Blair Says Government Stronger After "testing Time"

LONDON, July 22 (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged Thursday he had been through a "testing time" amid controversy over intelligence failings on Iraq, but said his government had emerged stronger than before.
"Without any doubt this has been a testing time over the past few months but the government has come through it strengthened and renewed," Blair told a monthly press conference.
"There are big challenges ahead, undoubtedly. But I think we can look forward, with renewed confidence, and indeed some optimism, that we are going to meet those challenges successfully. It's our job to set out how in the months to come."
Blair appears to have escaped largely unscathed from a torrid period following an official report last week which concluded that Britain went to war in Iraq on the basis of flawed intelligence.
An inquiry headed by former top civil servant Lord Robin Butler found that information about Iraq's alleged stocks of weapons of mass destruction -- Blair's main reason for joining the US-led conflict -- was generally very shaky.
But the prime minister has remained defiant, even when answering a tricky question Thursday about whether he should apologise to the families of British troops killed in Iraq for sending them to war on a false premise.
Blair said he had great sympathy for the feelings of bereaved relatives, but remained convinced the war was "necessary, for the security of this country and the security of the wider world".
"And I can't say that I believe that to be wrong," he said.
"I still believe that had we backed away from enforcing United Nations resolutions against Iraq, then we would have left not just Saddam (Hussein) in charge of Iraq, we would have left Iraq an unsafe, unsecure country, who did pose a threat, on what we know now, to the region, and that would have been the wrong thing to do.
Blair said he believed the British troops killed in Iraq "gave their lives in a cause that was important for our security, for the security of the wider world."
He added: "And we have the prospect now -- there is a massive amount still to do -- of turning Iraq into a stable and democratic country, which will have a huge impact, without any doubt at all, on the stability and security of our world.
The press grilling was among the last chores faced by Blair before an imminent and most likely very welcome summer respite.
Parliament was closing for a seven-week recess later Thursday, with only an expected minor reshuffle of ministers still to be undertaken by the prime minister.