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Iraq Inquiry

I have already said that I recognise the necessity for an inquiry that should be far more public than private. If the hon. Gentleman had been a Member of the House, there is no doubt, as he has just suggested, that he would have voted against. However, few Members have changed their mind and the vote is important—he is wrong—because, as the critics would say, it was the vote in the House of Commons that legitimised our military intervention. That vote was crucial. The background to the vote in 2003 was the Saddam regime's refusal to give the impression that it was complying with the United Nations Security Council resolution on the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. In my view, that is very relevant: if the chief weapons inspector, Dr. Blix, had issued a report stating clearly that he and his team were satisfied that the weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed, there would have been no basis for going to war. Yes, he wanted more time, and I am not suggesting for a moment that he wanted military intervention then, but I am saying that, at the time, such a report was not forthcoming. Saddam had a history of playing cat and mouse with the weapons inspectors. We know that the weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed, but he had used them before the invasion of Kuwait. Let me say this about Kuwait: some Members—not those on the Conservative Benches, but some of my hon. and right hon. Friends—who were so much against the vote to go to war in 2003 were equally opposed to the liberation of Kuwait. Although it had been authorised by the United Nations Security Council, and although Saddam had committed an act of blatant aggression, they opposed the military action taken in 1991. I took a very different position. Some would say that it was unfortunate that the whole of Iraq was not liberated at the time, but most of us understood the reasons why it was not. The accusation about regime change suggests that any reference to it must be derogatory. However, there are those who recognise, as I did, that Saddam ruled over a terrorist regime—a totalitarian dictatorship, brutal and murderous—and that sanctions were not working, but were undoubtedly inflicting great damage on numerous people in Iraq. That is what the critics said at the time. Not only were they against military intervention; they were against sanctions, which they said should be dropped. I had to concede that sanctions were causing great hardship. The question that arises for us is how such a regime can be changed. I entirely accept that there was no authorisation and no legitimacy for regime change unless there was justification in the form of weapons of mass destruction.