Tony Blair has insisted he should not be defined by the Iraq war in which hundreds of British troops died or were injured – but instead be judged by his government’s ‘immense amount of good things’.
The former Prime Minister, who was in power from 1997 until 2007, has opened up about his time in office in a new three-part Channel 4 documentary series.
Members of his family including his wife Cherie have also contributed to the programme in which he was probed over the Iraq intervention.
Some 179 UK troops died in Operation Telic that began with a US-launched and UK-backed so-called ‘shock and awe’ onslaught in March 2003, running until May 2011.
Official figures from the Ministry of Defence show that another 3,598 members of the British armed forces were injured in Iraq.
In footage due to be screened in the second episode of the three-part series, on Wednesday, Sir Tony tells his interviewer: ‘You know, you asked me a lot about Iraq and everything.
‘But I always say to people – look, we did an immense amount of good things and this country, on the day I left in June 2007, was a strong, capable country.
‘And in my view, and I’m entitled to it, as people are entitled to their view, if we’d stuck with that strong centre-ground government and we hadn’t got into the mess we have got into as a country we would be in a much more powerful position today.’
The former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair has been speaking as part of a new three-part Channel 4 documentary series about the ex-Labour leader
Sir Tony (right) was questioned about his support for the US and UK-headed invasion of Iraq in which he was allied with US president George W Bush (left) – pictured in November 2003
Sir Tony, 72, also he was inspired by the 1993 film Schindler’s List to decide that he could not be a ‘bystander’ and owed ‘some responsibility to the bigger world’.
Supporters of Sir Tony’s New Labour administration point to achievements such as introducing the national minimum wage, trebling NHS funding and the Northern Irish peace process.
The first instalment of the Channel 4 series, called ‘Who Are You?’ and to be screened at 9pm on Tuesday, covers what producers call Sir Tony’s ‘early traumas that drove him on in politics’.
It also includes him telling of an ‘extraordinary premonition that Labour leader John Smith would die, as he then did in 1994 ahead of Blair’s election as his replacement.
Wednesday’s second episode, titled ‘Iraq’, covers the New Labour government’s travails after winning re-election in 2001 – a second landslide, four years on from Sir Tony’s first, but which would be dominated by post-9/11 interventions.
The documentary-makers say Sir Tony’s ‘leading role in building support for the US-led war in Afghanistan’ was partly motivated by his ‘belief in the duty to go out into the world and act’ – as well as his religious faith.
Opponents of the Iraq war are featured, along with other talking heads such as ex-US President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Members of Sir Tony’s family are also interviewed – including his wife Cherie, who suggests he is a better politician than a husband.
Sir Tony Blair is seen here with the new Channel 4 series’ director Michael Waldman
The series covers Sir Tony’s life including his upbringing, his rise to the Labour leadership and general election victories such as in 1997 (pictured during that year’s campaign)
Sir Tony says in the new series: ‘You know, you asked me a lot about Iraq and everything. But I always say to people – look, we did an immense amount of good things’
In a candid TV interview, Lady Blair also revealed he took it ‘badly’ when she got a chance to stand for Parliament before he did.
And she denied she had been a ‘Lady Macbeth figure’ in Downing Street, insisting he has never been her puppet.
As the Daily Mail told last week, Lady Blair, 71, admitted Sir Tony had ‘lost contact with reality’ by the time he resigned after a decade in No 10.
She told the programme: Your skill as a politician is about knowing about the people and living with the people and understanding what the people want.
‘Ten years of living in the goldfish bowl, you kind of lose contact with reality.’
She added that Sir Tony – who is the longest-serving Labour prime minister in British history – ‘can make people think they hear what they want to hear’.
In the three-part series, Lady Blair is asked about her husband’s flaws – and replies: ‘He is an amazing politician.
‘As a husband and as a human being, that’s a different matter, but that’s really between me and him.’
Family members have also taken part in the series including Sir Tony’s wife Lady (Cherie) Blair
She has also told of Sir Tony lacking in romantic gestures – laughing as she said: ‘No, not really. Tony’s not very romantic. He’s never bought me flowers.’
Lady Blair was chosen by Labour as the party’s candidate for North Thanet in the 1983 general election.
Although she lost, she was selected before Sir Tony won a last-minute scramble to stand in Sedgefield.
Asked how her husband coped when she was offered a seat before him, she admitted: ‘Badly. He felt he had missed his chance. I was going to go and fight a hopeless seat, but at least I was fighting a seat.’
Lady Blair also told how she encouraged her husband to let other politicians make a challenge for the Labour leadership, apart from Gordon Brown who is said to have thought Sir Tony promised it to him.
‘I was saying to him you need to make space for others [other] than Gordon to come forward,’ she said.
‘And he would always say to me, “I cannot choose my successor”. And I would say, ‘By not doing that, you’re effectively choosing Gordon’.’
When asked about the accusation that she was a ‘sort of Lady Macbeth figure’, she replied: ‘I thought that was a joke.
‘I thought it was Gordon who described me as Lady Macbeth. If anyone thinks Tony’s my puppet, they just don’t understand the nature of the man.’
Lady Blair also told of Sir Tony lacking in romantic gestures – laughing as she said: ‘No, not really. Tony’s not very romantic. He’s never bought me flowers’
ir Tony’s grown-up children Euan, Kathryn and Leo feature in the documentary series, along with his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.
Mr Campbell talks about a moment when he found Sir Tony at his desk in No. 10 late at night following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
He says: ‘It was one of those moments when I wished I could paint. It was an absolute portrait in the isolation of power.’
Mr Campbell adds of Sir Tony: ‘He had real energy and restlessness.’
Series director Michael Waldman wrote in the Radio Times last week how Sir Tony’s ‘self-assurance rarely cracks, even when interrogated about what many view as his gravest mistake, the invasion of Iraq’.
Mr Waldman added: ‘Despite this conviction, what emerges is a level of emotion and psychological introspection that’s rarely been seen on camera.’
The Tony Blair Story airs on Tuesday 17 February, Wednesday 18 February and Thursday 19 February at 9pm on Channel 4.
