- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Blair 'Takes Full Responsibility For Iraq War' Following Chilcot Report

© AFP 2023 / STEFAN ROUSSEAU / POOLFormer Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks during a news conference in London on July 6, 2016, following the outcome of the Iraq Inquiry report
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks during a news conference in London on July 6, 2016, following the outcome of the Iraq Inquiry report - Sputnik International
Subscribe
Ex-British PM Tony Blair is giving a press conference in London following the publication of Chilcot report on the UK role in 2003 Iraq invasion.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he accepts full responsibility for going to war in Iraq in 2003. He also said that he fells deeply and sincerely the grief and suffering of those who lost ones in Iraq.

"I express more sorrow and regret than you will ever know," Blair told journalists.

John Chilcot, the chairman of the Iraq Inquiry, outlines the terms of reference for the inquiry and explains the panel's approach to its work during a news conference to launch it at the QEII conference centre in London, Thursday, July 30, 2009. T - Sputnik International
Chilcot Report on Britain's Role in Iraq War Unveiled in London
The UK decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was a last-minute decision with no option to delay it, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday.

"It was the last-moment decision for us as the [Chilcot] report indeed says… With respect I did not have the option of that delay, I had to decide," Blair said adding that he took the decision "with the heaviest of hearts".

​The former prime minister added that there were no reasons to delay the invasion.

"I didn't have the option to delay the invasion in Iraq," he said. "I ask the British people to accept that I took the decision because I thought it was the right thing to do."

Blair noted that intelligence assessments turned out to be wrong, aftermath turned out to be more hostile than imagined. However, he is profoundly disagree that today's terrorism stems are consequences of the invasion of Iraq.

​Blair is convinced that the world was and is in a better place without Saddam Hussein and he will not say he regrets getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

"I profoundly disagree that Saddam Hussein should have been allowed to stay in power," Tony Blair told journalists at the press conference after the Chilcot report publication.

Iraq Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot speaks as he comments on the findings of his report, inside the QEII Centre in London on July 6, 2016 - Sputnik International
World
Chilcot Inquiry: All You Need to Know
Speaking about accusations by critics that he is a 'poodle' of the US, Tony Blair said he believed it was important that America was not alone in fight against terrorism.

"9/11 was an event like no other in the US history. I consider it an attack on the whole free world. I believed that Britain as America's strongest ally should be with it in tackling this new an unprecedented security challenge [terrorism]. I believed it important that America was not alone, but part of a wider coalition. In the end, even the majority of European Union nations supported action in Iraq," Blair said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, the UK government released an report by Sir John Chilcot devoted to the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War. Blair has been criticized for the United Kingdom’s involvement in the conflict that stretched through 2011. The campaign to topple then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on suspicion that he had weapons of mass destruction killed 179 British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them civilians.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала