Bono has hit out at former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for invading Iraq.
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The U2 rocker believes Blair – who joined forces with US President George Bush in 2003 to launch a campaign against Iraq over claims they were hiding weapons of mass destruction – was worried about looking weak just as former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did during World War II.
He said: “I think people as reasoned as Tony Blair looked at the world and didn’t want to be Neville Chamberlain, who came back from a meeting with Hitler with a piece of paper saying ‘peace in our time,’ while Hitler was planning to cross the channel from France.”
Bono, 46, says he knew the conflict, which is still ongoing after four years, would not be resolved quickly.
He added in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine:
“It was always going to go wrong. I remember in the first moments after ‘shock and awe,’ I was watching it at home with my wife Ali and I said, ‘These people have just hidden their guns in the basement, taken off their uniforms and come out waving American flags. And they’ve been told to. They knew this was coming, and they know what they’re doing.”
Despite’s the singer’s strong misgivings about the war, he does understand that post 9/11 – when the US was attacked by plane-jacking terrorists in 2001 – there is a serious threat to world peace.
He added: “I want to be very, very clear, however, I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It’s real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let’s not pretend it isn’t.”
