War in Iraq ‘the right decision’ maintains Blair
Tony Blair has strongly defended his decision to go to war in Iraq and has denied any suggestion that he misrepresented the intelligence leading up to the war.
Mr Blair’s comments follow an ICM poll stating that, although still the most popular party leader, 29 per cent of women voters felt the Prime Minister should quit immediately. The fall in female support has been attributed largely to Mr Blair’s actions surrounding the Iraq war.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘Jonathan Dimbleby’, Mr Blair repeatedly refused to apologise for British participation in the invasion of Iraq.
“I know it was an unpopular decision and I know many people strongly disagree with it. I had to take the decision in the end whether I thought it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power or to leave him there.
“I took the view in the end that it would be safer for us . if he was removed from power . I still believe it was the right decision.”
Mr Blair denied that this comment illustrated a changing justification for the war, previously cited as the removal of an imminent threat from Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
Mr Blair insisted the two were linked.
“My whole thinking changed after September 11th . I felt that if those people could have killed 300,000 people as opposed to 3,000 they would have.
“We had to take a different attitude to the enforcement of all United Nations resolutions against countries that were developing WMD. Iraq was the country that was out there in breach of United Nations resolutions.
“If we didn’t take a stand then, and start to enforce these resolutions, then we couldn’t go to Libya, to Iran, to North Korea, to Pakistan or the nuclear scientists around in Pakistan and enforce international will there.”
He accepted that the intelligence had turned out to be “almost certainly wrong” bit stressed that he believed Iraq still posed a threat, and Saddam Hussein was determined to start weapons production again after inspectors left.
The Prime Minister strongly refuted suggestions he had misrepresented the intelligence, saying: “I have apologised for the intelligence being flawed, although I honestly represented the intelligence to people.
“I believe I did the right thing and that I believe also that in time to come, maybe not quick enough frankly for any general election . people will see that it was the right decision.”
