Blair to Chilcot: I believed Saddam had WMDs
Updated on 29 January 2010
The former prime minister Tony Blair tells the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war he never had any doubts that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
The apparent threat posed by Saddam was used by Mr Blair in the run-up to the war as justification for the invasion.
In his foreword to the government's September 2002 intelligence dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons, he said: "I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped."
He also said Saddam would be able to use his weapons within 45 minutes of an order being given. Seven years after the invasion, no WMDs have been found.
At the inquiry, Mr Blair was asked if it was wise to say intelligence was ever "beyond doubt". He said: "I did believe it and I did believe it frankly beyond doubt."
He said it would have been better to have explained that the 45-minute claim related to battlefield weapons. "It has taken on a far greater significance than it ever did at the time. I didn't focus on it a great deal at the time. It would most certainly have been better to have corrected it."
More Channel 4 News coverage of the Iraq war inquiry
- Iraq inquiry: day by day
- Tony Blair: road to the Iraq inquiry
- How Blair's war shattered Iraqi lives
- Iraq: 'I am grateful to Mr Blair'
But Mr Blair said the dossier was generally thought to be dull when it was published - and the claim that Downing Street had falsified the intelligence was untrue.
"I think you would have been hard pushed to find anyone who didn't think he (Saddam) had WMD."
Mr Blair explained that in the lead-up to the war, he had to balance risk. "If there was any possibility he could develop weapons of mass destruction, we should stop it.
"I think it was at least reasonable for me at the time... to say this is a threat we should take very seriously. It really wasn't something that people disputed at the time.
"This isn't about a lie or a deceit or a deception. It's a decision. I had to take the decision and I believed we were right not to run that risk."
Referring to the poison gas attack on Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988, he described Saddam as "a profoundly wicked, I would say almost psychopathic, man" who had to be confronted.
Britain and the US had been at odds over claims that there were links between him and al-Qaida, he said, but Iraq had funded suicide bombers in Palestine.
Iran, whose nuclear ambitions were currently a threat, was currently supporting insurgent groups in the Middle East. "There are very strong links between terrorist organisations and states that support or sponsor them."
Mr Blair confirmed that he discussed "military options" with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, 11 months before the March 2003 invasion.
He said: "It was obviously a possibility that military action would be the outcome of what was going to happen. So there was a general discussion of the possibility of going down the military route, but obviously we were arguing very much for that to be if the UN route failed."
But Mr Blair denied there had been a secret deal with the Americans to attack Iraq a year before the invasion.
