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Iraq Inquiry

Indeed. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) may want to reconsider his position, given how he and his party voted at the time of the initial invasion. I am perfectly happy with what our party decided at that time and since. What is not clear from what we have heard today and on previous occasions is the Government’s position on an inquiry. As I said at the outset, there are hints of a future inquiry but the Foreign Secretary will have to forgive us if we are a little sceptical about that, not least because the Government oppose today’s initiative because, they have argued, it is unnecessary, diversionary and might have an impact on morale. I want to deal with those issues. Of course there have been inquiries, but the shadow Foreign Secretary demolished the argument that they were independent and comprehensive. There are well-established gaps and shortcomings in all the inquiries, in terms of both their remit and the information that was made available to them. Crucially, there has been no specific investigation of the political decision-making process that led to the decision to go to war. As for the timing of the proposed inquiry, there is an urgent need to learn the lessons now, and to apply them to what we are doing in Iraq and to other current and future operations. As others have observed, waiting until the end of the conflict is hard when that has not been defined and when victory in the conflict was claimed and declared four years ago.