SPECIAL: Poodle Blair Still Licks W's Fingers
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8485694.stm

Tony Blair has denied striking a "covert" deal with George Bush to
invade Iraq at a private meeting in 2002 at the US president's ranch.

He told the Iraq inquiry there was no secret about what was said - that
Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with and "the method of doing that is open".

The former prime minister was also quizzed about the claim Saddam could
launch weapons at 45 minutes' notice.

He said "it would have been better" if headlines about it had been
corrected.

The inquiry has now broken for lunch.

Mr Blair used the morning session to mount an impassioned defence of the
decision to go to war, telling the inquiry: "This isn't about a lie or a
conspiracy or a deceit or a deception.

"It's a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's
history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million
people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN
resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his
weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to
take?"
-bbcnews.com