIS actually came to prominence from a base in Syria and not in Iraq”.

Blair served as prime minister between 1997 and 2007, who has repeatedly denied rushing to war.

Britain made the second biggest troop contribution to the Iraq invasion, and remained in the country until 2011.

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