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Tony Blair - Source: Close Up -
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Tony Blair was the first British Labour leader to win three consecutive elections, but for many but he will be remembered, and in some cases vilified for, taking his country into the Iraq War.
Just last week, he was pelted with eggs in Dublin, and accused of being a war criminal while at a book signing for his memoir A Journey.
But Blair told Close Up's Mark Sainsbury he still believes he had the moral authority to go into Iraq and accuses those that disagree of trying to re-write history.
"Let's be very clear about this, if you go back in time, there were a million casualties of the Iran-Iraq war. He [Saddam Hussein] then invaded Kuwait. There were thousands more casualties there. He killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. He used chemical weapons on his own people. This was a monster, let's be absolutely clear about this."
Blair's decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 attracted widespread public opposition in the UK.
"How history judges me is really a matter for history," he said.
Blair says his book is aimed at showing his human side.
"I wanted it to be a far more personal, more human account of what it's like to be an ordinary human being at the centre of extraordinary events.
"The reason I called the book A Journey is that the journey I undertook was from a politician, who in a sense did want to please all of the people all of the time, to a leader that realised you couldn't - and shouldn't try."
Some of the more candid revelations in the book have led to some describing it as a "bodice-ripper".
Page 65 of the book reads: "I needed the love that Cherie [Cherie Blair] gave me. Selfishly I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following instinct."
Blair claims he meant it in an "emotional" way and says it has been interpreted wrongly.
He also gives an insight into the life of the British royal family, many people would be surprised by.
Speaking about one of his annual trips to Balmoral, the royal castle in Scotland, he says the experience was bizarre.
"What actually happens is Prince Phillip does the cooking and the Queen and the royal family do the washing up. If you've grown up with the Queen and you revere her as I did, it's a slightly unusual experience to have her clearing away your dishes."
Blair may be trying to bury what has been described as his legacy, but so far that hasn't gone to plan.
On Tuesday he had to cancel a high-profile book-signing in London after he was warned anti-war protesters would try to disrupt it.
