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Two Labour leadership candidates have criticised Britain's decision to join the invasion of Iraq. Skip related content
Ed Balls became the first former cabinet minister to unequivocally come out and say the Iraq War was "wrong", while Ed Miliband admitted it led to "a catastrophic loss of trust in Labour".

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, former children's secretary Mr Balls said the decision to go to war in 2003 was an "error" for which Britain paid a heavy price.

"It was a mistake. On the information we had, we shouldn't have prosecuted the war. We shouldn't have changed our argument from international law to regime change in a non-transparent way," he said.

"It was an error for which we as a country paid a heavy price, and for which many people paid with their lives. Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, and I am pleased he is no longer running Iraq. But the war was wrong."

Mr Miliband said UN weapons inspectors were not given enough time before coalition troops invaded.

Speaking to The Guardian, the former energy and climate change secretary said: "As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix - the head of the UN weapons inspectorate - was saying that he wanted to be given more time. The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed.

"The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it."

In response to the statements by Ed Balls in the Telegraph and Ed Miliband in the Guardian, John McDonnell MP said: "I welcome this road to Damascus conversion from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, but regret that it is so late in the day.

"If they and others in key positions had had the courage to stand publicly with all of us against the war at the time 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."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100522...s-6323e80.html

Funny how its only when they are out of government the Eds actually have the balls to say their war was wrong. Mind, it could just be a ploy to get the leadership vote.

Another Labour mess left for someone else to clean up.