OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, bristling with defiance, emerged from the political twilight on Tuesday to attack the head of an inquiry who blamed him for a government kickback scandal.Chretien, who has kept largely to himself since stepping down in December 2003, said judge John Gomery had given too much credence to testimony from unreliable witnesses.In a report released on Tuesday, Gomery said Chretien bore some responsibility for allowing a government sponsorship program to spin out of control to such an extent that C$100 million ($85 million) was directed to Liberal-friendly advertising firms."Gomery has reached conclusions that are in no way based on the evidence before him. In order to reach his conclusions he chose to ignore or misrepresent the clear evidence of all of the senior public servants ... who testified before him," the scrappy, 71-year-old Chretien told a nationally televised news conference.The former prime minister defended the sponsorship program, which was designed to boost the image of Canadian federalism in Quebec after a 1995 referendum on independence for the French-speaking province was only narrowly defeated."Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the referendum in Quebec, the very existence of Canada was on the line... I had a responsibility to ensure that Canada never again came close to the precipice," Chretien said."Any mistakes that were made were in that context and in the best of good faith," he added, saying Prime Minister Paul Martin -- finance minister at the time of the scandal -- had approved the money for the sponsorship program."He assured me there was no problem and he would have had to assure himself (of that) as well," Chretien said. (Full story)He also seemed irritated that public and media interest in what he called a "small program in a very large government" was overshadowing what he had done in a decade of power, citing decisions such as signing the Kyoto accord on global warming and spurning the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a decision that angered U.S. President George W. Bush."If I had decided to go to war with Mr Bush, today we would not be talking about the Gomery report. We would be dealing with the body bags coming back to Canada, of fit young Canadians who had been killed in Iraq," he said testily.Chretien said some members of Martin's current cabinet had resisted his efforts to reform laws on the financing of political parties."You have to make decisions that are not popular. If there was one thing with me, I was always happy to make a decision," he said to laughter.Martin is often criticized by the media and his opponents for being chronically indecisive.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.