Straw admits to Iraq dossier ’embarrassment’
Jack Straw admitted to the Commons Foreign Affairs select committee today that the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraq was ’embarrassing’.
The Foreign Secretary was giving evidence to the cross party committee of MPs on the Government’s use of intelligence reports in the run up to the war on Iraq.
The ‘dodgy dossier’, produced in January this year, contained reports based on a PhD thesis that was 12 years old.
Mr Straw admitted that it was a substantial error that information in the second dossier had not been properly checked by intelligence agents, adding: ‘Of course it has been an embarrassment for the Government and lessons have been learned.’
However, he stood by the first government dossier produced in September last year, which allegedly ‘sexed up’ Iraq’s purported military threat to sway the public to support military action.
He told MPs: ‘We did not use the words ‘imminent’ or ‘immediate’… We did not use that because plainly the evidence did not justify that. We did say there was a ‘current and serious’ threat and I stand by that completely.’
Mr Straw said that the case for war on Iraq had been ‘overwhelming’ and added that evidence gathered by an international survey group now looking for weapons evidence in the country would be published.
The Prime Minister’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell is due to give evidence to the committee on Wednesday on his role in producing the first dossier after Downing Street performed a dramatic U-turn yesterday, having previously rejected calls for him to give evidence.
Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook and Clare Short heavily criticised government policy regarding evidence about Iraq’s banned weapons when they gave evidence to the committee last week. Mr Cook accused the Government of ‘not presenting the whole picture’.
