This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk_politics/8486052.stm

The article has changed 13 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 9 Version 10
Tony Blair on Iraq: Key questions Tony Blair on Iraq: Key responses
(about 4 hours later)
Tony Blair is making his long-awaited appearance before the UK's inquiry into the Iraq war. Here are some of the key questions he is facing. His answers will be added during the course of the evidence session. Tony Blair has made his long-awaited appearance before the UK's inquiry into the Iraq war. Here are some of the answers he gave to key questions.
ANY REGRETS?
Tony Blair: "In the end it was divisive and I'm sorry about that"
At the end of the six-hour session, inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot asked Mr Blair whether he had any regrets over Iraq.
"In the end it was divisive and I am sorry about that. I tried my level best to bring people back together again."
"But if I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better but our own security is better, with Saddam and his two sons out of power and out of office, then I believe, indeed, that we are."
"Responsibility but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein. I think that he was a monster, I believe he threatened not just the region but the world and in the circumstances that we faced then, but I think even if you look back now, it was better to deal with this threat and to remove him from office.
"I do genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result."
WATCH: Death toll 'not our fault'
CONSEQUENCE OF 9/11CONSEQUENCE OF 9/11
"If the people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000 they would have" The 9/11 attacks "dramatically changed" his thinking about what must done about Iraq, Mr Blair said, even though there was "no evidence" of links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.
Tony Blair told the Iraq inquiry his view of perceived threats from WMD changed after 9/11. "Up to 11 September, we thought he [Saddam Hussein] was a risk but we thought it was worth trying to contain it.
He said he believed terrorists would use chemical and biological weapons because "if those people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000 they would have. "If 11 September had not happened our assessment of the risk of allowing Saddam any possibility of him reconstituting his programmes would not have been the same. After 11 September, our views, the US view, changed and changed dramatically.
"My view was you could not take risks with this issue at all." "The point about this act in New York was that had they been able to kill even more people than those 3,000 they would have. And so after that time, my view was you could not take risks with this issue at all."
WATCH: 9/11 changed risk from WMD
WERE SANCTIONS WORKING?WERE SANCTIONS WORKING?
Mr Blair said that "containment" of Saddam Hussein's Iraq through sanctions had been "eroding", prior to the decision to invade the country. Mr Blair said the policy of trying to "contain" Iraq through sanctions had been steadily "eroding" and a plan for "smarter" sanctions, focusing on a specific list of prohibited items, was unlikely to work.
He was explaining to the inquiry the different options available for dealing with Saddam Hussein's regime prior to 2003. "This new framework of sanctions, to get it through the UN, had been watered down. Did I really think that a new sanctions framework was going to do the trick? No I didn't."
WATCH: Tony Blair on 'eroding' sanctionsWATCH: Tony Blair on 'eroding' sanctions
REGIME CHANGEREGIME CHANGE
"I couldn't describe the nature of the threat in the same way if I knew then what I know now""I couldn't describe the nature of the threat in the same way if I knew then what I know now"
As UK prime minister he said that ridding Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction was the reason for the war. There have been suggestions at the inquiry, partly prompted by a recent Fern Britton interview, that Mr Blair favoured regime change rather than being focused purely on disarming Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. He said there was danger of "a binary distinction" between regime change and disarmament.
But in July Mr Blair told Fern Britton that it was right to get rid of Saddam and even if there had not been the WMD issue "you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat". "The truth of the matter is that a regime that is brutal and oppressive - that for example has used weapons of mass destruction against its own people, as Saddam did, and had killed tens of thousands of people by the use of chemical weapons. Such a regime is a bigger threat if it has weapons of mass destruction than one that is otherwise benign."
He told the Chilcot inquiry he "did not use the words regime change in that interview", and said he meant he "couldn't describe the nature of the threat in the same way if you knew then what you know now". He said he had not shifted his stance that the basis for war was Iraq's failure to comply with its obligations to disarm.
"I did not use the words regime change in that interview. It was the breach of the UN resolutions on WMD, that was the cause. It was then and it remains."
WATCH: UK military chiefs 'up for Iraq'WATCH: UK military chiefs 'up for Iraq'
PRESIDENT BUSH DEAL WITH PRESIDENT BUSH?
Did Tony Blair tell US President George Bush at their meeting at his Crawford ranch in April 2002 that the UK would join the Americans in a war with Iraq? How firm was that commitment and was it dependent on going through the United Nations? Did Tony Blair tell US President George Bush at their meeting at his Crawford ranch in April 2002 that the UK would join the Americans in a war with Iraq?
"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.
"The only commitment I gave, and gave openly, was a commitment to deal with Saddam.
"What I was saying to President Bush is we are going to be with you in confronting and dealing with this threat.
"The one thing I was not doing was dissembling in that position. The position was not a covert position, it was an open position."
WATCH: Blair on his 'passion' for special relationship with the US WATCH: Blair on persuading the US to work on Israeli/ Palestinian peace processWATCH: Blair on his 'passion' for special relationship with the US WATCH: Blair on persuading the US to work on Israeli/ Palestinian peace process
THE 45-MINUTE CLAIMTHE 45-MINUTE CLAIM
Mr Blair was asked about the 45 minute claim and what it referred toMr Blair was asked about the 45 minute claim and what it referred to
The now discredited claim that Saddam Hussein could use chemical weapons within 45 minutes of giving an order was included in the September 2002 dossier. Mr Blair was asked about the claim that Saddam Hussein could use chemical weapons within 45 minutes of giving an order included in the September 2002 dossier.
Mr Blair was asked about the quality of evidence he received in that dossier. "I didn't focus on it a great deal at the time because it was mentioned by me and then, as I say, it was never actually mentioned again by me.
He was specifically questioned about what the 45 minute claim referred to. "It really assumed a vastly greater importance at a later time precisely because of the allegation, which was extraordinarily serious one that we, Downing Street, had deliberately falsified the intelligence which we, of course, had not."
But he said he should have responded to newspaper headlines by clarifying what the 45-minute claim referred to.
"It would have been better to have corrected it in the light of the significance it later took on."
WATCH: The hunt for WMD and the military timetableWATCH: The hunt for WMD and the military timetable
THE DOSSIERTHE DOSSIER
In his foreword to that 2002 dossier, Mr Blair said he believed what "the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons". But the inquiry has heard that there were a number of caveats in the intelligence. Why did he feel it was "beyond doubt"? Did Mr Blair stand by his claim, in the 2002 dossier, that intelligence had established "beyond doubt" that Iraq was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons?
LEGALITY OF WAR "What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons. I did believe it and I did believe it, frankly, beyond doubt.
The question of whether or not the war was legal has been a source of long-running controversy. Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith told the inquiry on Wednesday he had warned the PM that regime change could not justify war. Lord Goldsmith said he changed his mind on whether a second UN resolution was needed for the war to be legal only a few weeks before the invasion. He said he was surprised the cabinet did not discuss the war's legality. He also said Mr Blair had not welcomed his advice in 2002 that an invasion would be illegal. Is this the case and, if so, why? "I think you would have been hard pressed to have found virtually anybody who doubted he had WMD and WMD capability."
SECOND UN RESOLUTIONSECOND UN RESOLUTION
There have also been questions about why was it decided not to give the UN weapons inspectors more time inside Iraq in March 2003. Linked to this was the decision to pull the plug on attempts to get a second UN resolution authorising military action. Why were these decisions taken? Tony Blair said the UK tried hard to secure a second resolution but ultimately did not believe it was legally necessary to justify military action.
"A second resolution was obviously going to make life a lot easier, politically and in every respect.
"It all revolved around the interpretation of [resolution] 1441 and the question was what did the Security Council mean?"
"When you analyse 1441 it said one last chance and he [Saddam Hussein] didn't cooperate. I am just telling you to go back and read 1441 - it's pretty obvious you can make a decent case for this.
"There was at least as powerful an argument on the side of one resolution only as there was against it."
WATCH: 'UN resolution 1441 was strong'WATCH: 'UN resolution 1441 was strong'
JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR
Tony Blair said he stood by his decision and would do so again.
"The decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes.
"It is a decision, in the end, I believed and in the end so did the cabinet and so did parliament incidentally that we were right not to run the risk."
LEGALITY OF WAR
Tony Blair said the legal case hinged on Saddam Hussein ignoring the "one last chance" he was given
Tony Blair was asked why Attorney General Lord Goldsmith changed his mind on whether a second UN resolution was needed for the war to be legal only a few weeks before the invasion.
"Peter [Goldsmith], in the end, decided that a case could be made out for doing this without another resolution.
"What I needed to know from him, in the end, was he going to say this was lawful. He had to come to a conclusion on this.
"He wasn't alone in international law in coming to that conclusion. He would not have done it unless he had believed it and thought it was the correct thing to do. For us and for our armed forces that was sufficient."
POST-WAR PLANNINGPOST-WAR PLANNING
The inquiry has heard about failures in the planning for post-war Iraq. Confusion as to whether the US had a plan or not has been blamed by some at the inquiry. Mr Blair is also likely to be asked about criticism of him for the lack of priority given to post-war planning from people such as his former International Development Secretary Clare Short. The inquiry heard about failures in the planning for post-war Iraq, with Mr Blair answering criticism about the lack of preparation from people such as former International Development Secretary Clare Short.
"We didn't take a cavalier attitude to planning in the UK."
"If we knew then what we know now we would, of course, do things very differently. But for what we thought we were going to have, we had planned for it and we met those eventualities."
"When we go into a nation-building situation in future, we will be far better prepared and far better educated than we were then."
WATCH: Blair answers questions about post-war plans WATCH: Blair on hopeful signs in Iraq
EQUIPMENT SHORTAGESEQUIPMENT SHORTAGES
A number of the seats in the inquiry room have been allocated to the families of members of the British armed forces killed in Iraq. It is likely he will be asked about the numerous reports and claims in recent years about a lack of appropriate equipment for British servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tony Blair was asked about the numerous reports in recent years about a lack of appropriate equipment for British servicemen in Iraq.
JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR "I don't think I refused a request for money or for equipment at any point in the time that I was prime minister."
Given the loss of life among British servicemen and women, their allies and the loss of life amongst Iraqis since the 2003 invasion, does Tony Blair still believe the war was justified? "If anyone had come to me and said it is not safe to do this because of the lack of proper military preparation, I would have taken that very seriously. But they didn't and they got on with it."
WATCH: Blair: 'Military was ready for Iraq war'