By IRNA,
London : Two former British ministers Saturday joined two left-wing candidates in the race to become the country’s new Labour leader in criticising the 2003 Iraq war in separate newspaper interviews.
Former children’s secretary Ed Balls described the decision to invade Iraq as “wrong” and “a mistake.” Former energy secretary Ed Miliband said the way the decision to go to war was taken “led to a catastrophic loss of trust in Labour”.
Their criticism comes after two backbench MPs, John McDowell and Diane Abbott, who always opposed the war, announced their intentions this week to stand in the election to replace former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Unlike Balls and Ed Miliband, who were not MPs at the time of the 2003 invasion, the other two candidates in the race former foreign secretary David Miliband and former culture secretary Andy Burnham, voted in support of the war.
Labour is trying to distance itself from previous controversial policies since losing this month’s general election. But McDonnell, a rank outsider in the election, accused both Balls and Ed Miliband of belatedly speaking out in a “smack of opportunism.”
“If they had the strength of their convictions at the time and the courage to stand with all of us against the war, we might have been able to stop it happening and a large number of British soldiers and Iraqi men, women and children, would still be alive today,” he said.
Nominations in the elections officially open next week followed by four months of campaigning before a result is announced in late September, with David Miliband currently firm favourite followed by his younger brother to become the next Labour leader.
Both have said that the former ruling party needs to learn the lessons of its election defeat, re-think key policies and re-organise the party at grass-roots level, but the former foreign secretary is disadvantaged by his continuing support for the Iraq war.
Most recently, he defended the decision to join the US-led invasion when giving evidence to the inquiry into the Iraq war in March.
“I voted for the war because I think that the defiance by Saddam of the UN was itself a danger to international peace and security and the authority of the UN had to be upheld,” he said.