ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Sept. 28 - Blair & Bush Defiant Over Iraq.

UK PM Blair tells BBC at the start of his Labour Party's annual conference: "I don't apologise for Iraq. I am proud of what we have done". Blair (like Bush in a radio address on Sept. 27), says he has no doubt Saddam was "a serious threat to his region and to the wider world". (Both leaders says the world was a safer place without Saddam and Bush again accused the ousted dictator of cultivating "ties to terror" and building WMD. Bush sought to reassure Americans the invasion of Iraq was appropriate, despite the failure so far to find banned weapons and with US occupation troops under daily guerrilla attack. Both Bush and Blair have had a tough week, with criticism mounting over the war, the occupation and the failure to find the WMD they cited to justify waging war. Bush got a cool reception on Sept. 23 when he appealed to the UN for foreign troops and cash to bolster security and reconstruction in Iraq. And Blair, who has scored two landslide election wins, may be going through the worse crisis in his leadership, both of his Labour Party and the country. Both face further challenges, with US officials noting an interim report on Iraq could say no conclusive evidence has been found on WMD. Blair's government has been savaged in recent weeks by an official inquiry that has spotlighted the debate surrounding his justification for attacking Iraq). Blair urges people to wait for the US arms report and dismisses remarks by former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix that Saddam had probably destroyed most of his weapons in 1991. He adds: "Why on earth was he (Saddam) obstructing the (UN) inspectors all the way through the 1990s? Why did we have to go, as we did with America, to bomb Baghdad in 1998 when the inspectors were driven out? I find that absolutely extraordinary. But time will tell". (Labour is facing its worst ratings since Blair became party leader 9 years ago. The latest FT Mori poll shows half the British public believe Bair should resign. He and Bush faced renewed anti-war and anti-occupation protests on Sept. 27, though the demonstrations around the world were only a shadow of the huge pre-war rallies). Asked on TV whether there was anything he would have done differently, Blair replies: "Nothing. I would have done exactly the same...We did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein. The world is a safer place without him".