Call that an apology, Mr Blair?
Army families’ fury as ex-PM says he’s sorry for mistakes of other people over Iraq war
‘Nobody will be fooled’
THE journalist who extracted Tony Blair’s ‘apology’ was once a fervent supporter of the 2003 Iraq War and is a longtime friend of ex-Labour foreign secretary David Miliband.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, 51, is a Harvard-educated intellectual who is principally admired for the depth of his foreign policy insight rather than the forcefulness of his interrogations.
He initially supported the invasion of Iraq, saying: ‘Any stirring of the pot is good.’ But he criticised the way the war was waged and the subsequent occupation of the country. TONY BLAIR was last night accused of a ‘cynical spin operation’ after offering a feeble half-apology for the Iraq War.
Critics of the war and bereaved families said the former prime minister was ‘passing the buck’ after he offered a series of selective apologies for the conflict.
In an interview with US television, he said he apologised for the fact the intelligence on which the conflict was based was wrong.
He also said sorry for ‘some of the mistakes in planning’ and for mistakes in handling the aftermath of the conflict. And he admitted that he had ‘some responsibility’ for the rise of Islamic State in Iraq in recent years.
But he continued to justify his actions, saying he found it hard to apologise for removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Parents of British soldiers who died in the conflict said he should apologise personally to them for their loss. Politicians who opposed the conflict accused him of ‘weasel words’.
His comments also prompted fears about the outcome of the Chilcot Inquiry into the war and whether it will uncover the truth.
Mr Blair, 62, has already received details of the criticisms he is expected to face from Sir John Chilcot’s marathon inquiry.
His intervention at this stage was seen as an attempt to counteract the report’s conclusions before they are published.
Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Tom Keys was a Royal Military Policeman killed by an Iraqi mob in 2003, called Mr Blair ‘the consummate master of spin’.
‘He is pre-empting the various angles of criticism when Chilcot comes out. He is laying the groundwork beforehand,’ he said.
‘He’s apologising for incorrect intelligence – well why didn’t he march over to MI5 and MI6 at the time and sack them? He’s pointing the finger now at intelligence chiefs, he’s passing the buck, the buck stops at No 10.
‘He’s shifting the blame and trying to lessen the impact on himself. The ultimate responsibility is with him. He made the case for war. Blair was the one spinning it.
‘If he’s going to apologise, can’t he find in his heart to apologise to loss for life? He’s trying to soften the blow, not that I think it will be that hard hitting anyway, it will be diluted.’
Janice Procter, 53, whose son Private Michael Tench, 18, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2007, said: ‘Tony Blair is a liar and he should be tried for murder.
‘This just shows the report will be a total whitewash and a complete cover-up with him shifting the blame on to other people.
‘How does he sleep at night? He couldn’t apologise to me in 2007. He should be made to face every single parent whose son died in the war. The fact we are having to still fight for the truth is beyond belief.’
Rose Gentle, whose son Fusilier Gordon Gentle, 19, died in the Iraq War in 2004, said: ‘That is not an apology, to me. He is the one who looked over every bit of information he was given. He was the PM who gave the go-ahead for us to go in. He is the one to blame.
‘I’ve been speaking to the families overnight and they are all really upset. It is certainly not an apology to us.
‘I think when we get the report a lot of questions will be left out. They have had such a long time to answer.’
Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Mr Blair said: ‘I apolo- gise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong.
‘I also apologise for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.’
Asked if Iraq was ‘the principal cause’ of the rise of Islamic State, he conceded: ‘I think there are elements of truth in that.’
He added: ‘Of course you can’t say those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.’
No date has yet been given for the release of the final conclusions of the Chilcot Inquiry, more than six years after it was set up.
The delays have been blamed on the time required to inform those who will be criticised and deal with their responses. Mr Blair has denied he is the source of the hold-up.
Angus Robertson, the SNP leader in Westminster, said: ‘Nobody will be fooled by Tony Blair’s weasel words. [His] comments are plainly the start of a cynical spin operation ahead of the expected timetable announcement for publication of the Chilcot report.
‘Those who lost loved ones in Iraq and all those who protested against it deserve a full and frank account of the decisions which led to the invasion and, as Tony Blair now admits, also led to the rise of Daesh [Islamic State].’
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: ‘His partial acknowledgement that the military action against Saddam Hussein has made some contribution to instability in the Middle East will do nothing to change public opinion that his was a major error of judgment.
‘The inevitable truth is that Iraq is his legacy and it will be his epitaph.’
MORE than 12 years after dragging Britain into the calamitous Iraq war – costing countless thousands of lives, plunging the Islamic world into a new dark age and helping radicalise hundreds of young British muslims – Tony Blair has finally issued an apology … of sorts.
During a risibly soft interview with america’s CNN news network, Mr Blair apologises for the flawed intelligence on Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, errors in the planning of the war and for not realising that bloody anarchy would break out after the regime was removed.
He even comes close to admitting that the Iraq invasion gave birth to the barbarous Islamic State terror group.
But as ever, what he doesn’t do is take any personal blame. Instead of admitting that he was the architect of this unmitigated catastrophe, he presents himself as the unwitting victim of bad intelligence gathered by others.
There is no mention of the ‘deal in blood‘ he made with George W Bush to wage war against Saddam a full year before launching the invasion.
No mention either of the ‘dodgy dossier’ of concocted WMD evidence that he and his malign cronies used to justify the war to the British public.
and, of course, no mention of the fact that his own attorney General warned that the invasion was in breach of international law.
The truth is that the decision to go to war in Iraq was no honest mistake. It was a deliberate and cynical strategic plan. So why has Mr Blair chosen to make even a grudging apology now?
a date for publication of the longdelayed Chilcot report into the war – which has been grinding along so slowly it has now lasted longer than the entire British military campaign in Iraq – is said to be imminent and Mr Blair will already have been informed of criticisms it makes of him. He no doubt hopes a guarded apology now might take some of the sting out of the findings.
To the families of the 179 British troops and airmen who died in Iraq, however, Mr Blair’s calculating, weasel words are an insult. They are not interested in his glib attempts at damage limitation. all they want is to know exactly why their loved ones were sent to their deaths.
They look to Sir John Chilcot to provide answers and his interminable footdragging is simply scandalous.
But there is another reason why Sir John should publish without further delay. Parliament will soon decide whether to authorise routine bombing operations in Syria.
Before making that decision, MPs would do well to read Chilcot’s analysis and consider carefully the legacy of Iraq.
The overriding lesson of that conflict is that ill- judged Western military adventures in the boiling cauldron of the Middle east can have unforeseen – and deadly – consequences.