Storm over Blair 'Iraq disaster' remarks


(CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair provoked a storm Saturday after apparently admitting that the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain was "a disaster."

Blair gave the surprise assessment of his decision to go to war in an interview with David Frost on Al-Jazeera's new English-language channel.

British opposition MPs seized on the comment as evidence that Blair has finally accepted that his strategy in the Middle Eastern state had failed.

British newspapers carried the story on their front pages Saturday

"Iraq invasion a disaster, Blair admits on Arab TV," was the headline in the Daily Telegraph.

"PM Tony Blair last night sensationally admitted the Iraq War fallout has become 'disastrous,' reported Britain's biggest selling daily, The Sun.

Blair's remarks came after former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he feared his country was on the verge of disintegration -- a situation he said he never anticipated.

"It's really quite alarming and dangerous, where Iraq is now. It's quite frightening," he told CNN.

"Iraq is slipping continuously into a chaotic level of violence. "To be honest, this is not something that I could have imagined when we fought Saddam's regime."

Meanwhile in Iraq coalition and Iraqi troops in southeastern Iraq continued their hunt for five Western security contractors abducted the day before. (Full story)

Blair's Downing Street office insisted that the British PM's views had been misrepresented and that it was "disingenuous" to portray it as an admission, the UK's Press Association said.

During the interview, Frost suggested that the West's intervention in Iraq had "so far been pretty much of a disaster."

Blair replied: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy -- al Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other -- to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."



According to Scripture, how should we the church, discern this situation?

In Christ
Jeff

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Jeff Marshalek