Tony Blair has spoken of his “real humility” over decisions he took in the run up to the Iraq War.

But the former Prime Minister said that the issue had been "very difficult" in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on New York.

READ MORE: Tony Blair calls for British ground troops to return to Iraq

His comments come just weeks before the official inquiry into 2003 war publishes its findings.

Mr Blair and other members of his government are expected to be heavily criticised for their actions in the run up to the Iraq War and in the planning for its aftermath.

The former Labour leader said that he did not think the Chilcot report would ease the problems that currently dog the Middle East.

Mr Blair said: “I have a real humility about the decisions that I took and the issues around them and… you know I was trying to deal with this in the aftermath of 9/11 and it was very tough it was very difficult.”

READ MORE: Blair's reputation set to be damaged in Chilcot report on Iraq war, says former minister

He added: “I think it’s important that we also ... have humility then about the next phase of policy making so we try and actually learn the lessons of the whole period since that time and I think if we do that and have an exchange that isn’t...you know... a trading of barbs and insults but is an attempt to understand what we're dealing with then we’ll… you know… we can confront this problem and overcome it. "

The Herald:

He said that "the debate in the West ... is still largely around ‘did we cause this problem?’ well, no we haven't caused this problem – how we deal with it... we can have strong disagreements about but the roots of it are deep and we need to get to those roots.”

READ MORE: Tony Blair calls for British ground troops to return to Iraq

He also said that the UK had to “open our eyes to the problem” that is radical Islam.

And he suggested that his successor as Labour leader, veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, was conducting “a very dangerous experiment”, as he called for the middle ground of politics to reassert itself.