Blair launches passionate defence of war on Iraq

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday launched a passionate defence of the war on Iraq and said there would be no turning back from controversial policies on foundation hospitals and university tuition fees

Mr Blair, speaking as his party's annual conference was getting underway in Bournemouth, also denied he had ever done a deal with Chancellor Gordon Brown to step down as premier and make way for his colleague. The prime minister told the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme that even with the benefit of hindsight he would not have done anything different in Iraq.

He said: "I would have done exactly the same. I think we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein.

"I don't think we have anything to apologise for as a country. Our soldiers did a magnificent job. They are heroes."

Mr Blair said he did not accept that intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was faulty: "I don't accept it was wrong at all. We know perfectly well he had these weapons, he had these programmes."

He added that he expected the coalition's Iraq Survey Group to make its report on WMD public later this week.

Leaks have suggested the group will report they have found no evidence so far of any current WMD programmes in Iraq. But Mr Blair insisted: "I have no doubt at all that Saddam was a serious threat to his region and to the wider world."

He added: "This is regime change for a purpose. I do not apologise for Iraq, I'm proud of what we have done. We were getting rid of one of the most terrible, repressive regimes in the world's history."

Mr Blair said the prospect of terrorist groups obtaining WMD from a rogue regime was "too ghastly to contemplate ... this is a real and present threat."

Asked if British troops could be in Iraq for as long as five years, he replied: "I don't think it will be anything like that ... we don't want to stay there any longer than we need to stay there."

Asked if he had ever contemplated resignation in the face of opinion polls showing a growing number of voters wanted him to quit, Mr Blair replied: "no. You let the polls come and go."

Asked if he would back down on plans for foundation hospitals, or to make graduates pay back some of their tuition fees, Mr Blair replied simply: "no. There will be no withdrawal."

But the prime minister conceded: "this is a test of my mettle and character. We have got to be prepared to do the right thing and go out and explain it to the country."