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Iran (UK Policy)

I agree. I wish the official Opposition had pressed that point on 16 April. We have to provide both the Government and the Opposition in this Parliament, it would seem, and I am trying to do that this morning. The Defence Secretary referred to operational issues in his statement and said that he would be guided by Permanent Joint Headquarters. Of course, that is right. I am not insensitive to the need for operational considerations, but there are foreign policy ramifications, one of which is that if there was a period when there were no inspections or inadequate or low-level inspections, the contraband—the stuff we are trying to stop—would have been getting through. That endangers Iraq and our personnel, and that is not satisfactory. Tehran has been emboldened, too, by its success in preventing such actions.