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Iraq and the wider Middle East

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention brings me to an important point. I was surprised by one or two things that the Foreign Secretary said, and they did relate to the Baker-Hamilton report. The Prime Minister gave evidence to the Iraq Study Group, apparently emphasising the importance of a fresh attempt to engage with Syria and Iran. After he flew to America the moment the report was published on 6 December—considering Iraq, that day, to be so important that he had to go straight to the White house, in contrast to today, when he did not stay in the House—he said that the Baker-Hamilton report"““offers a strong way forward””." The Foreign Secretary said today that she thought it was worthy of further study, but at the time she said that it was"““thoughtful, substantial and quite profound.””" She also said that British officials had contributed to it and that the thinking of the Iraq Study Group was"““broadly in line with our own””." She said:"““we will come to our own conclusions, which we will share with our American allies.””" It would be interesting to know what conclusions the Government came to and how they were passed on to the United States Administration, for the fact is that Ministers welcomed not only the Baker-Hamilton report, but the different strategy announced by President Bush earlier this month—even though it differed markedly from the Baker-Hamilton approach. As a firm advocate of the transatlantic alliance, I say to the Foreign Secretary that saying we approve of one thing when thinking in Washington is going one way in December, or we think it is, and then saying that we approve of something quite different when the thinking in Washington changes in January, does no favours for the transatlantic relationship because it gives the impression that we will say yes to anything the White house wants to do.