A former key advisor to Tony Blair says the ex-Prime Minister has nothing to apologise for in regards to his role in the Iraq War.
John McTernan, who worked as Director of Political Operations during Blair’s premiership, says the Labour Government’s actions were “just”, two decades on from the conflict.
The decision to go to war was hotly contested as many questioned belief from US and UK intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The two nations, along with a cabal of allies, set about toppling Hussein in a move that has been widely criticised since.
Speaking to GB News, John McTernan said Tony Blair should have no regrets over his decision to side with the US and send British troops to the Middle East.
He said: “What is there to apologise for? For liberating Iraq? For defending the United Nations? There’s nothing to apologise for.”
Challenged by Andrew Pierce over the thousands of deaths resulting from the death, McTernan claims those affected were “killed by terrorists”.
“This is the extraordinary situation with modern British politics. Tony Blair stood down as Prime Minister in 2007 and yet everything apparently is his fault,” he said.
“The Iraq War was a just war. The Iraq War, we know, 20 years on was not an illegal war, it was a legal war, and the Iraq War actually was a defensive of the United Nations’ weapon spectres.
“Every single country in the West had the same intelligence. The Germans and the French decided not to be involved, they did come in immediately afterwards to help scoop up the reconstruction.”
It comes as MPs commemorated British personnel killed in the Iraq War on the 20th anniversary of the conflict.
Source: https://www.gbnews.com/politics/tony-blair-iraq-war-uk-news-george-bush