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Iraq War Inquiry

It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate. Let me begin with a quotation from page 81 of "State of Denial", a book by Bob Woodward, famed for Watergate:""On November 21, the day before Thanksgiving, 71 days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush asked Rumsfeld to start updating the war plan for Iraq.""'Let's get started on this,' Bush recalled saying that day. 'And get Tommy Franks'"—" General Franks, who is in charge of the United States Central Command—""'looking at what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to.'"" That was in November 2001. The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) made an important point. Memories may be fading, but memoirs are slowly coming out and more and more information is leaking out, so we are slowly getting more of the truth about what happened leading up to the war in 2003 and after. Let me make my position clear. I was not in favour of an invasion at that juncture. I am a military person by background and I did not feel there was any evidence that we were under threat. That did not necessarily mean that we would not invade at a later juncture, but with everything that was in place at that point, I did not feel there was the evidence to say that an invasion should happen then.