Blair: Terrorism trying for civil war in Iraq
Iraq-UK, Politics, 5/24/2006

Prime Minister Tony Blair today said Iraq is not in a state of civil war insisting that terrorism was trying to create such a situation.

Blair, who made a stopover visit to Baghdad on Monday, said that he thought "the people best able to give a sense of where Iraq is today, and where it needs to be, are the government elected by 12 million Iraqi votes." "What they describe to me is a situation where, for the first time, they have a genuine unity government," he told MPs during prime minister"s questions.

"We have Sunni, Shia and Kurds sitting down, working together, all of them representing parties that have stood in elections and been elected by the people of Iraq," he added.

Blair was told by Labor MP Tony Wright that while he was in Baghdad, former American ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrook was in the UK saying "it was now ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Iraq was not in a state of civil war." "Does the prime minister agree and where does that leave our promise not to leave Iraq until a stable democracy is established?" Wright asked.

But the British premier insisted that none of the parties in Iraq "wanted the multi-national force to withdraw immediately." "All of them believe that the terrorism, that is attempting to push their country into civil war, is a terrorism that has to be defeated and can be defeated by the united will of the Iraqi people who want democracy," he said.

Blair said the international community supported them in that endeavor and that he believed "as the new prime minister of Iraq said to me, that if we defeat terrorism there we will defeat it everywhere."

Previous Stories:
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  Ex foreign secretary savages Blair's 'reckless military adventures'   (4/22/2006)
  100,000 march in London against Blair's war   (3/20/2006)
  UK to reduce forces in Iraq in May   (3/14/2006)
  BBC: UK troop cuts in Iraq of 10 percent   (3/13/2006)
  News of the world: British soldiers brutally attacking Iraqis civilians   (2/13/2006)

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