British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday defended the war in Iraq, and brushed off a new question about a government memo that suggested Washington was determined to justify the invasion. "I was glad that we took the action we did," Blair told the House of Commons when asked about the so-called Downing Street memo. According to the leaked minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top government officials at his Downing Street office, Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of Britain's intelligence service, said the White House viewed military action against Saddam Hussein as inevitable. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," read the memo, seen by The Associated Press. "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." British lawmaker Adam Price asked Blair in the Commons Wednesday whether he believed Dearlove was a reliable source. "Is it safe to assume that Sir Richard's statement ... that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy was an accurate assessment of the intentions and actions of the Bush administration?" Price asked. Blair said the contents of that memo had already been covered by a high level independent probe in the British government's case for war in Iraq.
