attack 20 years ago
Tony Blair rejects comparison of wars in Iraq and Ukraine
03/18/2023, 12:10 p.m
Almost exactly 20 years ago, the United States and other countries attacked Iraq. The aim was to overthrow the authoritarian ruler Saddam Hussein. Comparisons with the war of aggression in Ukraine must be “resolutely opposed,” said British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the time.
As the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war approaches, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has dismissed comparisons between a Western alliance’s intervention in Iraq and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Blair made that clear in an interview with the German Press Agency and the European news agencies AFP, ANSA and EFE. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at the time brutally treated his own people, was involved in two wars that violated international law, and had 12,000 people killed with chemical weapons in a single day.
“The idea that this is equated with the invasion of a country that has a democratically elected president who, to my knowledge, has never started a regional conflict or committed any kind of aggression against its neighbors (…) must be resolutely opposed,” said Blair.
He admitted that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use the invasion of Iraq in 2003, carried out without a mandate from the UN Security Council, to justify his war of aggression. “But if Putin didn’t use this excuse, it would be another,” said the Labor politician. The constellation in the UN Security Council with Russia and China as veto powers makes an international rules-based world order “very difficult”, Blair continued.
A coalition of states led by the USA – but without Germany – attacked Iraq on March 20, 2003 with the aim of removing its authoritarian President Saddam Hussein from power. The goal was soon reached. But the country sank into instability. Hundreds of thousands of people have died violently since the beginning of the war. The Islamic State (IS) terrorist network also took advantage of the political chaos, and was temporarily able to bring large parts of the country under its control.