LONDON: Former prime minister Tony Blair has said that relations between the US and UK would be worse today if Britain had not participated fully in the invasion of Iraq.
Blair discussed Britain’s significance to the US in the run-up to the war in a new radio series that looks back on the invasion of the Middle Eastern country in 2003.
Blair reportedly persisted with the invasion despite warnings from George W. Bush that the UK did not need to participate in the early stages of the assault on Iraq out of fear that his ally would lose a vote in Parliament the night before the war.
The former Labour prime minister stated that he was “sure that our alliance depended on us doing this together” and that confronting Saddam Hussein was a matter of principle for him.
Retired CIA operations officer and chief of Iraq operations Luis Rueda was also interviewed for the series and admitted that “we were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction.
If Saddam Hussein had a rubber band or a paperclip and someone had said, “Oh, he’s going to put your eye out,” I firmly believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq. Let’s kill him,’” Rueda said.
During his time as prime minister, Blair also claimed the UK’s relationship with the United States had improved.
In my time as prime minister, I never had to wonder whether President Clinton or President Bush would be the first to get a call from the White House.
It was the British prime minister,…” Now that we’re on our way out of Europe, should Joe Biden call Rishi Sunak first? It’s possible, he admitted, but I’m not positive.
