JEREMY PAXMAN: Good evening, welcome to a Newsnight special in which we'll be cross-examining the Prime Minister on the confrontation with Iraq.
After yesterday's performance at the UN America looks more determined than ever to go to war.
Our government is George Bush's closest ally yet many here and around the world would not believe the case for war has been made.
Tonight in the Baltic Centre in Gateshead we've invited the Prime Minister to face an audience of ordinary people from here in the north-east, all of whom are sceptical about the arguments for war with Iraq.
Facing them is the Prime Minister. He has confessed himself worried he has not yet made the case for war.
Tonight, taking questions from our audience and from me he'll have the chance to do so.
Prime Minister, for you to commit British forces to war there has to be a clear and imminent danger to this country - what is it?
TONY BLAIR: The danger is that if we allow Iraq to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons they will threaten their own region, there is no way that we would be able to exclude ourselves from any regional conflict there was there as indeed we had to become involved last time they committed acts of external aggression against Kuwait.
JEREMY PAXMAN: But right now there is no danger, it's a danger some time in the future.
TONY BLAIR: I've never said that Iraq was about to launch an attack on Britain but if you look at the history of Saddam Hussein there is absolutely no doubt at all that he poses a threat to his region.
If he was to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the rest of his region, there is no way that Britain could stand aside from that, or indeed the rest of the world.
And that is precisely why we have had 12 years of United Nations resolutions against him.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Well you said of those UN resolutions and the sanctions which followed them in the year 2000, you said that they had contained him. What's happened since?
TONY BLAIR: I didn't actually, I said they'd been contained him up to a point and the fact is - ¿
JEREMY PAXMAN: I'm sorry Prime Minister - we believe that the sanctions regime has effectively contained Saddam Hussein in the last ten years, you said that in November 2000.
TONY BLAIR: Well I can assure you I've said every time I'm asked about this, they have contained him up to a point and the fact is the sanctions regime was beginning to crumble, it's why it's subsequent in fact to that quote we had a whole series of negotiations about tightening the sanctions regime but the truth is the inspectors were put out of Iraq so -
JEREMY PAXMAN: They were not put out of Iraq, Prime Minister, that is just not true. The weapons inspectors left Iraq after being told by the American government that bombs will be dropped on the country.
TONY BLAIR: I'm sorry, that is simply not right. What happened is that the inspectors told us that they were unable to carry out their work, they couldn't do their work because they weren't being allowed access to the sites.
They detailed that in the reports to the Security Council. On that basis, we said they should come out because they couldn't do their job properly.
JEREMY PAXMAN: That wasn't what you said, you said they were thrown out of Iraq -
TONY BLAIR: Well they were effectively because they couldn't do the work they were supposed to do
JEREMY PAXMAN: No, effectively they were not thrown out of Iraq, they withdraw.
TONY BLAIR: No I sorry Jeremy, I'm not allowing you away with that, that is completely wrong. Let me just explain to you what happened.
JEREMY PAXMAN: You've just said the decision was taken by the inspectors to leave the country. They were therefore not thrown out.
TONY BLAIR: They were effectively thrown out for the reason that I will give you. Prior to them leaving Iraq they had come back to the Security Council, again and again, and said we are not being given access to sites. For example, things were being designated as presidential palaces, they weren't being allowed to go in there.
As a result of that, they came back to the United Nations and said we can't carry out the work as inspectors; therefore we said you must leave because we will have to try and enforce this action a different way. So when you say the inspectors, when you imply the inspectors were in there doing their work, that is simply not the case.
JEREMY PAXMAN: I did not imply that, I merely stated the fact that they were not thrown out, they were withdrawn. And you concede they were withdrawn.
TONY BLAIR: They were withdrawn because they couldn't do their job. I mean let's not be ridiculous about this, there's no point in the inspectors being in there unless they can do the job they're put in there to do.
And the fact is we know that Iraq throughout that time was concealing its weapons.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Right.
TONY BLAIR: Well hang on, you say right, they were concealing their weapons, they lied both about the existence of their nuclear weapons programme and their biological weapons programme and it was only when people were interviewed, when they defected from the Iraq regime and were interviewed, that we discovered the existence, full existence of those programmes at all.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Has not Colin Powell demonstrated yesterday, quite conclusively, that a regime in which those weapons inspectors are back in Iraq is one in which it is impossible for Saddam Hussein to continue developing weapons of mass destruction?
TONY BLAIR: No, because what he is doing is engaging in a systematic campaign of concealment and what Colin Powell was doing yesterday was giving evidence, for example, intelligence evidence and other evidence, of direct conversations which are evidence of the concealment is happening.
We still don't know, for example, what has happened to the thousands of litres of botulin and anthrax that were unaccounted for when the inspectors left in 1999. So, you know, the idea that -
JEREMY PAXMAN: And you believe American intelligence?
TONY BLAIR: Well I do actually believe this intelligence -
JEREMY PAXMAN: Because there are a lot of dead people in an aspirin factory in Sudan who don't.
TONY BLAIR: Come on. This intelligence is backed up by our own intelligence and in any event, you know, we're not coming to this without any history. I mean let's not be absurdly naïve about this -
JEREMY PAXMAN: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence of hiding of weapons.
TONY BLAIR: I'm sorry, what Hans Blix has said is that the Iraqis are not cooperating properly.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence, either of weapons manufacture, or that they had been concealed.
TONY BLAIR: No, I don't think again that is right. I think what he said was that the evidence that he had indicated that the Iraqis were not cooperating properly and that, for example, he thought that the nerve agent VX may have been weaponised.
And he also said that the discovery of the war heads might be - I think I'm quoting here - may be the tip of an iceberg. I think you'll find that in that report.
JEREMY PAXMAN: You produced a dossier last September in which you outlined Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. All the sites in that report were visited by UN inspectors who found no evidence of the weapons or no evidence of there having been hidden.
TONY BLAIR: I'm sorry, it is absolutely clear what has been happening over the past few months, which is of course, I mean the moment we mentioned those in our intelligence reports we were aware of the fact that the Iraqis would then have a significant period of time in which they could conceal these weapons.
But, you know, if this were some country that we had no history of this problem with and this was the first time anyone had ever raised the issue, there might be a point in what you're saying. It is absurd in the case -
JEREMY PAXMAN: But you concede it's true -
TONY BLAIR: I don't concede it's true at all. It is absurd¿
JEREMY PAXMAN: Well, your own foreign minister Mike O'Brian said it is true.
TONY BLAIR: It is absurd to say in a situation where Iraq has definitely had these weapons, developed them over a long period of time, concealed them, that there is nothing to be suspicious of when they can't even account for the weapons that we know were there when the Inspectors left in 1999.
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