Rant of the Week: Sorry is the hardest word

So Tony Blair has uttered an apology "of sorts" then.

"The problem is I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam," he said. "The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."

But Mr Blair, no-one is asking you to apologise for removing Saddam. Even the most ardent anti-war protestor could not argue that getting rid of Saddam was A Good Thing. He was guilty of countless atrocities against his people, and if Blair and Bush had gone to war citing this reason the protests would not have been on such a massive scale. But no, we went to war because of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction, and his contravention of United Nations Resolution 1441.

Hang on, though, we ask. Surely if he was in breach of a resolution, that was a good reason to declare war? No, not really, because resolution 1441 was in relation to allowing weapons inspectors to view all of his stockpiles of weapons. He was in violation of this, we were told, because he was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and was not revealing them to the weapons inspectors.

But if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then surely he was not in breach of resolution 1441? So therefore, this reason for going to war is invalidated. I know that subsequently, stockpiles of "normal" weapons were found which had not been declared, which strictly speaking put Saddam in violation of 1441, but this was not the case that the US and UK were pressing. The majority of the UN were in favour of allowing the inspectors more time to finish their job. But the US and the UK were not in favour of this - we didn't have time, we were told. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ready to be unleashed at any moment (possibly even within 45 minutes...).

So the war went ahead, and so did the protests. I was a member of the march in London. I marched because I thought we were not doing things properly. We should have followed the advice of the UN. The majority of us also thought this was a botched attempt at an invasion led by Satan's own bottom-wiper, Rumsfeld, which had given little thought to what would happen after Saddam was deposed. Well, good thing we weren't proven right in this case isn't it? oh....

But back to Tony Blair. It was a joy to hear him on the ropes in an interview with John Humphreys on Today this morning. He received the kind of grilling that has been sorely lacking from any member of the so-called opposition in this country. He was really floundering to justify his actions, but he could have got out of this situation by simply giving the people what they want. What people want is for him to come out and say "I am sorry for leading the country to war on a false basis." We wouldn't mind if he followed this up with "...but I am not sorry for removing Saddam." We just want an acknowledgement of his own error of judgement, instead of a constant attempt to justify his actions on an increasingly fragile basis. And until he admits this, then he will ensure that he goes down in history as the second-most reviled Prime Minister in history (lets face it, no-one will ever be hated as much as Thatcher, loathsome woman that she is).