Did Tony Blair's faith influence his decision to support US invasion of Iraq in 2003?

The recently released Iraq Inquiry revived controversies on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and just how much his Catholic faith influenced his move to back the war.

Also known as the Chilcot Inquiry, the Iraq Inquiry looked into the United Kingdom's involvement in the United States' 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the events from 2001 up to the end of July 2009. Although Gordon Brown set it up in June 2009, the 2.6 million word report took considerable length of time to finish and only published Wednesday, July 6.

According to the Telegraph, the International Criminal Court will examine Sir John Chilcot's report for possible war crimes committed by British soldiers during the invasion but already ruled out Blair as a war criminal. This leads to questions scrambling for answers on why the British leader led the country to war in the first place.

The Guardian offered that Blair may have done so as a New Labour party leader who attempted to secure close ties politically with a U.S. Republican president while Blair supporters believe he was trying to do "the right thing" and saw him as an "evangelical crusader."

Christian Today noted that the former British prime minister converted to Catholicism in December 2007 and quoted a known Blair critic, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who described him as "very strong on God."

Academic Andrew Connell, who wrote an essay "The Mighty and The Almighty," argued, "It would be wrong to think of Blair's faith as having simply mandated or commanded his interventions in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Iraq. These actions must, of course, be seen in their wider political and strategic context."

However, Connell also assessed, "Blair saw asking moral questions – and by extension seeking to apply his faith – as a way to navigate an uncertain and messy political and strategic landscape."

The Christian publication also quoted one of Blair's friends as saying, "I agree that there is no direct connection between TB's intense faith and his foreign policy, but I do believe his faith influenced his approach to decisions."

Biographer John Rentoul considered Blair's practice of faith as "social activism" in itself and that it was "so indistinguishable from his ethical socialism."

However, in a 2010 interview with Jeremy Paxman, Blair said he didn't want to talk much about his faith because people often linked it to his decisions even when it wasn't the case.