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Iraq

My Lords, I was in the United States on Friday and Saturday, when the statement was made by the Iraq Study Group. It coincided with a powerful leading editorial in the New York Times and the Washington Post calling for the Iraq Study Group to be taken very seriously as possibly the only constructive way out of the dilemma of the situation in Iraq. I was with a group of people very closely associated with our country who were strong supporters of the Democrat Party in the United States. They looked at the television programme and said, ““What has happened to your Prime Minister?””. None of us would deny the importance of discussions between the Prime Minister and the President but, given the importance in a democratic country of having a representative voice in one’s head of government, why does the Prime Minister feel unable ever to express any public view that has any difference from the United States, even on an occasion such as this, when the Iraq Study Group was of crucial importance in widening out the possible solutions to the dreadful fiasco that we have in Iraq?