Blair adviser: US did not expect to stabilize Iraq

American troops did not expect to play a role in stabilizing Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a key adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday. David Manning, who served as a Blair's top foreign policy aide before being appointed ambassador to Washington in 2003, told a British inquiry into the Iraq war the American military did not believe peacekeeping was their responsibility. "The American military thought that they were fighting a war and when the war was over they were expecting to go home," he said. Manning said British troops in Basra talked to local people, but that American troops were not willing to do the same. "I was very struck ... by the reluctance of U.S. soldiers to get out of their tanks, to take off their helmets and to trying to build up links with local communities," he said. "They looked still much more in fighting mode than in peacekeeping mode."