People still "very abusive" to Blair 10 years after Iraq War

Tony Blair: People are still 'very abusive' to me 10 years after the Iraq
War


Tony Blair has told how people are still “very abusive” to him 10 years
after the Iraq War, adding that he has given up trying to “persuade people it
was the right decision”.








Mr Blair admitted that life in
Iraq today was not what he had hoped for when he sanctioned the invasion
Photo:
PA






By Christopher Hope, Senior Political
Correspondent

3:01PM GMT 26 Feb 2013


105 Comments




In a candid interview on BBC2’s Newsnight tonight, Mr Blair, who was
Labour Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, said that it did not matter “whether
it’s taken a toll on me”.


He said that Saddam Hussein was "20 times as bad" as Syria's President Assad
but admitted that it would take a "generation" to make Iraq safer than it was in
2003.


Mr Blair has repeatedly been criticised for sending British troops into Iraq
on March 20, 2003 in the mistaken belief that its leader Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction.


In the weeks leading up to the invasion, more than one million people marched
through London against the Iraq invasion.


Asked whether he minded if “people call you a liar, some people call you a
war criminal, protesters follow you; it’s difficult to walk down the street in a
country”, he replied: “It really doesn’t matter whether it’s taken its toll on
me.


“The fact is yes there are people who will be very abusive, by the way I do
walk down the street and by the way I won an election in 2005 after Iraq.
However, yes it remains extremely divisive and very difficult.”

Mr Blair conceded that he had “long since given up trying to persuade people
it was the right decision”.

He added: “In a sense what I’ve tried to persuade people of now is understand
how complex and difficult decision it was. Because I think if we don’t
understand that, we won’t take the right decision about a series of these
problems that will arise over that next few years.

“You’ve got one in Syria right now, you’ve got one in Iran to come, and the
issue is how do you make the world a safer place?”

He said: “The question is supposing I’d taken the opposite decision.
Sometimes what happens in politics, unfortunately these things get mixed up with
allegations, deceit, lying and so on but in the end sometimes you come to a
decision where whichever decision you take the consequences are difficult and
the choices ugly.

“This was one such case. If we hadn’t removed Saddam from power just think
for example what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing
now and Saddam who’s probably twenty times as bad as Assad in Syria, was trying
to suppress an uprising in Iraq.”

Mr Blair admitted that life in Iraq today was not what he had hoped for when
he sanctioned the invasion by British troops 10 years ago.

He said: “There are still terrorist activities that are killing innocent
people for no good reason. The country’s economy as a whole obviously is growing
very strongly.

“It’s got huge amounts of oil revenue but no there are still problems… People
have deliberately tried to destabilise the country and this is the problem
you’ve got all over the region.”

With estimates of 100,000 civilians, and 179 British soldiers, killed since
2003, Mr Blair conceded that the price of the Iraq war had been “very, very
high”.

But he added: “Think of the price that people paid before Saddam was removed.
Think of the Iran-Iraq war in which there were one million casualties, hundreds
of thousands of young conscript Iranians, who were killed, many of them by the
use of chemical weapons.

“Chemical weapon attacks on his own people, the Kurds. People oppressed,
deprived of their rights, tortured and killed on a daily basis year on year on
year…”.

Asked if Iraq was “safer today”, he said: “No I wouldn’t say that. But what I
would say is it is safer, in my view, as a result of getting rid of Saddam. In
other words I think we are in the middle of this struggle, it’s going to take a
generation, it’s going to be very arduous and difficult.

“But we are making a mistake, a profound error, if we think we can stay out
of that struggle because we are going to be affected by it whether we like it or
not.”

Last September, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace prize winner, called
for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal
court in The Hague over the Iraq War.

The full interview with Tony Blair is being broadcast on Newsnight on BBC2
tonight, starting at 10.30pm

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Quote
Tony Blair has told how people are still “very abusive” to him 10 years
after the Iraq War, adding that he has given up trying to “persuade people it
was the right decision”.
Unquote.

Still trying to make excuses are you, Blair?
Still trying to ease your conscience?
Isn't changing your religious beliefs helping?
There's no way you can justify sending our servicemen and women to fight an illegal war of aggression.
Every death or wound, whether physical or mental suffered by our troops in Iraq and every destroyed family as a result here in the UK is down to your actions!

Well said Malena!

I do try not to hate anybody as it's such a negative quality but I've made an exception for Tony (Miranda) Blair.

Thanks NBY,
We (my angling mates) go fishing for a week every year with an ex squaddy who cannot even set his rod up properly on a bad day because of head wounds received in Iraq. Blair should time off whining to see the results of his premiership failures close up and personal, perhaps then he'll stop trying to convince people he was right and apologise instead.

I posted a youtube link about Blairs 13 years in power. There are 5 x 1 hour videos but very interesting , I have watched the first 2 which takes us up to the phoney War and even though hundreds of thousands marched in protest blair ignored them . How he changed the working of the Cabinet had an unshakeable belief that he was right.....watch the videos!!!