MOSCOW (Sputnik) – London miscalculated the strength of Iraq’s opposition forces during the United Kingdom's invasion of the Middle Eastern country to topple the regime, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday.
"For sure we underestimated profoundly the forces that were at work in the region and would take advantage of change once you topple the regime," Blair said, as quoted by The Guardian newspaper.
He added that it was a lesson for the country that "these forces of destabilization" would appear once a dictatorship is removed.
Blair’s comments come ahead of the release of a much-anticipated report on the official Chilcot Inquiry into the United Kingdom's role in the Iraq War slated for July 6.
The United Kingdom was part of a US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, without a UN mandate, after accusing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction. However, such weapons were never found in Iraq.
