But she added that she regretted the fact that it had taken seven years for Sir John Chilcot to complete his two and a half million-word report.
Advertisement
The Chilcot probe found that the invasion of Iraq claiming the existence of mass-destruction weapons was carried out based on faulty intelligence and before having exhausted all peaceful options. When no such weapons turned up following the invasion, Chilcot said, Blair changed the case for war on the fly, refocusing them on Hussein’s intention of getting weapons of mass destruction.
“Well, I defend that decision, of course I defend it, I don’t retreat from it”, said John Howard, who was Prime Minister when Australia sent 2000 troops to join the American- and British-led coalition.
The inquiry also turned up an early gesture of loyalty on Blair’s part to then-US president George W. Bush.
Blair’s latest bid to justify his role in the disastrous invasion comes a day after he was savaged in the Chilcot report.
Until the Iraq war, Blair was a widely popular figure in Britain, and was the first prime minister from the Labour Party to win office three times.
He also stressed that the Iraq War was one of the biggest strategic mistakes in United States history.
In his response to the publication of the inquiry into the Iraq War, Blair argued he had to be a “decision maker” as the country’s leader and that in his judgment the world is today “a better place without Saddam Hussein”.
Blair acknowledged that, in hindsight, he it would have been better to challenge the intelligence services “more clearly”.
“What we did in removing Saddam had awful consequences which we didn’t foresee – and I understand all the criticisms – but when I look at it today I think still that we moved with where the grain of the future is going to be in these countries and this region”.
Military policeman’s father Reg Keys said it was clear that Mr Blair “deliberately misled” the country and that his son Tom “died in vain”, while Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew was killed by a roadside bomb, said the families reserved the right “to call specific parties to answer for their actions in the courts”.
An emotional Mr Blair told the nation’s media in a statement he felt, at the time, it was right for the country to go to war. “There must now be a consideration of what political or legal consequences are appropriate for those responsible”.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who voted for war in 2003, told MPs it was important to “really learn the lessons for the future” and to improve the workings of government and how it treats legal advice.
Advertisement
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – who voted against military action – said the report proved the Iraq War had been an “act of military aggression launched on a false pretext”, something he said which has “long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of global opinion”.
