Blair: Falklands war 'the right thing'

Tony Blair has defended the decision to go to war in the Falklands, saying he has "no doubt it was the right thing to do".

 

Speaking as the 25th anniversary of the conflict approaches, the prime minister backed Baroness Thatcher's stance.

 

In an interview with historian Simon Schama on the Downing Street website he acknowledged that the British response to the Argentine invasion had been "a scary gamble".

 

But he added it was right "for reasons not simply to do with British sovereignty but also because I think there was a principle at stake".

 

This, Blair claimed, is that "a land shouldn't be annexed in that way and people shouldn't be put under a different rule in that way".

 

And he said the former premier's decision to send in troops had taken "a lot of political courage".

"It was perfectly obvious there was only one way you were going to get it [the land] back, and that was by military action," Blair said.

 

"And it was perfectly obvious also that irrespective of the debate about the Falklands it was completely the wrong thing of General Galtieri to do and it was right to make it be reversed."

 

Blair noted that the 266 British soldiers who died in the Falklands was greater than the number killed so far in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

Baroness Thatcher is marking the start of the war by meeting the former members of an air crew who bombed Port Stanley during the 74-day war.

 

The former Conservative prime minister will also visit a Vulcan bomber which is currently being restored to mark the anniversary.