Removal of Saddam Hussein 'right', says Tony Blair .

Let's remember that regime change is illegal and then consider Blair's latest statement:

Speaking on BBC One's Fern Britton Meets programme, Mr Blair was asked whether he would still have gone on with invasion plans had he known at the time that there were no WMDs.

He said: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat."

He added: "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge, but it's incredibly difficult and I totally understand...

I have no doubt that someone as slippery as Blair could concoct "different arguments", but, once one removed the danger of attack from WMD, I wonder whether Blair could have come up with a legal argument for removing Saddam which complied with current international law?

We know that he couldn't, which is why he has since argued that international law is wrong and that intervention should be allowed to remove dictators.

It's the nearest thing we have ever had from Blair to an admission that, under current international law, what he did was illegal. When people like Blair start arguing that what they did was "right", they are often using a moral argument precisely because they lack a legal one.

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Tags: Blair, Iraq war, legality