Blair: 9/11 sparked war
Friday 29th January 2010, 10:21AM GMT.
The 9/11 attacks on the United States changed the “calculus of risk” posed by Saddam Hussein dramatically, Tony Blair said today.
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.”
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Those who believe any words that come out this vile mans mouth are as guilty as him…also who actually still believes that 9/11 was NOT all part of their evil plans? If he is stating that we went to war on the basis of 9/11 that just makes him look even more guilty of knowing of 9/11 before it happened. The war is what he wanted and both he and Bush would do anything to get there. Disgusting
Report abuse
O ye hw flew into the towers himself.
Conspiricy theories are garbage
Report abuse
There are an awful lot of Iraqi’s who owe their lives to him as well. I think the war was a front and we followed Bush like lambs to the slaughter, but an evil man was also removed from power! The only problem now is the balance of power has now shifted to Iran, and thats what will eventually bite us
We all know WMD was an excuse to protect the oil fields, but he ran the country well for many years. This I think was his major downfall.
Report abuse
Which Iraqis owe their life to Blair? Certainly not the 2 million that have been butchered due to WMD’s that never existed and because Blair and Bush didn’t like who was running their country.
What if some foreign army came to the UK and butchered 2 million of us because they didn’t agree with the tyrants we have in power, do you think the family members of the 2 million butchered would be grateful to this foreign army?
Report abuse
The epopel of Iraq today owe their lives. To be bale to live with out worrying about secret police murdering them in their sleep. Saddam butchered over half a million of his own people. Far more than the coilition ever killed in the two wars fought.
Report abuse
4 million Iraqis have fled the country to refugee camps, that certainly is not living in peace, 2 million have been butchered, their family members are not living in peace, the country has been turned upside down, you really need to do some research.
Report abuse
Bad spelling sorry
Report abuse