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Iraq Inquiry

I can only make my decision based on what serving officers have told me, and they have said that they want us to fulfil our democratic duty and to represent them by examining those difficult questions. Indeed, they have told other Members whom we have heard from this evening the same. We need to know what the Government’s role was in the mistakes that were made in the aftermath. The Prime Minister said that the invasion had been subject to the"““most careful planning and consideration””." That clearly cannot be the case—we only have to look at the facts before our very eyes. He accepted the Bush Administration’s assurance that it was"““unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between different religious and ethic groups””," even though he had been advised by Britain’s Iraq experts at a Downing street seminar that that could very well be an outcome of the policy. Of course, we have now learned that the CIA advised the Bush Administration, in a paper presented to the President, of the very same conclusion.