Former British prime minister Tony Blair has said he stands by his decision to support the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, because the removal of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was “necessary”.
In a TV documentary about his time in Downing Street, Mr Blair addressed widespread criticism of his action, but insisted it was the right thing to do.
“For me there were two considerations. One: was it better to leave Saddam or remove him, for the security of the world? And number two: to be with America or not?” he said in the Channel 4 programme The Tony Blair Story.
Mr Blair backed the US-led military invasion despite public opposition to the war in the UK. The decision eventually led to his downfall as a prime minister.
In a confidential memo sent to then US president George Bush that was made public in 2016, Mr Blair said he was “with you, whatever”.
Jack Straw, his former home secretary, told the documentary it was “not his best moment”. “I don't know quite to this day why he sent it. My anxiety was this could also be seen as a blank cheque by the US, and the consequence of that would be that our leverage would be reduced,” Mr Straw said.
Mr Blair rejected claims that the letter expressed unconditional support for the US in all decisions, but said it showed he was aligned with Mr Bush on the policy of removing Saddam.
“I was going to be with them in dealing with Saddam because I believed that was necessary and still do,” he told Channel 4.
He claimed he was considering alternatives to a military invasion “until the last minute”.
“I was actually trying to persuade the Americans to do something different. I wanted to go through a UN process. I wanted to rally the world as much as possible. I thought it was possible we could get Saddam to agree to the conditions that we wanted,” he said.
“I knew it was going to be immensely difficult. Even until the last minute I was trying to find a way that we could secure the removal of Saddam, that we could do it differently,” he said.
“It hadn't always been the tradition that you put these things to a vote in the House of Commons, but we did. All wars are wars of choice,” he said.
The US made regime change in Iraq part of its official policy in 1998 under then president Bill Clinton. But it was not until the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 that a military invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam was discussed as a serious possibility.
The Bush administration, backed by the UK, claimed Saddam held weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to the US and Europe.
The Iraqi dictator had used chemical weapons against his own people, killing thousands of Kurds during the Anfal campaign in 1988, and again during the uprisings against his rule by Kurds and Shiites in 1991.
But stockpiles of chemical weapons were never found after the US-led invasion, leading to accusations that the American administration had misled the public to justify its operation.
Approximately 4,800 US and coalition personal were killed during the occupation of Iraq, and the sectarian violence that erupted after the removal of Saddam led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
The possibility of UK involvement in the war triggered a public backlash and mass protests. Former Downing Street communications director Alistair Campbell said Mr Blair had not slept on the night before a major Stop the War march was planned in London.
The march attracted more than one million people and became the largest political demonstration in UK history.
“He felt frustrated that a lot of the things Saddam Hussein had done previously were being pushed aside, not least his use of chemical weapons, not least the torture chambers, not least the executions,” Mr Campbell said.
