Saddam must face Iraqi justice - Blair

Mr Blair also repeated his comments that the capture of Saddam should be seized on as a chance for reconciliation in the country and peace in the wider Middle East.

He told BFBS: “I hope that we use it as a chance to hasten the moment that we can say to the Iraqi people: the old days are over. There’s a new Iraq emerging. We can reach out and reconcile the Sunni population to the new Iraq that’s emerging.

“It’s obviously fantastic news. It’s a great day when people realise they have been liberated from Saddam.”

But he warned there would still be dangers ahead for British and other troops in Iraq: “In the short term, these terrorists, foreign terrorists and Saddam sympathisers, will carry on.

“But I think it’s a lot harder for them to have someone around which they can coalesce. So it’s a big moment.”

Asked if Saddam may now reveal details of his weapons of mass destruction programme, Mr Blair replied: “There’s obviously that possibility there but I think in any event we have got to carry on doing the work we are doing. The Iraq Survey Group has found evidence of a massive clandestine laboratory network system.

“When a country with a leader like Saddam tries to hide that, what is it doing?”

Asked where Saddam should be tried, Mr Blair replied: “That should be left to the Iraqis themselves to decide. Providing they have a proper and fair and independent judicial system then I think it’s for them to decide.”

He said international tribunals were used only where the country in which crimes were committed were not capable of trying the alleged perpetrator themselves.

“It’s important that there is a proper judicial process in place. If there is, it should be left to the Iraqis to decide what to do,” added the premier.

Asked what his Christmas message to British forces was, Mr Blair replied: “This year, more than any other, to give thanks to them, not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the whole country.

“Whatever people thought of the decision to go to war in Iraq, everybody supports our troops themselves. They have done a fantastic job.”

In his interview with the BBC’s World Service Arabic network, Mr Blair was pressed on whether Saddam could get a fair trial in Iraq, and the question of whether an international tribunal should be constituted.

He insisted again: “I think it’s very important that we apply the principles that we always apply in these circumstance.

“Contrary to some of the things that are said, we don’t try people in international tribunals unless there isn’t a proper tribunal in the country itself.

“Provided the Iraqis can set up a tribunal in a proper and fair process, then it should be left to the Iraqis themselves and I don’t think they should be treated in any different way.

“Iraq should be treated no differently from any other country.”

Pressed on whether it was right to screen video footage of Saddam being examined by a US military doctor, Mr Blair replied: “I think you will find that within Iraq itself it was very, very important to demonstrate and show to people he was actually captured, so people could see it was Saddam himself.

“He was not being mistreated in any way, nor will he be mistreated in any way, no matter what he has done to other people.”

Mr Blair also repeated his message that the conflict in Iraq was not a case of the Christian or Western world versus the Muslim or Arab world.

“The fact is the victims of Saddam were Muslim, the beneficiaries of the liberation of Iraq from Saddam are Muslim, Iraq will be run by Muslims, eventually. We have got to stop this characterisation.”

He reminded Arab service listeners that the campaign to oust Slobodan Milosevic from power in the former Yugoslavia had been waged to save and liberate Kosovan Muslims.

On WMD, Mr Blair repeated his message that the Iraq Survey Group should complete its work, saying; “I don’t think it’s surprising we will have to look for them (WMD). That he had them is beyond doubt. He used them against Iran, he used them against his own people

“I’m confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what’s happened to those weapons because that he had them … there is no doubt.”

The Prime Minister also expressed the hope that the fall and capture of Saddam would benefit the whole Middle East, saying: “I hope that the Middle East as a whole, in the end, moves towards greater democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, because that’s the best way for people to live.

“These aren’t Western values, these are human values.”

And the premier insisted the new world order meant that it would no longer be the case that “it doesn’t matter how brutally a country is repressed, the outside world stands by and does nothing.

“That hasn’t really got a place in the 21st century. There are certain principles of human justice that are upheld everywhere.”