BOURNEMOUTH, England, 1 October 2003 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair told anti-war critics in his ruling Labour Party yesterday he would “take the same decision again” to join the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Blair, whose trust ratings have plunged since the overthrow of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, conceded his decision to join the war had hurt, angered and disappointed many of his supporters.
“Iraq has divided the international community. It has divided the party, the country, families, friends,” he told delegates at the annual Labour Party Conference.
“I know many people profoundly believe the action we took was wrong,” Blair said. “I ask just one thing: attack my decision but at least understand why I took it and why I would take the same decision again”.
Blair faces the most testing period of his six-year rule. Doubts over his case for war have been fuelled by the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — Britain’s main justification for military action. A judicial inquiry into the suicide of a weapons expert who questioned parts of Britain’s dossier on Iraqi weapons has further undermined the prime minister. Blair said letters he received from parents of British soldiers who died in Iraq -both supportive and critical — offered him plenty to reflect on.
“Don’t believe anyone who tells you when they receive letters like that they don’t suffer any doubt.” But he insisted the danger from weapons of mass destruction represented the “security threat of the twenty-first century”.
“There was no easy choice. So whatever we each of us thought, let us agree on this: We who started the war must finish the peace.”
He pointedly opened his remarks saying he was the first Labour leader to address the conference after managing to stay in government for more than six years.
There were few apologies. Not for the Iraq war so unpopular with Labour’s left-wing activists and the wider public, nor for controversial reforms to schools and hospitals, which he said were vital for the 21st century.
Instead, in what amounted to a “back me or sack me” stance, he pledged to go on governing for years to come, a snub to supporters of his finance minister, Gordon Brown, who want their man to take the reins.
“I do not just want an historic third term,” Blair said. “Our aim must be an historic realignment of the political forces shaping our country and the wider world.”
The 20th Century was dominated by the right-wing Conservative Party, he said. Labour governments slipped quickly from euphoria to infighting, disillusion to defeat. “Here we are poised, 6-1/2 years in, with a fantastic opportunity to use or to lose. So what do we do. Give up on it or get on with it?” he asked. “Get on with it,” the crowd roared back.
Weekend opinion polls gave Labour its worst ratings since Blair became party leader in 1994 and swept to two successive landslide election victories. But Blair signaled no retreat on policies which have upset many on the left-wing of his party. “I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear,” he said.
