he Blair defence: September 11 changed the \'calculus of risk\'

London : The Chilcot inquiry heard that Tony Blair\'s \"mindset\" dramatically changed on 11 September 2001. The attacks had a profound influence on his approach to risks and threats, including now from Iran, a country he named on numerous occasions. \"The crucial thing after September 11 was the calculus of risk changed,\" he said in his opening evidence. \"I never regarded September 11 as an attack on America, I regarded it as an attack on us.\"

He made clear, therefore, that it did not matter there was no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida: Britain, and the US, could no longer tolerate the risk posed by countries that had, or wanted to acquire, weapons of mass destruction.

September 11 \"completely changed our assessment of where the risks lay\", Blair told the inquiry. He added: \"The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful message after September 11 – if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop.\" That was particularly the case with \"brutal\" regimes. \"The nature of the regime did make a difference to the nature of the WMD threat,\" Blair insisted.

He said that was why \"today\" he believed Iran, a country \"linked up with terrorist groups\", posed a particularly dangerous threat. He referred to intelligence on Saddam\'s plans to acquire nuclear weapons. He added: \"We face the same problem about Iran today.\"

The former prime minister persisted with the theme of combined risks and threats when he was asked why he believed the time had come to invade Iraq in March 2003. He replied: \"It\'s a judgment we had to make. After September 11, I wasn\'t willing to run that risk … it is not about a lie, a deception, a conspiracy. It is a decision. Could we take that risk? … what this is all about is a risk.
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