EU's Ashton backs Blair over Iraq war

(BRUSSELS) - EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, a former British minister, has backed her ex-boss Tony Blair over his decision to go to war in Iraq.

British peer Ashton was a junior education minister in then PM Blair's government when the decision was taken to invade Iraq in 2003, told AFP she stood by the decision.

"I was a member of the government we took a decision and you have to stand behind the decisions you take," she said in an interview.

"I was a junior minister in the government and therefore inevitably I wasn't privy to all the different elements of this, I believe that you decide that you stand by your government doing what it believes to be the right thing," she added.

Ashton comments came as Britain's Iraq war inquiry continues in London.

Blair has come under fire there from other members of his then government for the Iraq decision.

On Tuesday former minister Clare Short, who resigned over the Iraq war, dismissed Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein's ouster had made the world safer.

"Tony Blair's account of the need to act urgently somehow because of September 11 doesn't stack up to any scrutiny whatsoever," she said.

In Brussels Ashton, who described herself as "a European Union person" now, stuck by the original decision.

"I don't think you can do the hindsight game." she stressed.

"Tony Blair was our prime minister, he did what he believed and still believes to be the right thing and I was a member of the government and stood by that then," the EU's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said.

Blair said Friday he had no regrets about removing Saddam, whom he described as a "monster".

"The decision I took -- and frankly would take again -- was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction, we should stop him," he told the British enquiry.

When no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq, Britain faced questions about the intelligence used to make the case for war, including a key September 2002 dossier which claimed Saddam could launch WMD within 45 minutes.

It has since emerged this claim referred to battlefield weapons, and Blair admitted it should have been "corrected".