Blair: There was no deception on Iraq
The Prime Minister has given a robust defence of his actions in the lead up to war in Iraq, and has told the House of Commons that he refuses to apologise for removing Saddam Hussein.
This afternoon’s Prime Minister’s Question Time was the first after both the party conference season and the publication of the Iraq Survey Group’s report into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the invasion.
The Group reported that there was no evidence that Iraq possessed any actual WMDs, but did point to evidence that Saddam Hussein had tried to manipulate the oil for food programme and suggested that he would have sought to resume weapons programmes if sanctions had been lifted.
Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, Iraq and the Prime Minister’s statements to the House before war dominated the lunchtime questions.
Conservative Leader Michael Howard went strongly on the attack, calling for Mr Blair to issue a full apology to the British public for misrepresenting intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s programme of weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Blair hit back saying: “I apologise for any information given in good faith that subsequently turned out to be wrong”, but added, “I will not apologise for removing Saddam Hussein”, a move, he claimed, which was “essential for the wider security of the region and the world”.
An unconvinced Mr Howard again urged Mr Blair to apologise on the grounds he had misrepresented the evidence to the country. The Tory leader rejected outright the Prime Minister’s claims he had “accurately conveyed the intelligence to the country”.
Mr Blair, though, launched a scathing attack on the Tory leader, remarking that, “having supported the war, having urged us to go to war, he is now trying to capitalise on anti-war sentiment”.
“At the last count he had no fewer than four separate positions on the Iraq war, and that is three too many for someone who seriously aspires to be Prime Minister,” he riposted, and called on Mr Howard to withdraw the accusation that he had misled Parliament.
The Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy claimed that in the absence of WMDs, the only justification for the war was regime change, something he said was illegal under international law. However, the Prime Minister argued that war was necessary to enforce UN resolutions and that Iraq was in breach of a number of resolutions regarding biological and chemical weapons.
He called on Mr Kennedy to accept all the conclusions of the ISG report – not just the ones he agrees with – and added he stood by his choice to go to war, arguing that if Mr Kennedy had his way Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq.
