01/03/2013 17:58
Iraq War 'can't be justified', admits Lord Prescott
The Iraq War “cannot be justified”, Lord Prescott, then deputy prime minister, has admitted.
The Labour peer said he had supported the invasion in 2003 in the belief that George Bush, then president of the United States, had a plan to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Speaking on BBC One’s This Week, however, he said he “can't just disown it” but now thought the war was wrong.
“I go through my thoughts trying to justify it,” he said. “It cannot be justified as an intervention.”
Serving under Tony Blair, then prime minister, Lord Prescott was dispatched to the US for discussions with then vice-president Dick Cheney.
He said he had told Mr Blair at the time that it was clear the Americans were “going to go in without you” and that “whether you come with them or not, it doesn't matter to the Americans - they're getting ready".