Blair (L) exchanges looks with Bush in the Cross Hall of the White House during a press conference.

WASHINGTON, July 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - "History will forgive" the United States and Britain for waging war on Iraq even if it was uncertain whether Baghdad posed a threat by its weapons of mass destruction, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said late Thursday, July 17, in a key address to the U.S. Congress.

Closing ranks with U.S. President George W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq and the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged nuclear ambitions they used to justify it, Blair argued the threat of nuclear and other dangerous weapons falling into the wrong hands "isn't fantasy. It is a 21st century reality.

"Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together?" Blair said in his speech, becoming the fourth British prime minister to address the joint session of the U.S. Congress, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

"Let us say one thing: If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive," he argued.

"But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership.

"That is something history will not forgive."

The rear speech was seen by British observers as the most important Blair has given to an overseas audience since he took office six years ago.

Blair's seven-hour visit to Washington, the first stop of a trip that was to take him to East Asia, came as he and Bush have been locked in controversy over inflated pre-war intelligence.

Bush has drawn fire over a line in his January State of the Union address alleging the British had learned Saddam sought uranium in Africa.

Blair defended the allegation as "genuine," citing as one basis Saddam's acquisition of 270 tones of nuclear material from Niger in the early 1980s.

The White House recently admitted it was a mistake to include the groundless reference in the presidential address.

CIA Director George Tenet last week publicly accepted the blame for leaving the line in the speech even though his agency had repudiated it.

But he later said the White House pushed for its inclusion, according to one lawmaker who heard his closed-door testimony on Wednesday, July 16.

On March 7, U.S. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El-Baradei delivered his own report on Iraq inspections to the Security Council, in which he asserted claims Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from the African nation of Niger were false.

Bush pointedly ducked a question about whether he took responsibility for the statement, preferring instead to "take responsibility for dealing with that threat," meaning Saddam's now defunct regime.

And, taking aim squarely at critics who say the dubious allegation undermined his case that Iraq sought nuclear arms, he said: "I strongly believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program."

When U.N. inspectors scoured Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, "it became clear that Saddam Hussein was much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than anybody ever imagined," Bush argued defiantly.

The U.S. leader also vowed to "finish the task" of putting war-torn Iraq on course for democracy and prosperity, at a time when almost daily and often deadly attacks on U.S. troops have sapped morale.

"We are being tested in Iraq," said the president. "Our enemies are looking for signs of hesitation. They are looking for weakness. They will find none."

In his address to the U.S. Congress, which was received with enthusiastic applause and standing ovations, Blair stressed the importance of delivering on pre-war promises of wealth and political freedom, saying: "Finishing the fighting is not finishing the job. We promised Iraq democratic government. We will deliver it."

Blair told U.S. lawmakers that globalization has given the world not only opportunity, but also risk in the form of terrorism.

"This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies... Our ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs."

He also told U.S. legislators that "there has never been a time when the power of America was so necessary or so misunderstood".

Unique Role

Addressing Congress, Blair said the United States has a unique role in the world and is obligated to intervene in the world's trouble spots.

"I know it's hard on America," he said, adding: "Destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do," as the entire chamber rose to its feet in thunderous applause.

Blair later left Washington for Tokyo, and from there was off to Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, while Bush departed for his Texas ranch.

Three months into the end of the U.S.-British invasion, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, raising skepticism the offensive on the oil-rich country was launched on false pretexts.

Blair Changes Tune Over WMD

Blair came under fire from British dailies over his argument that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was not vital to justify the war.

"Blair moves the goalposts" frontpaged the Daily Mail on Friday, July 18, adding in its editorial that "this was Blair the brilliant contortionist trying to have it both ways."

The Guardian said Blair's shift over weapons of mass destruction had been a "rare admission of fallibility" and a "significant softening" and "watering down" of Downing Street's stance on the issue.

"History will be my judge," headlined The Independent,  adding that Blair "should have been much blunter about the bigger picture" during his speech.

He could have used his address to "challenge American exceptionalism, to point out the fundamental contradiction between the nation's founding declaration, that 'all men are created equal', and the reality of its attitudes to the outside world," the broadsheet stressed, adding Blair's inability to deliver the blunt message had demonstrated a "weakness".

"In his missed opportunity, we can measure the shortcomings of our prime minister," the daily averred.