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Iraq Inquiry

The justification used by Government and others since the war has been varied. We have heard explanations that Iraq is a much better place, and that there was a need for regime change, despite the fact that regime change is illegal under international law. But we cannot get away from the fact that the main justification for war at the time was weapons of mass destruction. It is therefore blatantly obvious to the majority of people outside this place, if not in this place, that we went to war on a false premise. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The reason why the UN weapons inspectors could not find such weapons is that they did not exist. I mention that for two reasons. The inquiry should focus on how the decision was made to go to war, given the lack of concrete evidence as to the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Also, I agree with other Members when they say that the Government simply do not get it. They have completely missed the point. Outside this place, there is a real sense of anger and of betrayal that the country and Parliament were misled when it came to justifying, at the time, the case for war. That sense of betrayal and anger has been reinforced by what is now, subsequently, seen as the enormity of the folly. There can be no doubt that Iraq was the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez. It was flawed in conception, execution and legacy; it brought about the death and/or displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq; it radicalised parts of the Muslim world against us to the extent that it has increased the risk of terrorism against residents of this country; and it brought about, within Iraq, the penetration of al-Qaeda, which had not been a presence there prior to the invasion. The west has suffered an historic loss of political and moral prestige, not just through the invasion, but through such issues as Abu Ghraib, which has not helped our cause. Last but not least, the enormity of the suffering that the death or injury of so many of our troops has caused is now clearly focused in people's minds. The troops did everything that was expected of them; my hope—our hope—is that the inquiry will explore whether Parliament did everything that was expected of it. It must not only find the truth, but be seen to find the truth. That is why I, for one, believe that only a fully public inquiry will purge that anger and sense of betrayal, which is so keenly felt outside this place and in this Chamber. I believe that there cannot be any private sessions. History shows that sessions in secret do not necessarily reveal the truth; difficult questions do not get answered. A clear example is the 45-minute claim. At the time, the then Prime Minister made great play of the fact that our forces were within 45 minutes' striking reach of chemical weapons. We still do not know to this day how that claim was inserted in the dossier itself, but we do know that the intelligence services did not think that the evidence and intelligence warranted the claim's inclusion in the draft dossiers leading up to the first official draft dossier of 10 September 2002, when it was included. We do know also that at a meeting on 9 September 2002, spin doctors were present, and that, subsequent to it, the 45-minute claim was included in the draft dossier. When the Foreign Affairs Committee asked questions in 2003, the evidence was taken in private and, during the course of that and subsequently, the Government requested that the names of the spin doctors be deleted—or redacted. We still do not know to this day whether it was spin doctors—