LONDON: Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the country’s Iraq Inquiry today that he was agonised over the decision to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with force, but feels officials made the best decision they could.

“I believed at the time, and I still believe, that we made the best judgments we could have done in the circumstances,” Straw said in a written statement presented as evidence. “We did so assiduously and on the best evidence we had available at the time.” Straw, a key figure in former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration, said the decision to go to war was the most difficult he has ever made. He testified before the inquiry this afternoon, and also submitted an extensive statement seeking to explain his decision to back the war plan.

Straw, currently serving as Britain’s justice minister, asserted that if he had opposed the plan, Blair would have been unable to persuade the rest of the Cabinet and the Parliament to support the decision to invade, and the war plan would not have been implemented.

Straw said he deeply regrets the loss of life caused by the war and its aftermath.