FORMER British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits he “would have loved” to topple President Robert Mugabe militarily, but found the task “impractical” because he enjoys a “lingering support” from fellow African leaders.
The disclosure is made in Blair’s autobiography, A Journey, which was published this week.
Blair, who stood down as Prime Minister in June 2007 after a decade in power, writes: "People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, [Slobodan] Milošević, the Taliban and Saddam, why can't you get rid of Mugabe?
“The answer is I would have loved to, but it wasn't practical (since, in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously)."