Tony Blair has spoken of his “real humility” over decisions he took in the run up to the Iraq War.
But the former Prime Minister said that the issue had been "very difficult" in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on New York.
READ MORE: Tony Blair calls for British ground troops to return to Iraq
His comments come just weeks before the official inquiry into 2003 war publishes its findings.
Mr Blair and other members of his government are expected to be heavily criticised for their actions in the run up to the Iraq War and in the planning for its aftermath.
The former Labour leader said that he did not think the Chilcot report would ease the problems that currently dog the Middle East.
Mr Blair said: “I have a real humility about the decisions that I took and the issues around them and… you know I was trying to deal with this in the aftermath of 9/11 and it was very tough it was very difficult.”
READ MORE: Blair's reputation set to be damaged in Chilcot report on Iraq war, says former minister
He added: “I think it’s important that we also ... have humility then about the next phase of policy making so we try and actually learn the lessons of the whole period since that time and I think if we do that and have an exchange that isn’t...you know... a trading of barbs and insults but is an attempt to understand what we're dealing with then we’ll… you know… we can confront this problem and overcome it. "
He said that "the debate in the West ... is still largely around ‘did we cause this problem?’ well, no we haven't caused this problem – how we deal with it... we can have strong disagreements about but the roots of it are deep and we need to get to those roots.”
READ MORE: Tony Blair calls for British ground troops to return to Iraq
He also said that the UK had to “open our eyes to the problem” that is radical Islam.
And he suggested that his successor as Labour leader, veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, was conducting “a very dangerous experiment”, as he called for the middle ground of politics to reassert itself.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel