Christmas Adjournment

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I respect those who took a different view at the time of the war; they did so for a variety of reasons. As he knows, I was against the war and explained why in the debate that took place on, I think, 18 March. Having recently looked at that speech, I see no reason to resile from any of the comments or opinions that I expressed. I accept that others have taken a contrary view. That does not absolve any Member of this House from their responsibility properly to scrutinise Government policy in this area, nor does it absolve the Government from being fully accountable to the House on the most important foreign and defence policy issue in recent memory. The unwillingness of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to come before the House to answer for that policy should be deplored. Without wishing to reopen the sores of that debate or our current difficulties in looking back at some of the matters that were put before the House, I cannot allow one issue to go without comment. As we know, the weapons of mass destruction on which so much of the Government’s initial case was based were not found. I said in my speech that I did not doubt the Prime Minister’s sincerity in saying that he believed that they were there. However, that sincerity has been brought into doubt by the evidence of Carne Ross, former First Secretary at the United Nations, who said in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee:"““During my posting, at no time did””—" the Government—"““assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among officials that any threat had been effectively contained.””" That was not the complexion of the evidence laid before the House by the Prime Minister or by other Ministers at the time. We have also heard from Professor Bulmer-Thomas at Chatham House. Again, it may be a retrospective view, but it is nevertheless an important contribution. He talks of the ““disaster”” in Iraq and the damage to the United Kingdom’s international influence. I cannot indulge myself by taking too much of the House’s time, but I have to say that the United Kingdom’s authority in foreign affairs has been enormously damaged by Iraq. We are seeing the evidence of that not only in the Prime Minister’s lack of influence with the President on Capitol Hill, which has been the subject of blunt assessments, but in the region itself, where the Prime Minister is making belated but well intentioned attempts to secure some sort of coalition around further progress on middle east talks. The fact is, however, that his association with the war in Iraq means that he is unable to play the pivotal role that we would want for this country.