Clinton says Blair was in 'terrible position'

Former US President Bill Clinton today backed Tony Blair’s stance over war in Iraq, describing it as a “terrible position” to be in.

The ex-American leader said Mr Blair was trying to satisfy the United Nations, Europe and the US all at once.

And he said the British public should take that into account when judging their Prime Minister.

Mr Clinton, on a book promotion tour to Britain, was speaking on Channel 4’s Richard and Judy show, being broadcast this evening.

He said: “What he was trying to do was to preserve the integrity of the UN resolution, the unity of Europe and the transatlantic alliance and in the end it became impossible to do all three.

“So he had to decide – it was a terrible, terrible dilemma and any British prime minister would have been in, I think, a terrible position here.”

Mr Clinton said Mr Blair had three options to consider when most thought he only had two – to go to war or not.

He said there was also the possible position of the role of the weapons inspection team.

“If Hans Blix had finished his job, or said ‘I can’t do any more because this man won’t cooperate, so I think he has chemical or biological weapons, which were unaccounted for’ – that’s the proper language, unaccounted for – then I would have supported actions,” he said.

“That was Tony’s position, so they tried one more time to go to the UN to get enough votes for that position, but they couldn’t do it.”

Mr Clinton said the Bush administration wanted to go to war for reasons other than weapons of mass destruction.

“They thought they could make a new democracy there, shake up the authoritarian machines in the Middle East, increase their leverage to make peace between Israel and Palestinians and they thought the peace-making process after the conflict would be much easier than it has been,” he said.

He said the French and German position was that there should not be a war in Iraq while the inspectors were there.

“So the British were in a terrible dilemma because Blair didn’t want to revert to the German/French position, and he didn’t want to take the position that we all do it and trash the UN,” he said.