Blair: Saddam Hussein must allow U.N. inspectors

Tony Blair and President Bush at the George Bush presidential library.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (CNN) -- Voicing his strongest support yet for possible military action against Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein must allow U.N. weapons inspectors without conditions.

"To allow weapons of mass destruction to be developed by a state like Iraq, without let or hindrance, would be grossly to ignore the lessons of September 11, and we will not do it," Blair told an audience at the George Bush presidential library at Texas A & M University.

"The message to Saddam, therefore, is clear. He has to let inspectors back in -- anyone, anytime, any place the international community demands."

The speech capped the prime minister's three-day visit to Texas, and came a day after he offered more subdued comments "that Iraq would be a better place without Saddam Hussein."

As he did Saturday, Blair said no decision had been made on how to handle Iraq and insisted that any international military action would not be done without due thought.

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"We must be prepared to act where terrorism or weapons of mass destruction threaten us," said Blair, speaking generally about combating terrorism worldwide. "If necessary, the action should be military. And again, if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change."

One day earlier, Bush said the United States hoped to remove Hussein from power.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed the president's comments Sunday.

"It would be a terrible mistake for the world to allow this man to flaunt his obligations to the international community, to continue to build weapons of mass destruction under the dark of night, and to wake up one day in a situation in which we're being blackmailed by the bloody dictator," Rice said on CNN's Late Edition.

Blair has come under political pressure at home -- including from his own Labor Party -- to distance himself from Bush's hard-line stance against Hussein.

But while not commenting directly on such criticism Sunday, the British leader said that European leaders must stand "side-by-side" with Washington in its fight for freedom and democracy.

"When America is fighting for those values, then however tough, we fight with her," Blair said. "No grandstanding. No offering implausible and impractical advice from the comfort of the touchline. No wishing away the hard ... choices on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."