MP wants Iceland to apologise for Iraq
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking to British soldiers in Iraq in 2007. Photo: AFP/Stefan Rousseau
An Icelandic opposition MP has formally asked the government whether the Icelandic people can expect an apology for the events leading up to the Iraq war, which began in 2003.
Speaking in the Icelandic Parliament (‘Alþingi’) yesterday, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, MP for the Left-Green Movement, pointed to the precedent set by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who recently apologised for certain elements of incorrect information given to the British public in the lead-up to the war.
Svavarsdóttir asked the Icelandic PM Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson whether the Icelandic people could expected a similar apology, “since similar deceit was used to align Iceland with the allied forces in the war in Iraq”.
Blair issued a qualified apology last month and acknowledged that there could be a link between the war in Iraq and the emergence of ISIS. He stopped short, however, of apologising for the war itself.
Svandís Svavarsdóttir MP. Photo: Ómar Óskarsson
