Iraq is a 'disaster' admits Blair

Iraq is a 'disaster' admits Blair | the Daily Mail: "The Prime Minister went on: '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.'

Despite the violence engulfing Baghdad and British-controlled Basra, Mr Blair insisted that British troops were not ready to pull out.

'We are not walking away from Iraq,' he said. 'We will stay for as long as the government needs us to stay.

'And the reason for that is that what is happening in Iraq, as in Afghanistan, as elsewhere in parts of the Middle East, is a struggle between the decent majority of people, who want to live in peace together, and those who have an extreme and perverted and warped view of Islam, who want to create war.

'In those circumstances, our task has got to be to stand up for the moderates and the democrats against the extremists and the sectarians. They are testing our will at the moment, and our will has not to be found wanting.'"

Many believe that all disasters, even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, are purely the fault of George W. Bush. It will come as quite a shock to some that disasters, natural and human will still occur frequently long after Messrs. Blair and Bush have left office. On the contrary, it has been the leadership of Blair and Bush, with little serious alternative, that have contained the disaster of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism to a battlefield that is far from Britain and the US.

It has arrived in France. It is knocking on the door in Britain. Imagine what cut and run would accomplish.