Tony Blair admits he should have questioned dodgy intelligence on Saddam’s WMD threat
Former PM tells of his regret over MI6 claims in the run-up to the 2003 invasion

TONY Blair has admitted he should have challenged “more clearly” the flawed intelligence on which he based his case for invading Iraq.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, the former PM told of his regret at taking the now discredited information at face value.
He said: “I regret in retrospect that we didn’t challenge it [and] I understand the mistakes of planning.”
Asked if he did not challenge intelligence from MI6 chiefs that asserted Sadam had weapons of mass destruction because he wanted to believe it, Blair replied: “It wasn’t that I wanted to believe it - I did believe it and one of the reasons for that was because Saddam Hussein had used these weapons against his own people."
Blair’s latest bid to justify his role in the disastrous invasion comes a day after he was savaged in the Chilcot report.
He was accused of basing the case for war on flawed intelligence and sending in our troops poorly equipped.
The 2.3million word, 13-volume report found the former PM rushed to war prematurely, plotting with George Bush to oust Saddam Hussein as early as December 2001 - three months after 9/11.
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This morning he also told of his determination to support America following the attacks in 2001.
He said: "I wanted to make sure America did not feel alone. I did not want them to feel compelled to go it alone."
He also argued that had Saddam been left in power he “would have gone back to his [WMD] programmes again.”
Discussing the Arab Spring of 2011 he told of his conviction that if the Iraqi tyrant had not been toppled he would have clung on in the way Syria’s president Assad has done.
He also reiterated how the decision to invade Iraq has stayed with him ever since he made it, adding: "I think about it every day. It was the biggest decision I ever took in government. It was the most difficult decision I ever took.
"I can regret the mistakes and I can regret many things about it but I genuinely believe, not just that we acted out of good motives, and I did what I did out of good faith, but I sincerely believe that we would be in a worse position if we hadn't acted that way.
"I may be completely wrong about that."
Yesterday Mr Blair poured out his regrets over the 2003 invasion in a two-hour speech, insisting: “The world was, and is, in my judgement a better place without Saddam.”
He said he took full responsibility “without exception and without excuse” for the decision he made, and hoped future leaders would learn from the mistakes that were made.
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