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Iraq

Can the Prime Minister confirm his response to the question—which he will well recall—that I repeatedly asked of his predecessor in office, in those long months in the build-up to the war, and which he never answered? I asked whether there could or would be circumstances in which the Americans would go in without the benefit of the backing of a second United Nations resolution and the British would not? Is not the sad fact of the matter, as we all now know, that there were never circumstances in which an American intervention would not be accompanied by British back-up? As the principal bankroller of that Government policy over those years, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that that underlies all the difficulties that he is talking about this afternoon, and that it is our very presence in Iraq that is now the problem? Is it not an impossible wish, following a weekend in which he has been talking a lot about vision, for there to be a vision for a political settlement in Iraq because of the very circumstances to which our presence has contributed?