Embattled Blair tries desperately to justify going to war

OPPONENTS of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein were willing to tolerate the Iraqi dictator’s atrocities, Tony Blair said yesterday, desperately trying to fend off continued attacks over the conflict.

Mr Blair’s impassioned Commons performance rallied the Labour benches behind him, but even some of his allies conceded that, as the case for war crumbles, the Prime Minister is being forced into increasingly extreme tactics in defence of his decision to invade Iraq.

In a heated Prime Minister’s Question Time, the first since British and American weapons inspectors confirmed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the war, Mr Blair also accused Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, of failing to support British troops in Iraq.

Despite his defiance, Mr Blair gave some ground yesterday, taking another step towards accepting that the purpose of the war was to topple Saddam, a position that would be hard to sustain in international law and could stir up resentment among even sympathetic Labour MPs.

Mr Blair and his officials had hoped that his public acceptance last month that the pre-war intelligence on Iraqi arms was wrong, and the partial apology he made for that, would finally help him put the furore over the war behind him and focus on domestic politics and the coming election.

But there was no respite yesterday, and political anger over the war shows no signs of abating. A small band of MPs including Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, is still trying to remove Mr Blair legally. Yesterday, they began drawing up articles of impeachment against the Prime Minister, which will be tabled early in the new year.

And in the Commons, Mr Howard targeted Mr Blair’s desire to put Iraq in the past, saying: "Before he can move on, there is one matter he must deal with - he didn’t accurately report the intelligence he received to the country. Will he now say sorry for that?"

Mr Blair responded by sticking to his finely nuanced line of apologising for the fact that pre-war intelligence was flawed, but refusing to admit that he had misrepresented that intelligence. "I take full responsibility for, and indeed apologise if information given in good faith has subsequently turned out to be wrong," he said.

"But I will not apologise for removing Saddam Hussein. I will not apologise for the conflict. I believe it was right then, is right now and is essential for the wider security of that region and the world."

He rounded on Mr Howard, accusing the Tory leader of "playing politics" over the war, since the Conservatives supported the decision to go to war and still do.

"It would be more helpful if he would back our troops out in Iraq, rather than doing what he is doing now," Mr Blair said, drawing an angry denial from Mr Howard.

The most serious attack on Mr Blair’s position came from an impromptu alliance of Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, and Bob Wareing, a Labour left-winger.

Mr Kennedy challenged Mr Blair over leaked Foreign Office papers showing that one of the Prime Minister’s aides in 2002 assured the US government that Britain was willing to back a policy of "regime change".

"He knows that regime change is contrary to international law. So where does all that leave the status of this war?" Mr Kennedy asked. "Isn’t it a fact now, and shouldn’t the Prime Minister accept, that he led us into an illegal war?"

At first the Prime Minister stuck to the legal position that the war was only a necessary consequence of upholding United Nations resolutions.

But Mr Wareing pointed out that in February last year, a month before the war, Mr Blair told MPs that Saddam could stay in power if he agreed to disarm.

"I detest his regime, but even now he could save it by complying with the UN’s demands," Mr Blair said at the time.

Confronted with those words, Mr Blair conceded that removing Saddam had become the purpose of the war. "The only way of enforcing the UN resolutions was regime change, and there had to be regime change," he said.

After that concession, Mr Blair immediately went back on the offensive. Describing the mass grave discovered yesterday, he accused critics of the war of being happy to allow such massacres.

• The Foreign Office warned last night that Britons in northern Iraq may be targeted by kidnappers following a "direct threat of kidnap to foreign nationals". The FO also warned that the number of attacks in Iraq was "likely" to increase during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting which starts on Friday.