A defiant British Prime Minister Tony Blair hit back Tuesday at critics of his decision to go to war in Iraq based on intelligence later condemned as flawed, insisting he had made "the right decision".
In a crucial parliamentary debate about an official inquiry last week which found that much of the pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) had turned out to be unreliable, Blair was unrepentant.
"I still think we made the right decision," he said of last year's US-led war to remove Saddam Hussein, strongly supported by the prime minister despite heavy opposition at home.
An inquiry team led by former top civil servant Lord Robin Butler cleared Blair last Wednesday of any deliberate wrongdoing but cast doubt on much of the information about Baghdad's illegal weapons stocks.
Blair has since come under intense pressure from opponents to explain how he interpreted this seemingly shaky intelligence as showing Baghdad posed an immediate threat to the West, his primary argument for backing the war.
However in a combative performance, Blair stuck to his guns, saying the intelligence had been overwhelming at the time.
"The intelligence really left little doubt about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," Blair told parliament.
The information "made it absolutely clear that we were entirely entitled on the basis of that to go back to the United Nations and say there was a continuous threat from Saddam Hussein," he said.
Facing a barrage of hostile questions from lawmakers, Blair insisted Saddam's intentions had been obvious, irrespective of whether or not any actual weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were found following the fall of Baghdad.
"It was absolutely clear that he (Saddam) had every intention to carry on developing these weapons, that he was procuring materials to do so and that, for example in respect of ballistic missiles, he was going way beyond what was permitted by the United Nations," Blair said.
The prime minister vehemently defended his decision to go to war, saying Britain had entered into it "with a clear conscience and a strong heart".
"Removing Saddam was not a war crime, it was an act of liberation for the Iraqi people," he said to cheers from members of his ruling Labour Party.
Opposition lawmakers insisted, however, that Blair still had a lot of explaining to do over why the intelligence had proved so wrong.
"Why won't the prime minister just come clean, why doesn't he just tell us why he did it?" taunted Michael Howard, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, who backed the war in principle.
"He has got to demonstrate a genuine contrition for the mistakes that have undoubtedly taken place," added Charles Kennedy, head of the Liberal Democrats, who opposed the conflict.
Blair did make some minor concessions, announcing that he would change way the government dealt with intelligence following criticisms in the Butler report.
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