Blair desperately tries to justify Iraq war

Press TV – February 27, 2013

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is globally discredited for his war crimes, has tried to defend his decision to invade Iraq in 2003, claiming the country is a “safer place” after the execution of dictator Saddam Hussein.

In an interview on BBC2’s Newsnight marking the tenth anniversary of UK armed forces joining a US-led invasion of Iraq, he said despite the death toll among both British troops and Iraqi civilians being “very, very high”, the decision to wage a war against the Arab country was the right one.

He also conceded people are still “very abusive” to him years after the war on Iraq, adding that he had given up trying to “persuade people it was the right decision”.

Being asked if he minded being called a “liar” and “war criminal”, former leader of Britain’s Labour party said it did not matter whether the controversy about Iraq had “taken a toll on” him.

Moreover, he admitted that life in Iraq today was not what he had hoped for 10 years ago.

His comments come as hundreds of thousands were killed and injured in illegal interventions, and hundreds of thousands more were made refugees between 1997 and 2007, under Blair’s premiership.

Meanwhile, according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll a decade after the invasion of Iraq, the majority of Britons believe that the war “sold on a false prospectus delivered little but bloodshed.”

In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) allegedly stockpiled by the former Iraqi ruler. However, no WMD were ever discovered in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as a result of the invasion and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

Related article

• Guardian readers: Iraq war was not justified (guardian.co.uk)

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