Tony Blair has emerged on CNN to make his first public comments on the Iraq inquiry since it opened last week.
He insists he’s ready to face scrutiny:
I’ve been through these issues many, many times over the past few years and I’m very happy to go through them again.
To which we can only reply: “So are we, Tony, so are we.”
Unsurprisingly, Blair denies the Mail on Sunday’s exclusive report that Lord Goldsmith wrote to him in July 2002 warning that removing Saddam Hussein from power would be illegal.
He also insists that he does not feel “betrayed” by the former US ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, who told the inquiry that Blair’s position on regime change “tightened” after the 2002 meeting at Bush’s Crawford ranch.
Blair ends, amusingly, by misquoting President Truman:
I think it was one of your presidents that once said, “If you can’t stand the heat don’t come into the kitchen”, and that’s my view of politics.
If Chilcot does his job (and I remain he confident he will), Blair will be wishing by the end that he was out of the kitchen.
Follow the New Statesman team on Twitter
Content from our partners
Related
