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By Caroline Alexander Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would have favored removing Saddam Hussein from power even with no evidence that the Iraqi leader had weapons of mass destruction, he said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. “I would still have thought it right to remove him,” Blair said when asked if he would have backed a war against Iraq knowing that Hussein didn’t have nuclear weapons. “Obviously, you would have had to use and deploy different arguments” to justify the war to lawmakers and the public, he told the BBC. The possibility that Hussein had nuclear weapons was only one factor behind his decision to support the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Blair said. The “notion” that Hussein presented a threat to the region was “uppermost” in his mind, he said. Blair has justified the invasion on the grounds that Hussein was in breach of United Nations-backed demands that his country abandon its weapons of mass destruction program. The former British leader said he sympathized with people opposed to the war, adding “but for me, you know, in the end I had to take the decision” and “I can’t really think we’d be better with him and his two sons still in charge.” Blair, who is now Middle East envoy for the so-called Quartet of the United Nations, is due to give evidence early next year to a British inquiry into his government’s decision to go to war against Iraq. He denied religion played a role in it, saying his faith had only sustained him through a very “difficult time.” Britain sent 40,000 troops to Iraq, the second largest contingent behind the U.S., contributing to a loss of support for Blair that played into his decision to step down in 2007. British combat troops carried out their last patrol in Iraq on April 30 and have left the country, according to the Ministry of Defence. The conflict claimed the lives of 179 British service personnel . The interview will be broadcast tomorrow on BBC One’s Fern Britton Meets interview program at 10 a.m. local time. A transcript was e-mailed to Bloomberg News. To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net

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Blair Tells BBC He Would Have Supported Iraq War Without Nuclear Evidence