MID-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff clashed with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Commons today as the Tories called for the Government to start withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Mr Blair rejected Tory calls to start withdrawing troops from Iraq and to apologise for "errors" of judgment over the war.

In his last appearance at the despatch box before his expected announcement tomorrow that he intends to step down as Labour leader, he insisted the Government's job to stand up to the terrorists who were trying to destabilise Iraq.

He was responding to Mr Luff, who said: "Events leading up to that war and its aftermath have substantially reduced trust not just in you but in the whole political process."

He added that Mr Blair would do much to restore his reputation if he commissioned a full inquiry into the war before leaving office and apologised for his "more obvious errors of judgment".

Mr Blair hit back: "I'm afraid I don't agree with you about that. It is extremely important that we support the work our forces are doing there and rebut this idea that somehow people who die in Iraq are dying as a result of the activities of British or American or other coalition soldiers.

"They are dying as a result of the activities of terrorists and our job should be to stand up to them not to give in to them."

Senior Conservative Edward Leigh Gainsborough, who voted against the war, said he admired Mr Blair's "consistency of purpose".

But he also warned that coalition troops were increasingly becoming a "magnet" for terrorists and therefore "part of the problem, not the solution".

"The time has come for there to be an ordered withdrawal of western troops from their country so they can find peace and justice according to its own lights," Mr Leigh argued.

Mr Blair said he believed this argument "profoundly wrong", saying it was the "unanimous view" of the democratically elected Iraqi government that it was not yet time for withdrawal.