Over the weekend former British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a nuanced “apology” for the Iraq War, essentially apologizing for a number of key mistakes without apologizing for removing Saddam Hussein from power. In doing so, he echoed intelligent critiques of the conduct of the war without giving in to the faulty notion that those mistakes meant that the war itself shouldn’t have been waged.
First, in response to Fareed Zakaria’s question — “given however that Saddam Hussein did not prove to have weapons of mass destruction, was the decision to enter Iraq and topple his regime a mistake?” — Blair responded:
I can say that I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong because, even though he had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people, against others, the program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought.
Blair is right to say that the “program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought,” but he should have strongly pushed back on Zakaria’s fundamentally mistaken declaration that Hussein “did not proved to have weapons of mass destruction.” In fact, American forces found thousands (up to 5,000) chemical “warheads, shells, or aviation bombs” and more are “unaccounted for” in ISIS-held territory. It remains astonishing to me that the Bush and Blair administrations did not publicize these finds, leaving the Left to declare — over and over — that there were no chemical weapons in Iraq.
Blair then went on to apologize for “some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.” This apology is entirely appropriate. From a too-small invasion force, to the mistaken “de-Ba’athification” of the civil service, to disbanding the Iraqi Army, and to excessive optimism about the nature and character of Iraqi society, the early war planners made mistake after mistake. While these mistakes were tragic and preventable, early catastrophes are so common in American warfare that they’re almost a hallmark of modern American military history. But our wars didn’t end at Bull Run, Pearl Harbor, Task Force Smith, or in the shocking early moments of the Tet Offensive. In each case — including Iraq — we learned from our errors, righted the ship, and took the fight to the enemy.
Blair drew the line at apologizing for removing Saddam, arguing that “it is better that he’s not there.” Given that he spent decades competing with Iran as the single-most destabilizing force in the region, I agree. Moreover, Blair was right not to accept that the Iraq War was solely responsible for the creation of ISIS, but he could have stated his case far better. Blair said:
Of course, you can’t say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015,” he said. “But it’s important also to realize, one, that the Arab Spring which began in 2011 would also have had its impact on Iraq today, and two, ISIS actually came to prominence from a base in Syria and not in Iraq.
How about a third point — that al Qaeda in Iraq (the precursor to ISIS) had been gutted by President Obama’s first term? It was no longer capable of threatening the regime, its terror attacks had slowed to a trickle, and its remaining fighters were scattered and ineffective. Yes, It gained new life in Syria, but it gained new territory in Iraq thanks to the foolish, politically-motivated American military withdrawal.
Every American (or British) war has been full of mistakes — that is the nature of any human endeavor, especially one as complex and fraught with danger as warfare. It’s right to acknowledge and learn from past mistakes. I respect Blair for making the effort. But I also respect him for not capitulating to the popular — but false — narrative that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power. Blair’s apology should have its limits.