LONDON, Nov17: Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted that the Iraq war planners had underestimated the extent to which outside elements, like Al Qaeda and Iran, were going to come in and foment trouble.
The prime minister who was appearing in a webcast interview on Friday was closely questioned by two British journalists who, referring to the US administration’s recent admission of committing grave mistakes in mishandling of the situation after the Iraq war, had asked Mr Blair to be candid about Britain’s role in these mistakes.
However, the prime minister continued to appear in total denial of the real situation in Iraq as his answers tried to pass off symptoms as the root causes of the continued violence in that country which is reported to have taken a toll so far of over 600,000 lives, mostly civilian.
“You have got Al Qaeda teaming up with Sunni extremists, you have got Iranian backed Shia militia and the problem that we have, which is the problem of terrorism trying to displace democracy. It is not a problem that is arising by accident, it is a strategy, it is a deliberate strategy, it is the same strategy as the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan,” the prime minister told his questioners who were asking questions also on behalf of those who had posted their queries on the 10 Downing Street website.
The prime minister said one could debate forever and a day whether for example on the disbandment of the army or debaathification you could have proceeded more slowly and we could have a large debate about that, but the principal reason there is a problem in Iraq today is that people are deliberately giving us a problem.
From the answers he gave on the future strategy in Iraq it appeared as if Mr Blair was still trying to achieve the impossible--build Iraqi capability to a point where it is advisable to get out.
“And so in this situation our challenge is to make sure that rather than being defeated by these extreme elements we empower the Iraqis to build up their own capability to take them on. Now one of the things that isn't much noticed about what is happening in Iraq today is actually bit by bit in the provinces across Iraq the Iraqis are increasingly taking on responsibility for their own security and that is what needs to happen,” he said.
But our strategy has got to be to build up the Iraqi capability for their armed forces and as that capability increases then our role diminishes, he added.
Referring to the operation in Basra where only early this week as many as four British soldiers were killed he said, at the moment we are going through bit by bit of the city, putting the Iraqi forces properly in control, making sure that the city is returned to the charge of the proper authorities and that is about half way through, it is working well.
“If it works well for the other half then obviously again we are able to reduce the need for our presence on the streets of Basra,” he said.
