No he did not, take a lok at it:

The perception of Peter T in opening this thread -

"As reported (see BBC News), Tony Blair finally stated that he just felt like getting rid of Saddam Hussein, along with his American pals ("He was a threat to the region"), lies about weapons of mass destruction or not."

The perception as far as the Guardian saw it -

"'Tony Blair admits: I would have invaded Iraq anyway'

Only thing was that is not what actually said was it??

Here is what he was asked on the Fern Britton Meets programme -

"Mr Blair was asked whether he would still have gone on with invasion plans had he known at the time that there were no WMDs."

Blair's reply: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat. I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge, but it's incredibly difficult and I totally understand… That's why I sympathise with the people who were against [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, you know, in the end I had to take the decision."

Then he was asked whether it was the idea of Saddam having WMDs which had tilted him in favour of war?

Blair said it was "the notion of him as a threat to the region of which the development of WMDs was obviously one aspect".

MGOH's quote above is backed up by Dr. Hans Blix in his book "Disarming Iraq" who stated that Blair gave the inspection effort every support and did not join in US attempts to discredit the process.

If you want to find someone to blame for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 then that person without any shadow of a doubt is Saddam Hussein.