Tony Blair was just following intelligence, Alastair Campbell tells ITV News

Tony Blair was just following intelligence when Britain went to war with Iraq, his former chief spin doctor has told ITV News.

Alastair Campbell said the ultimate decision to go to war was the then prime minister's.

Asked why Blair did not properly test the evidence before leading Britain into battle, Campbell claimed he did.

"The reality is, if he is the prime minister, he is entitled to see intelligence, and he was testing it the whole time," he said.

"Just because they weren't sitting around a table together, they were testing this the whole way through."

He added: "Blair will not evade responsibility, he will not seek to pass the buck."

Campbell was himself involved in drafting dossiers on whether Saddam Hussein had access to weapons of mass destruction.

The Chilcot report concluded the evidence the government had on this was "flawed" and the legal basis for going to war was "far from satisfactory".

But Campbell defended the decision, saying: "We've had to deal for the last many years with these allegations of falsifying intelligence, of lying about it, of deceit.

"I do think it's important that that should, as Tony Blair has said, be laid to rest.

"Ultimately, Tony Blair was the prime minister and it was him who had to make the judgment."