Walesa: I would not have sent Iraq troops

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WARSAW, Poland, May 26 (UPI) -- Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa said if it had been up to him, Poland would never have sent troops to Iraq.

"If I had still been president of Poland at the time, I would not have sent troops to Iraq," Walesa, a prominent anti-Soviet resistance leader, said in an interview with German public broadcasters ARD and Deutsche Welle.

"I would have met with the heads of government from Germany and France and worked for a common European position," Walesa said. "It's not the United States that is to blame for the war, but rather the EU, and in particular Germany and France. They knew the war was coming and they failed to prevent it."

Walesa said he, Germany and France could have done more to bring Central European and Western European countries together to present a single European Union perspective on the conflict in Iraq.

Walesa was president of Poland from 1990 to 1995.