Tony Blair has insisted that invading Iraq was the right policy.

Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, the prime minister said he could not apologise for the policy because "I don't believe it was the wrong thing to get rid of Saddam".

He said the invasion was about "helping people who want to be democratic and free".

But of coalition casualties he accepted that it had been "a tragedy that so many have lost their lives".

"They have not lost their lives because we have been trying to do the wrong thing in Iraq, we have been trying to do the right thing," he added.

"I think it was the right thing to get rid of Saddam and I think it is the right thing now to stand alongside the majority of Iraqis who want their country to be governed properly."

Asked if he would say sorry for the war, Blair said: "I cant say what I don't believe, and I don't believe it was the wrong thing to get rid of Saddam."

The prime minister said that problems in Iraq were not caused by the coalition allies.

"It has been an extremely tough, very challenging, very difficult situation," he said.

"Why is it difficult? It is difficulty because there are people deliberately trying to give us a problem. Trying to stop Iraq achieving stability, trying to plunge it into chaos, trying to provoke civil war."

He said that Iraqis had voted for a "non-sectarian civilian government".