British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today he stood by his decision to go to war in Iraq and insisted he has nothing to apologise for over the invasion.
As delegates arrived in Bournemouth for the Labour Party conference, the Prime Minister said he was "proud" of the achievement of British troops.
Tens of thousands of people marched in London and across the world yesterday in protest at the continuing occupation of Iraq by US-led forces.
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"I think we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein. I think the world is a safer place," he told BBC1's
Breakfast With Frost
. "I don't think we have anything to apologise for as a country. I think our soldiers did an absolutely magnificent job. I think they are absolute heroes in what they have done.
"I believe as powerfully as I did at the time that making sure that that man is no longer in charge of Iraq is a good thing for his country, the region and the world.
"I don't apologise for Iraq. I am proud of what we have done."
Mr Blair said he still believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, despite the failure of the coalition forces to find them. "We know perfectly well that he had those weapons and that he had those programmes," he said.
He dismissed a claim by the former UN chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix that Saddam probably got rid of his weapons in 1991 after the first Gulf War.
"Why on earth was he obstructing the inspectors all the way through the 1990s? Why did we have to go, as we did with America, to bomb Baghdad in 1998 when the inspectors were driven out?" he asked. "I find that absolutely extraordinary but time will tell."
He was speaking after the worst set of opinion polls in his six-year premiership appeared in the newspapers and after tens of thousands of people marched in London and across the world yesterday in protest at the continuing occupation of Iraq by US-led forces.
Both voters and the Labour party faithful showed their disillusionment with Mr Blair, who first led the party out of the political wilderness in 1997 to a landslide election victory.
Forty-one per cent of party members polled by the Observerwanted Mr Blair to step down before the next election. Sixty-four per cent of voters polled by the News Of The Worldno longer trusted Mr Blair. A Sunday Timespoll showed Labour's support had fallen to just 30 per cent.
In an Observerinterview, Mr Blair conceded to feeling "battered" after months of bad news, but he showed no signs of backing down over Iraq or health and education reforms.
He warned that al-Qaeda was still very much a potent threat.
"It's not as if al-Qaeda isn't still doing whatever it can do," he said. "If you look at what's happening in Chechnya, or in Palestine or in India or in Indonesia, how long is it before it does something really spectacular again?" he asked.