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LONDON: Visiting US President George W. Bush on
Sunday reiterated the justification of the Iraq invasion, saying it
was “the right thing” to get rid of former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.
In an exclusive interview with
Sky News, Bush said the US invasion was “the right thing to do”
despite the deaths of innocent civilians.
“When anybody dies in a war, of
course it weighs on my conscience. On the other hand, getting rid of
Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do and I’m not going to back
off one inch on that,” said Bush, who arrived in this British
capital Sunday afternoon for a two-day visit.
“The world is better off
without him and I’m sorry that innocent civilians died in Iraq,
but I want you to remember that hundreds of thousands died when
Saddam Hussein was leading that country,” he said, while giving
his maiden broadcast interview to British media alongside the first
lady during his presidency.
“War is brutal, I wish we
didn’t have war, but I believe we’re now on the way to peace,”
said Bush.
Bush also defended the war on
Afghanistan.
“It matters for our own
security as we learnt on September 11, it also matters from a
humanitarian perspective,” he said.
When asked whether he worried
about his popularity, Bush said sticking to his principles was more
important than poll results.
“Popularity is fleeting and I
want it to be said about George W. Bush that when he finished his
presidency he looked in the mirror and [saw] a man who did not
compromise his core principles for the sake of politics or the
Gallup poll, or the latest whatever, and you can’t lead in this
world if you chase something as temporary as a popularity poll,”
he said.
Shortly after arriving at
Heathrow Airport, Bush and his wife, Laura, flew by helicopter to
Windsor Castle for a 45-minute tea meeting with the Queen Elizabeth
II.
And later, the couple had an
informal dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife,
Sarah, at Downing Street.
In a nearby district just as they
were dining, about 2,500 British people gathered at London’s
Parliament Square to protest against Bush’s “War on Terror.”
Chanting such slogans as “Bush,
terrorist” just about 270 meters from Downing Street,
demonstrators blew whistles and beat drums to voice their opposition
to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some tried to breach a
police cordon and 25 people were arrested.
--Xinhua
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