Blair admits Iraq is a disaster but blames it on the "terrorist" Iraqis for not capitulating to him

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1993673.ece

Blair suggests Iraq has become a disaster but blames 'terrorists'

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Published: 18 November 2006

Tony Blair has come close to admitting that the Iraq war has been a "disaster" but insisted that British troops will not be withdrawn prematurely.

In an interview with Al Jazeera television's new English language channel, the Prime Minister made his frankest admission about the continuing crisis in Iraq when he was asked by Sir David Frost whether the western intervention had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".

He responded: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al-Qa'ida with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."

But Mr Blair insisted: "We are not walking away from Iraq. We will stay for as long as the government needs us to stay." He added: "Our task has got to be to stand up for the moderates and the democrats against the extremists and the sectarians. They are testing our will at the moment, and our will has not to be found wanting."

His admission was seized on by opponents of the war last night and will revive demands for the Government to call an independent inquiry into what went wrong in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

nt

toady blur by now?

If only the natives hadn't taken exception to foreign rule.

You mean people who have their country invaded and their power taken away actually fight back??? Those rat bastards!

Soon as the last drop of oil is plundered from the ground we are out of there.

Maybe if we explained that to the Iraqis they wouldn't be so mad at us?

Don

...a dastardly, deliberate decision by the enemy to actually fight against us."

If they had only accepted the colonization of their country there wouldn't be the present problem. Logic from a Prime Minister.

nt

In civil wars the majority never really wants war. But the radicals do win out.

As for this magical thinking about "will"...it leads to 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it'.