Blair Admits: "I Would Have Done It Anyway"

It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein was hung for his war crimes. Blair on the other hand, went on to get repulsively rich. His words now are an insult to truth, an insult to justice and an insult to all who have died so far in Iraq since the invasion.

The Telegraph today reports that Tony Blair would have invaded Iraq even if he had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country, he has admitted.

The former Prime Minister made the disclosure in an interview with Fern Britton for a BBC One religious programme.

Discussing Saddam Hussein and the decision to invade Iraq, Mr Blair was asked: "If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?"

Mr Blair replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat."

He added: "I can't really think we'd be better off with him and his two sons still in charge but it's incredibly difficult... and that's why I sympathise with the people who were against it for perfectly good reasons and are against it now but, for me, in the end I had to take the decision."

The Iraq inquiry has heard that Mr Blair received intelligence that Saddam's WMDs had been "dismantled" 10 days before the invasion.

Mr Blair, who is due to give evidence to the inquiry in the New Year, said he had endured "the loneliness of the decision-maker" in the run-up to the invasion. "Most really hard decisions involve a downside and an upside either way. And that's the problem."

At a memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral in October to honour British military and civilian personnel who served in Iraq, Mr Blair offered his hand to Peter Brierley, whose son, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, was killed in 2003. Mr Brierley told him: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it."