British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Thursday that the US-led coalition is doing the right thing in Iraq, stressing the country is not at civil war despite mounting violence there.
In a television interview days before the March 20 fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion, he again refused to apologise for backing military action, insisting that deposing Saddam Hussein was justified.
"The British soldiers, the American soldiers have done extraordinary work in Iraq, they've made very great sacrifices," he told Sky News. "It's a tragedy that so many have lost their lives. But they have not lost their lives because we have been trying to do the wrong thing in Iraq ... We've been trying to do the right thing."
A total of 133 British troops have been killed in Iraq since 2003, along with some 3,200 from the United States. Estimates of how many Iraqi civilians have died range into the tens of thousands - an NGO, Iraq Body Count, puts the figure at 58,800, although that is seen by some as a conservative figure.
Last month, Blair said that the number of British troops in Iraq would be cut by 1,600 to about 5,500 in the next couple of months as the Iraqi authorities assume more control in the British sector. Britain currently has about 7,100 troops in and around the southern city of Basra. After the pull-out, some will stay in the area into 2008 to help Iraqi forces in a support role.
In a live interview, Blair refused to say sorry for the 2003 war, saying he had no regrets about supporting US President George W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq. "I do not either regret the strength of our alliance with the US or standing by the US president and the American people in the aftermath of September 11 and I'm never going to do that," he said. And he insisted that the country is not caught in a civil war, despite the mounting daily death toll.
A Pentagon report to the US Congress this week said the number of attacks in Iraq during the last three months of 2006 was the highest for any such period since 2003. "It's not a country at civil war. The majority of people in Iraq don't want this violence," Blair said.
"They don't want to go to war with each other. Small numbers of extremists on either side who don't represent the majority are trying to provoke people into a civil war. That's a completely different thing."
Asked whether the lives of ordinary people were now worse than under executed dictator Saddam Hussein, he said: "It's been extremely tough, very challenging, it's a very difficult situation." But Blair blamed terrorists and sectarian elements for the deaths, saying the people of Iraq had voted for a democratic government.