Blair and Bush admit to making mistakes in Iraq

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday called on the world community to unite to promote the “global values” of liberty, democracy, tolerance and justice.

In a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, Mr Blair accepted that the war in Iraq had “split the world” but said that now was “the moment for reconciliation in the international community” in support of its emergent democracy.

Defeat for democracy in Iraq would be a defeat for democratic values everywhere, he warned.

Mr Blair called for wide-ranging reform of the United Nations, IMF and World Bank to foster a more effective response to global problems like terrorism, climate change, poverty and unfair trade.

A UN Security Council with no permanent seats for India, Japan, Germany or representatives from Latin America and Africa was no longer “legitimate in the modern world” and must be reformed.

“To meet effectively the challenge that faces us, we must fashion an international community that both embodies and acts in pursuit of global values: liberty, democracy, tolerance, justice,” said Mr Blair.

On the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said: “The war split the world. The struggle of Iraqis for democracy should unite it.”

At a press conference with George W Bush the night before, both leaders acknowledged mistakes had been made in Iraq.

Mr Bush said he most regretted saying “bring ‘em on” when responding in July 2003 to a question about the Iraqi insurgency.

At the press conference, he said the remark was “kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong message to people.

“I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know. “Wanted, dead or alive”; that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted,” he said.

He also cited the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as “the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq. We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time,” he said.

Blair said the effort to rid Iraq’s army of members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathists, could have been handled better.

“I think it’s easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made. But the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination by our opponents to defeat us. And I don’t think we should be surprised at that,” Blair said.

Along with an expanded Security Council, he called for new powers for the UN Secretary General.