"It is very good of you to have me here today and I would like to express to you the pride everyone has in Britain over the magnificent job you have done.

I know there was a lot of disagreement in the country about the wisdom of my decision to order the action, but I can assure you of one thing there is absolutely no dispute in Britain at all about your professionalism and your courage and your dedication and not just in the way you won the war - which was extraordinary - but in the way you are conducting the peace which is remarkable.

The taking of the al-Faw peninsula and then the taking of Basra and the way it was done with the minimum loss of civilian life is famous right around the world now.

Grieve

You should know that you have brought tremendous honour on our country and respect and admiration everywhere for the way that you did that.

This was real war with real bloodshed and real casualties and there were people you will have known who aren't going back home and we grieve for them and we pay respect to them for everything they did and the sacrifice that they made.

I just wanted to tell you very quickly the two things that I think have come out of this that are going to be important not just for this country but for the whole of the world.

The first is in Iraq itself. You will know having talked to local people and having been on the streets in Basra, you will know the sheer misery of the tyranny they lived under and there are people here who in years to come will look back and remember what you did and recognise that as the start of their future and a life of hope and the possibility of their prosperity.

Momentous

You probably know that Iraq is potentially one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet its people live in appalling poverty.

Now in the years to come as a result of what you have done they can rebuild their country and we can help them do that.

And the liberation from Saddam is one huge thing - a momentous and a mighty outcome for the people of Iraq which you did and of which you can be proud.

But something else is happening right throughout this region.

You know that this area of the world has been the source of more instability, more terrorism, more difficulty in managing world affairs than any other region in the world and it's interesting to me to talk for example to the leaders of the Gulf countries as recently as last night in Kuwait and see the changes that they can see happening in their countries as a result of the removal of Saddam's dictatorship from Iraq.

You can see in relation to countries like Syria and Iran where we've got big issues we need to discuss with them and we need to resolve with them and we can do that now in a completely different atmosphere than was possible a few months ago.

Courage

And you can see it too in what is happening in the Middle East peace process in Israel and Palestine where the first chance in several years is just beginning of the hope of a different way forward for the future and all of that has arisen out of this action and what you did.

I would like to think that in maybe a year or two years time it's going to be possible for some of you to come back here and see the changes in this country that have arisen from what you've done today because in a way what you did serves as a model of how armed forces anywhere in the world should conduct themselves.

You fought the battle and you won the battle and you fought it with great courage and valour but it didn't stop there - you then went on to make something of the country that you had liberated and I think that's a lesson for armed forces the world over.

The other thing that I think will be very clear is that when people look back on this time and on this conflict I honestly believe that they will see this as one of the defining moments of our century and you did it.

It was your courage and your professionalism that did it and I just wanted to say to you because I know that people back home are incredibly proud of what you've done. You've made our whole country hold our head up high and I think that's a wonderful achievement - it's your achievement and thank you."