Tony Blair Says Iraq War Helped Give Rise to ISIS
By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA

LONDON — Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, suggested Sunday that the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which removed Saddam Hussein from power, helped give rise to the Islamic State, even as he said it was “hard to apologize for removing Saddam.”

Mr. Blair, whose decision to involve Britain in the military mission made him deeply unpopular at home, told CNN that “there are elements of truth” to the view that the war in Iraq helped pave the way for the Islamic State.

The militant group emerged as an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which fought the American presence there, before separating from the organization. It now controls vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, and is also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“Of course, you can’t say those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015,” Mr. Blair said in an interview with Fareed Zakaria broadcast on Sunday. “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.”

He added: “We have tried intervention and putting down troops in Iraq. We’ve tried intervention without putting in troops in Libya. And we’ve tried no intervention at all but demanding regime change in Syria.” He said that it wasn’t clear that, even if the policy in 2003 had failed, “subsequent policies have worked better.”

Mr. Blair’s comments came as Sir John Chilcot, who has led a six-year-long British public inquiry into the Iraq War, is set to announce a timeline for the release of the results of the investigation. The inquiry was commissioned by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009.

Mr. Blair’s comments immediately drew criticism at home. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland posted on Twitter saying, “The Blair spin operation begins but the country still awaits the truth. The delay to Chilcot report is a scandal.” Meanwhile, Sir Menzies Campbell, a former Liberal Democrat leader, said that Mr. Blair’s comments would do “nothing to change public opinion that his was a major error of judgment,” according to the BBC.

In the interview with CNN, Mr. Blair apologized, as he has done before, for what he called mistakes based on what turned out to be false information about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong,” he said, adding that he apologized for “some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.”

His office denied that the interview was intended to pre-empt criticism ahead of the Chilcot inquiry, which is expected to be critical of Mr. Blair.

“Tony Blair has always apologized for the intelligence being wrong and for mistakes in planning,” a press officer told the BBC. “He has always also said and says again here that he does not, however, think it was wrong to remove Saddam.”

The press officer said that Mr. Blair was not suggesting that the removal of Mr. Hussein, a brutal dictator, had led directly to the emergence of the Islamic State. “He pointed out that ISIS was barely heard of at the end of 2008, when Al Qaeda was basically beaten.”

布萊爾改口 談伊拉克戰事認錯

英國前首相布萊爾日前接受美國有線電視新聞網專訪，首度坦承出兵伊拉克前獲得的情報有誤，行動計畫有問題，且伊拉克戰事讓激進組織「伊斯蘭國」（IS）趁勢崛起並壯大「部分屬實」。

布萊爾在25日於歐洲播出的專訪中，面對好友兼主持人札卡瑞亞針對2003年伊拉克戰爭問題進行訪談。

札卡瑞亞問布萊爾：「英美出兵伊拉克後，未發現海珊擁有大規模毀滅性武器。你認為伊戰是否錯誤？」布萊爾回答：「我為當初獲悉的情報錯誤感到抱歉，我也為籌畫失誤道歉，當然，我們對推翻海珊政權後可能產生的後果考量不周，也做錯了。不過，我很難就推翻海珊道歉。」

布萊爾2003年擔任首相時，力挺美國布希總統聯手出兵伊拉克。這是布萊爾時隔12年首度道歉；他2007年卸任時堅稱：「我不認為應為我們在伊拉克的所作所為道歉。」

札卡瑞亞接著問，伊拉克戰爭是否為IS崛起的主因。布萊爾回答：「我認為一部分的事實是這樣。當年推翻海珊政權的國家，對現今情勢當然無法撇清責任。」

英國「每日郵報」說，布萊爾專訪有如「電視審問」；札卡瑞亞形容布萊爾宛如布希伊戰策略中的「貴賓狗」。札卡瑞亞儘管在訪談時戳布萊爾痛處，但他讚賞布萊爾是唯一在鏡頭前「為伊戰負責」的來賓，多數受訪的美國政治人物或軍人都彼此責怪。

英國政府六年前開始調查伊戰開打前英國決策及參與程度，調查結果原定今年稍早公布，卻一再延宕，可能拖到明年。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/world/europe/tony-blair-says-iraq-war-helped-give-rise-to-isis.html

2015-10-26．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韻涵