Blair says UK 'should be proud'

Blair is to visit the US

The UK "should be proud" of what it has done to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair has said.

The prime minister said nobody was in any doubt of the security threat the Iraqi dictator had posed, even though he accepted there "may be different ways of dealing with it".

Mr Blair, who is set to visit the United States later this week, also said he stood "entirely" by the intelligence ministers had shared with the public in the run up to the war.

His comments followed Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's assertion that the CIA had believed claims made by the British government that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger.

We should be proud as a country of what we have done Tony Blair

Speaking at a summit for centre left leaders, Mr Blair said: "When we have over the past couple of days taken the first steps for Iraqi people actually to take control of their own lives and we have the United Nations talking about 300,000 people (dead) and mass graves, then I believe we should be proud that Saddam has gone, glad that he has gone.

"And I have no doubt at all in the future, whatever the differences there have been in the past, we can reconstruct Iraq as a stable and prosperous country and the world will be a more secure place as a result.

"And we should be proud as a country of what we have done."

Apology

Earlier, Mr Straw appeared to say there was no split between the UK and US over the allegation that Saddam was seeking to buy uranium from Niger.

Both the UK and the US used the claim as they built the case for going to war over Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The US CIA believed in the veracity of the claims which we had made ... about the fact that the Iraqis were seeking the purchase of uranium from Niger Jack Straw

But controversy has raged since the CIA and the White House decided to back away from the claim, while the UK Government has continued to insist that it was well founded.

CIA director George Tenet has apologised for allowing President Bush to use the claim - even though attributed to the British government - in his State of the Union address in January.

The CIA says the intelligence was based on false paperwork which American agents revealed as forgeries - but the UK insists it has separate evidence.

Foreign sources

But Mr Straw defended the decision to include the allegation in Britain's dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons published last September.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the information came from foreign intelligence sources, and because of that, Britain could not tell the US who had provided the evidence for the claim.

Bush aide backs uranium claim

But, Mr Straw said: "The US Central Intelligence Agency believed in the veracity of the claims which we had made, and also from other sources quite separate from British sources, about the fact that the Iraqis were seeking the purchase of uranium from Niger, not that they bought it, but they were seeking it, quite late on last year and that ran through, I think, into January."

US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has also said the claim was substantiated by several sources.

Disagreement

But she said it still was not of the calibre of intelligence needed for it to be included in a presidential speech.

The apparent disagreement could make Mr Blair's visit to the US an uncomfortable one with the prime minister already under pressure over the validity of his stated reasons for going to war.

Tenet has apologised for allowing the president to use the claims

At the weekend, the former chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, criticised the UK's claim in September last year that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

Mr Blix said Mr Blair was "fundamentally mistaken" over the claim.

As the row over weapons of mass destruction continues, Mr Straw revealed that technical documentation and centrifuge parts "which are necessary for the enrichment of uranium" had been found buried at the home of an Iraqi scientist in the centre of Baghdad.

He said it was difficult to believe there was any purpose for burying these items "except that preparations were being made for the further development of a nuclear programme".