Tony Blair: I apologize for mistakes of Iraq

By Curt Mills, Curt Mills

Published December 20, 2015

Tony Blair apologized for some of his actions in Iraq when he was British Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, but seemed resolute that in sum, he and President George W. Bush made the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein.

"I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong," Blair said to Fareed Zakaria on "State of the Union" Sunday on CNN. "I can also apologize, by the way, for some of the mistakes in planning, and certainly our mistaken understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime."

"But I find if very hard to apologize for removing Saddam," Blair continued. "Even today, in 2015, it is better that he is not there than if he is there."

Blair also seemed to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS, but made the point that the Islamic State's original power base was in Syria.