Blair says Sept. 11 changed 'calculus of risk'

The Sept. 11 attacks in the United States heightened thedangers posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, former British prime minister Tony Blair saidFriday as he defended his decision to take his country towar against Iraq.

"Up to Sept. 11, we thought he was a risk but we thought it was worth trying to contain it. The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed," Blair tolda British inquiry investigating the decision-making process that led up to the war.

"It's absolutely essential to realize this. If Sept. 11 hadn't happened, our assessment of the risk of allowing Saddam any possibility of his reconstituting his programs would not have been the same," Blair said. "After Sept. 11, our view the American view changed. And changed dramatically."

Blair said sanctions against Saddam, including those that preventedhim from gettingmaterial to create weapons of mass destruction, wereeroding.

The former prime minister saidthe risk of sticking with a strategy of trying to contain the Iraqi leaderwas no longer an option.

"It might have worked, it might not have worked. But it was at least as likely if notmore likely, I would say that it wouldn't work."

Perception changed

Blair acknowledged that what had changed was the perception of risk of WMDs and not the risk itself, as it was later foundthat Saddam did not possess such weapons.

"It wasn't that objectively [Saddam] had done more, it was that our perception of the risk had shifted," Blair said.

"If those people inspired by this religious fanaticism [on Sept. 11] could have killed 30,000, they would have. From that moment Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq ... all of this had to be brought to an end."

Blair stressed that the key issue in deciding to take military action against Iraq was WMDs, coupled withSaddam's continued defiance of the United Nations and calls for weapons inspections.

"The position was that it was the breach of the United Nations resolutions on WMD.That was the cause. It was then and it remains."

"In my view,we cannot afford the possibility that nations, particularly nations that are brutal rogue states, states that take an attitude that is wholly contrary to our way of life you cannot afford such states to be allowed to develop or proliferate WMD."