Tony Blair...Can We Elect Him President?

Here's what he said earlier today:

"I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all. There was no conspiracy. There was no impropriety. Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam.



“No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end. But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy. I have searched my conscience, not in the spirit of obstinacy, but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. And my answer would be that the evidence of Saddam’s WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time. But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme. On any basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability. The only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep . . . Had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got progress on Libya . . . and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened. For any mistakes made, as the report finds, in good faith, I of course take full responsibility. But I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all.



“I took the view then and stand by it now that no Prime Minister faced with this evidence could reasonably afford to ignore it. After September 11 it was time to take an active as opposed to reactive position on the whole question of WMD."