Tony Blair apologized for some of his actions in Iraq when he was British Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, but seemed resolute that in sum, he and President George W. Bush made the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein.
“I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong,” Blair said to Fareed Zakaria on “State of the Union” Sunday on CNN. “I can also apologize, by the way, for some of the mistakes in planning, and certainly our mistaken understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.”
“But I find if very hard to apologize for removing Saddam,” Blair continued. “Even today, in 2015, it is better that he is not there than if he is there.”
Blair also seemed to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS, but made the point that the Islamic State’s original power base was in Syria.
“Of course you can’t say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in Iraq in 2015,” Blair said, but noted, “The Arab Spring which began in 2011 would also have had its impact on Iraq today.”
“ISIS actually came to prominence from a base in Syria, and not in Iraq,” Blair added.
“I had a very clear view after 9/11,” Blair said. “That we should be with America in confronting the threat of terrorism. … I felt it important that the U.S. didn’t face this alone.”
