Blair: War 'an act of liberation'
 |  Blair: Britain was right to say Saddam posed a threat |
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 The official findings on the quality of Britain's pre-war intelligence are out. Robin Oakley has details.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his decision to go to war against Iraq, insisting intelligence at the time left "little doubt" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
"Removing Saddam was not a war crime, it was an act of liberation for the Iraqi people," he told parliament to cheers from members of his ruling Labour Party.
He said everyone should now rejoice in that liberation and work together to build a new future for the Iraqi people.
Blair was facing MPs in Britain's House of Commons Tuesday in a debate on last week's Butler report into intelligence failings over Iraq.
Challenged by former Cabinet minister Clare Short, who quit her post over the conflict, Blair said confronted with the choice of backing away or making sure he was incapable of developing WMD: "I still think we made the right decision."
Blair said it was "absolutely clear" Saddam had every intention of carrying on developing weapons and procuring materials to do so. In terms of ballistic missiles he was going "way beyond" what he was allowed to do under U.N. resolutions.
The PM said the intelligence made it "absolutely clear" Britain was entitled to go back to the United Nations and insist Saddam posed a continuing threat.
Conservative opposition leader Michael Howard said Butler found the intelligence was "sporadic, patchy, little and limited." But Blair had presented it as "extensive, detailed and authoritative."
The PM had said he was taking responsibility for mistakes made. But he refused to say what these mistakes were, Howard said.
Howard said the PM had "not been straight with the British people today" and asked "why (for Blair) does sorry seem to be the hardest word?"
Former Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook warned the west would have to live with the "violent consequences" of the "strategic blunder" to invade Iraq for a decade to come.
Cook, who quit the Cabinet over the war, said Britain joined the conflict -- not because of intelligence reports but due to "regime change" in Washington and the election of George Bush as U.S. president.
In a damning intervention in the Iraq debate, he called for the government to "ditch the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike".
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said Blair should feel ashamed of the decisions he had taken.
He told Blair: "In the years to come in his most private moments as he reflects on all this... I do hope the prime minister might acknowledge a sense of personal shame too."
CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley said it was a defiant, confident performance from Blair and if there was any winner of the debate, it was the PM. No "smoking gun" emerged which could lead to his resignation, Oakley said.
There was no vote at the end of the debate.
Poll: Blair lied
In his report, former Cabinet Secretary Butler concluded the intelligence included in the Blair government's September 2002 dossier on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was "flawed."
But both politicians and secretary service chiefs had acted in good faith, Butler said.
Conservative leader Howard had stepped up the pressure on Blair ahead of the Commons showdown on the Butler findings.
Howard said at the weekend he could not have backed the government in a key vote on the invasion if he had known intelligence was flawed.
Blair only carried the vote authorizing him to commit British troops to action with the support of the opposition Conservatives, after 139 Labour MPs backed a rebel amendment. The Liberal Democrats, the smallest of the three main parties in the UK parliament, opposed the war.
In the Commons Tuesday Blair hit out at Howard for what he said was "shabby opportunism" after he said he would not now have voted in favour of the resolution to go to war.
Meanwhile, an opinion poll released in Britain Tuesday found a clear majority of voters believed Tony Blair lied over Iraq despite the Butler Report conclusions.
The ICM survey for the Guardian newspaper found 55 percent of those asked in the days after Butler presented his findings said Blair lied, while 37 percent said he told the truth.
