Blair called upon to ‘clarify position’
One of Tony Blair’s former defence and foreign ministers has called on the government to admit they may have been wrong over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Doug Henderson suggested that, following Condoleezza Rice’s admission that the world may never know exactly what weapons Iraq possessed, the government should take the opportunity to tell the country exactly what the situation is.
He called upon the prime minister and his government to ‘clarify their position’ over the dossier that lead the country to war last year.
Ms Rice, a national security adviser in President George Bush’s government, earlier told a US television station that, despite the best efforts of those in Iraq, the full truth may never come out.
She told NBC that she thought there was now evidence that there were “differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground” in Iraq, leading many to suggest that Mr Blair should do the same.
Former Foreign secretary Robin Cook also added his weight to the discussion, saying that the fact that the Hutton inquiry found the prime minister totally innocent of any wrong-doing meant that he could now admit he was wrong.
Mr Cook said that there was now an opportunity for Mr Blair “to say that he believed in all good faith the intelligence he was given and he gave to Parliament, but that it has turned out to be wildly wrong.”
