'Stand Alongside the Democrats': Blair in Baghdad

On a surprise trip to Baghdad (21 December) Tony Blair make a statement and took questions at a Press Conference, alongside Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"I'd just like to say this very strongly to the outside world, whatever people's feelings or beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror. On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy, and on the other side people who are killing and intimidating and trying to destroy a better future for Iraq".

"There are people dying in Iraq but the reason people are dying is because of the terrorism and the intimidation and the people who are deliberately killing anyone trying to make this country better. Now what should our response be as an international community? Our response should be to stand alongside the democrats - the people who've got the courage to see this thing through - and help them see it through. (…) what is interesting to me was talking to the United Nations officials here who were first of all absolutely committed to the electoral process and secondly said to me in the strongest terms that all the work they were doing in every part of the Iraqi community indicated people actually do want to participate. There is intimidation in certain areas but no shortage whatever of people's desire to participate in democratic elections. And as actually we saw in Afghanistan, once those elections take place, they have their own momentum." (AJ)

For the full transcript go here