Mandela blasted Blair over Iraq invasion

Nelson Mandela said he was deceived by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq that he made a phone call to a UK minister to protest.

Labour MP Peter Hain said that after the invasion Mandela called him in anger to condemn Tony Blair’s decision. He confessed that he had never seen Mandela that angry.

“He said: ‘A big mistake, Peter, a very big mistake. It is wrong. Why is Tony doing this after all his support for Africa? This will cause huge damage internationally’.

“I know Nelson Mandela quite well. He was virtually breathing fire down the phone on this and feeling a sense of betrayal” . He added .

Mandela said that Blair had destroyed all good things done in progressive policy terms across the world.

“He just felt that all of this had been completely blown out of the water by the Iraq invasion.”