Former British prime minister Tony Blair has robustly defended his decision to take Britain into the Iraq war.
Speaking at the UK's Iraq inquiry, Mr Blair said the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 changed his attitude towards the then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Although Iraq was not involved in the attacks, Mr Blair said they affected his assessment of where there were risks for security.
Mr Blair disagreed with suggestions from earlier witnesses that he'd agreed to go to war during a conversation with US president George Bush in 2002.
He there was no lie or conspiracy, but when the time came, a decision had to be taken about the war and it's one he would take again.
He said the policy of containing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme had failed and the former Iraqi leader had to be dealt with.
Blair stands by weapons claim
Asked about the controversial claim in a September 2002 dossier that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes notice, Mr Blair said it would have been better if newspaper headlines about the claim had been corrected, in light of the significance it later took on.
Looking back, he would have made it clearer the claim referred to battlefield munitions, not missiles, and would have preferred to publish the intelligence assessments by themselves as they were "absolutely strong enough".
But Mr Blair said that, on the basis of the intelligence available at the time, he stood by his claim at the time that it was "beyond doubt" Iraq was continuing to develop its weapons capability.
