Extract from Statement on Iraq by Tony Blair taken from the official no.10 website www.number10.gov.uk

Madam Speaker, other questions arise about this military operation. Let me deal with some of them. Is it a specific objective to remove Saddam Hussein? The answer is it cannot be. No-one would be better pleased if his evil regime disappeared as a direct or indirect result of our action, but our military objectives are precisely those I have set out. Even if there was legal authority to do so, removing Saddam through military action would require the insertion of ground troops on a massive scale hundreds of thousands, as the British Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Charles Guthrie, made clear this morning. Even then there would be no absolute guarantee of success. I cannot make that commitment responsibly.

And yet he did
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