9/11 attacks 'changed Saddam risk'

Jan 29 2010

The 9/11 attacks on the United States changed the "calculus of risk" posed by Saddam Hussein dramatically, Tony Blair said.

Opening his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq Inquiry, the former prime minister said that after the devastating attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 they could no longer afford to take the risk that Saddam could reconstitute his illegal weapons programmes.

"Up to September 11 we thought he was a risk but we thought it was worth trying to contain it. Crucially, after September 11 the calculus of risk changed," he said.

"If September 11 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 September 11, our view, the American view, changed and changed dramatically."

In opening exchanges, inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot told Mr Blair he would be required to confirm he had told the truth.

Mr Blair sought to play down his comments in a BBC interview with Fern Britton in which he said he would have thought it right to remove Saddam even if he had known that he did not have WMD. "I didn't use the words 'regime change' in that interview and I didn't mean in any sense to change the basis. Obviously, all I was saying was you cannot describe the nature of the threat in the same way if we knew then what we know now.

Mr Blair told the inquiry he believed Saddam was a "monster" before 9/11 but accepted that he would have to make the best of the situation.

He said the American mindset "changed dramatically" after the attacks, adding: "Frankly, mine had as well."

Shouts from anti-war protesters outside the inquiry venue in Westminster, central London, could be heard inside the building.

Mr Blair was accused of being a "coward" when he was driven into the Iraq Inquiry via a side entrance two hours before he was due to give evidence. He avoided having to confront hundreds of anti-war protesters who gathered outside the QEII Centre in Westminster to vent their anger at the former prime minister.